Cathy Buckle's Weekly Letter From Zimbabwe !

The Great Food Trek !

Dear Family and Friends,

Zimbabwe has limped into another year with almost all aspects of normal
life completely gone. Every day has become incredibly tough with an ever
growing demand for an increasingly dwindling supply of food, bank notes,
electricity and water. Many thousands of Zimbabweans have used the
Christmas and school holidays to pour out of the country in search of
mental relief and in order to procure precious essential supplies. How
absurd it is that a so called land revolution has left us scouring shops
across our borders in all four directions to get basic supplies that
Zimbabwe not only produced but exported just a decade ago. This great food
trek must surely be cause for monumental shame and embarrassment to the
party that have ruled the country for the last 27 years. For the past seven
years they have found one scapegoat after another to blame our hunger and
poverty on, but the facts out there on the roads leading to the border
towns cannot not be spun - no matter how clever the propaganda.

Gone are the days when you could take a break at a lay-by on a road
journey. Now all these stopping places within 150 kilometres of border
posts are fully occupied, some of them on an apparently permanent basis by
Zimbabwe's mobile population. Draped over the remains of fences and hanging
on shrubs are tattered grey blankets. Shirtless men sit around in groups
tending fires in the lay-by's. Some are cooking pots of maize porridge,
others are just keeping the fires burning - ready to warm the people who
will be coming, waiting, and then moving on to cross the border under cover
of darkness. In some lay-by's women and children are already waiting, their
bags piled and ready for the transport that will come in the dark to carry
them to the border. At other lay-by's the people traders are so established
that they have erected small structures within sight of the road - sticks
and plastic providing primitive shelter and protection from the weather.

With stopping at lay-by's not advised and stopping at garages and shops
pointless as there is neither fuel nor food and refreshments to buy, the
journey into and out of Zimbabwe is long and gruelling. The roads are fast
falling into a state of collapse as a result of the incessant stream of
trucks and transporters pounding the tarmac as they haul food and fuel into
our once rich country. In many places along the main roads the edges have
become seriously cut away and eroded making pulling over or stopping very
dangerous. Road markings are rare, signs and warnings of hazards are non
existent and all in all it is a shocking advertisement to tourists and
visitors to the country. For at least two hundred kilometres on the road
approaching the border post into South Africa, the highway is strewn with
enormous potholes, some are many centimetres deep and two metres wide.
There are many places on the road where these holes are unavoidable and
everywhere you see people stopped, repairing punctures, changing wheels or
waiting for help.

To exacerbate the situation is a season of very heavy rains and although it
is good to see rivers filling and flowing, the impact of so much water on a
crumbling infrastructure is devastating. Water, water everywhere but not a
drop to drink - a well known saying which is more appropriate today in many
parts of Zimbabwe than ever before. We've not had a drop of water in my
home town for the past three days and so we are collecting rain water in
buckets for drinking, washing, cleaning and cooking. It is a grim way to
begin 2008 and we hope and pray that this is the last year we ever to have
endure such deprivation because of politics.

Until next week, thanks for reading,
love cathy.

Copyright cathy buckle 5th January 2008.

My books: "African Tears" and "Beyond Tears" are available in South Africa
from: books@clarkesbooks.co.za and in the UK from: orders@africabookcentre.com