Cathy Buckle's Weekly Letter From Zimbabwe !

Own goals.

Saturday 24th November 2007

Dear Family and Friends,

When I saw people running down the pavement I knew that some precious basic commodity must have arrived and that this rush was the start of the queue. I stepped out of the way so as not to get knocked down and carried on walking. I was amazed to see people pushing and jostling to get a place in line to buy the State controlled daily newspaper. This sudden enthusiasm for a dose of the latest propaganda has apparently got nothing to do with the government pronouncements but is related to the chronic national shortage of toilet paper. Not only does the newspaper double as toilet paper, it is also cheaper with one day's edition of propaganda costing less than a roll of loo paper.

I count myself very lucky that a neighbour hands me down two second hand independent newspapers every week - not because I want toilet paper but because these newspapers are now almost impossible to obtain - even more so than the State controlled ones. When the independent papers arrive in the town on a Friday morning you've got about half an hour to get to the roadside vendors before all their copies are sold out and then its another long week to wait for the next taste of the truth. To exacerbate this crazy situation, the government's price controllers recently ordered the Zimbabwe Independent to cut their price from 600 to 150 thousand dollars . This undoubtedly pushes the paper rapidly to the edge of bankruptcy, even less copies are printed and this means that the 10 or more people reading one carefully handed down newspaper are without information - and the last one without toilet paper!

All is not lost however because we still have Short Wave Radio Africa and night after night more and more Zimbabweans are sitting in the dark of the power cuts, using wind up radios and juggling between the two SW Radio Africa channels - depending on which is being jammed that night. Here at least people speak freely, not subject to State controls or even the self censorship we have all made a part of our existence in order to survive.Its ridiculous to think that we have to listen to a radio station broadcasting from London to hear news of events in our country but we do. The reports might be grim, the news depressing and the stories heartbreaking but at least they are an accurate reflection of everyday life in Zimbabwe.

It doesn't matter what kind of a spin the Zimbabwean authorities put on their TV and newspaper reports, they are so far from the glaringly obvious situation on the ground that no one at all believes them anymore. One outstanding example this week came when the President was shown on TV news addressing a gathering near Victoria Falls. He told the audience that he knew people were not getting enough bread but that they should be patient, not lose faith and trust the Government.

What shortage of bread? Surely that should be "what bread?" It might be selling on the black market for 700 thousand dollars a loaf but most everyone I know hasn't been able to buy bread for over three months. Zimbabwe's government has mastered the art of own goals and forcing us to look outside for real news of events inside is surely a classic.

Until next week, thanks for reading,
love cathy.