CATHY BUCKLE'S LETTER FROM ZIMBABWE!

A smudge of caramel

Saturday 31st January 2009

Dear Family and Friends,

Early in the morning on the last day of January 2009 I witnessed the start of a new day over Zimbabwe and wondered if this was The Day, the one that would be remembered as our new beginning. A heavy bank of purple clouds lay on the horizon broken by a few wisps of startling white. A slight breeze stirred in the trees and the air was busy with early birds: fork-tailed drongoes, bulbuls and shrikes. A ruckus in the Mulberry tree in my garden meant the weaver birds were awake. Four pairs of birds are breeding in the tree, they stripped the leaves from many branches before they were satisfied with their nests but now their little colony is well established.

I couldn't resist walking barefoot in the dew laden grass and getting a close up view of two mushrooms that had shot up overnight. Thin stems, delicate creamy caps topped with a smudge of caramel, they had come from nowhere, grown two inches in a single night and then, as the sun got hotter they shrivelled up and were gone.

In amongst the snapshots of beauty like this, Zimbabwe is surrounded by sickness, hunger and extreme poverty. Thousands have died of cholera in the last few months and the epidemic continues to rage. It's often hard to believe that such horror can be happening in such a beautiful place and hard to see how we can ever get back to being a normal, productive, healthy, free people.

The decision by the MDC to take part in a unity government has blown a breath of clean air into our sick and stagnant country. It has given us hope again, a chance to test the trust that we put into the men and women we chose to lead our country when we elected them nearly a year ago. Despite all the negatives involved in this unity government, this is a chance for change for Zimbabwe. We are sceptical, suspicious and even doubtful that unity can be forged between perpetrators and victims, doubtful that this can work. It is not the clean sweep that we hoped for but it is at least somewhere to start.

Until next time, thanks for reading,

love cathy