Cathy Buckle's Weekly Letter From Zimbabwe !

Of Sausage flies and Absurdities!

Dear Family and Friends,

Watching the tragic events in the Congo over the last few days and seeing diplomats flying in from all over the world to try and help, makes me feel ashamed to be a Zimbabwean. When all of Africa's attention should be focused on the DRC, here were are messing around in Zimbabwe still calling on SADC to convene special meetings which may, or (more likely) may not, force the winner of Zimbabwe's March elections to share power with the loser.

Another week has brought another stalemate for Zimbabwe - no relief for ordinary people, no political progress, no change. The SADC Troika learnt, and apparently admitted, that the power sharing agreement of September 15th had been tampered with and was different from the one initially signed on September 11. Why its taken six weeks for this information to be exposed and confirmed by SADC is a mystery but it does not bode well for Zimbabwe. Then, instead of throwing out the whole process and demanding that the people's voice of March 29th be respected, the SADC Troika told us that a full SADC meeting is to be held to talk about what to do next. It's all become so absurd that its embarrassing to have to keep writing about it.

Everything about life in Zimbabwe has been reduced to the most absurd levels. Imagine having to queue for up to 5 hours to withdraw your own money out of the bank. Imagine arriving at the bank queue, as in my home town this week, to find that there are two queues, one for Police, Army and Youth Militia, and one for everyone else. Imagine having to queue for two days to draw out enough money to buy just one single loaf of bread. Imagine a young, single mother being unable to get enough of her own money out of the bank to buy milk and eggs for her sick baby who desperately needs high protein food. Imagine people in rural villages being forced to eat beetles and leaves - not by choice but to stay alive. Imagine having just days left in which to get a life saving crop planted in the ground but still they talk and don't act. These are all the tragic, absurd realities of everyday life in Zimbabwe but there are a couple of beautiful ones too.

Imagine a 46 cm high Purple Crested Lourie with magnificent crimson wings bathing in 5 cm of water in a hot Zimbabwe birdbath. Imagine an insect being called a Sausage Fly! It's that time of year when these big headed, fat bodied, shiny brown ants fly in clumsy, dizzying circles to the lights at night. The story goes that when you see a Sausage Fly the rain is three days away. It's not coming true this year as still the rain hasn't come and the sun burns down upon us. One day this week it was 32 degrees Centigrade in the house at midday and 56 in the sun outside - almost too absurd to be true.

One last absurd thought comes to mind this week. You have to wonder what would happen if Barack Obama and John McCain were told they had to share power?

Until next week, thanks for reading and thanks to my webmaster for taking over the burden of sending out of this letter.
With love, cathy.

© Copyright cathy buckle 1st November 2008.