Cathy Buckle's Weekly Letter from Zimbabwe !

Dear Family and Friends

Early these mornings the mist lies in thick blankets across the vleis, giving a surreal, dreamlike start to the February days. The tops of the Msasa trees with their twisting branches and low, spreading canopies are first to emerge from the mist as the sun comes up. Then the grassland, tall and gold now, with heavy, bursting seed heads comes into sight and the first birds appear. At this time of year the Paradise Whydahs are aboutearly and the breeding males are wonderous to watch. Their flight is frantic and laboured, it has to be to carry their magnificent black tail feathers which are longer than their bodies. Tails which stream behind them in a spectacular display. Just spending a few minutes looking out at the beauty every morning has to be enough to give strength and courage to face another day in the disaster that has become life in Zimbabwe.

For a long time the analysts and commentators have been saying that it will be the economy that eventually brings an end to the situation in the country. I don't know if most of us ordinary Zimbabweans have understood what this would actually entail but recently we have all started learning very fast.

This week it was officially announced that inflation in January soared to 1593%. This staggering rise of over three hundred percent in one month, from December to January, has crippled us all and has made the situation in the country completely unsustainable. On Monday a friend priced a pair ofwork overalls and they were forty thousand dollars. On Wednesday, when he went with the cash to buy them, the price had gone up to seventy five thousand dollars.

None of us are able to cope with these sort of price increases and so we go without. We put the little money we have back in our pockets, not yet really understanding that we must spend it when we have it as its buying power is shrinking every day. It is a lesson we are learning fast and it is hard one because it contradicts principles of saving, careful spending and budgeting. As the days pass and the deprivations increase, the discontent is rising and so too is the presence of police, army and Border Gezi youths on the streets. The air of intimidation and control is all around us. In just five blocks of a small town this week. I counted twenty eight police and army personnel in uniform. They stroll and patrol, on foot, bicycles and in open pick up trucks. At one supermarket there were between 250 and 300 peoplequeuing for sugar. The line did not go to the front of the shop but to aback door where all these multitudes of people were being controlled by twoscruffy youths wearing Zanu PF T shirts, two policemen and one soldier inarmy camouflage.....

From the sugar queues the police, army and Gezi youths go to the roadblocks and from there to the scramble for fertilizer or the lines for maizemeal. And everywhere you look the feeling is of the increasingly fragile hold on control. In this one week over 170 women from Woza were arrested for Valentine protests; teachers union leaders were arrested and 14 student union leaders were arrested. Seven years of misery are coming to a head.

Until next week, thanks for reading, love cathy.

Copyright cathybuckle17 February 2007.http://africantears.netfirms.comMy books: "African Tears" and "Beyond Tears" are available fromorders@africabookcentre.com.