Cathy Buckle's Weekly Letter from Zimbabwe !

It's time !

Saturday 26th September 2009

Dear Family and Friends,

I was about 8th in a queue in a supermarket this week and kept looking to the front of the line impatiently to see why things were moving so slowly. I was waiting to buy airtime for a mobile phone and suddenly the reality of what I was doing struck home. I'd recently heard from someone who wanted "the real scoop" about daily life in Zimbabwe and in fact here it was, right in this queue.

Less than a year ago I wrote about this very same supermarket which sometimes used to open at 9 or 10 in the morning, some days it didn't open at all because it had nothing to sell. Less than a year ago huge supermarkets had only cabbages, condoms or bundles of firewood for sale. Now the shelves are brimming with goods again and if we have money there is food to buy.

This time last year if there was a queue in, or outside a supermarket, you were literally taking your life in your hands if you joined it. Queues for bread, sugar or maize meal were controlled by riot police. People were waiting outside supermarkets all night for the chance to get a single loaf of bread or little plastic packet of sugar. At opening time thousands of people would surge forward, some were injured and others even died in the stampedes.

This time last year we were still dealing in Zimbabwe dollars - worthless paper in denominations of billions and trillions which had expiry dates. We were queuing outside banks for days at a time to be allowed to withdraw miniscule amounts of our own money. Amounts that weren't enough to even buy a bar of soap or a cup of tea. This dreadful time is also now a thing of the past and the banks are deserted places because most people don't have enough money to save and don't trust the banks who so recently treated their customers and their life savings with such casual contempt.

The reality of life in Zimbabwe this October 2009 is that the basics are back: food, fuel and bank notes. Yes the food is all imported and the bank notes are American but they have given such relief to an existence that had become almost unbearable. Everyone, without exception, knows that the bank crisis, the currency crisis and the food crisis were bought on by bad politics and bad governance and we also know who fixed their mess and what courage and determination it took.

And now, as we are just a fortnight away from the rainy season, it is time for the next battle of the basics to be fought and won. Now its time for Zimbabwe to start growing its own food again. Bad politics and bad governance forced us to import our every need and now its time for the brave and determined people who gave us back money food and fuel, to give us back functional farming and our own food on tables. We've wasted eight good rainy seasons and its time to turn the corner.

Until next time, thanks for reading, love cathy

Cathy Buckle's Weekly Letter from Zimbabwe !

A hidden agenda?

Saturday 19th September 2009.

Dear Family and Friends,

A barking dog, a bang at the gate and all sanity and equilibrium is gone as a young man hands over a piece of paper saying he's come to disconnect the electricity. The printing on the disconnection notice is so faint it is almost illegible. Even with glasses it cannot be read and it takes a magnifying glass to expose the absurdity.

The notice was issued on the 11th of September but is only being delivered five days later on the 16th of the month. "Where have you been for five days?" I ask. He shrugs and says nothing. The date is not the only thing wrong with the notice from ZESA, the electricity company. Something called an 'extra deposit' has been crossed out by hand.

The re-connection fee has been changed, by hand and the total amount owing has been crossed out and re-written, by hand. I hand over my last statement from ZESA to the youngster at the gate and politely tell him there must be a mistake. "Look, Zesa issued me with a credit balance last month, there's no way I owe them 757 US dollars (473 British pounds) for one month's residential consumption."

The youngster who is not in uniform or marked clothing and has no identification of employment, shrugs his shoulders boredly and tells me to go and see the accounts office in town.

The nightmare begins.

In an hour I see 5 different ZESA employees in their offices and not a single one even has manners enough to say good morning. This simple absence is shocking in a country where courtesy and greetings are everything. It is disgraceful in a public company and at a time when the country is trying to attract investors and restore confidence after a decade of collapse.

My requests for explanation as to how a credit balance on my account one month could lead to such a huge debit on the next, were met with hostility and aggression. I am passed from one rude and bored employee to another until finally a man who does not greet me or look at me, takes my account and taps numbers incessantly into a computer. After some time I ask him what it is that he is doing and he says he is spreading the debt out over the last six months and working out a payment plan. "What debt?" I ask. "Where has this huge debt come from?"

By now I am not the only angry customer in the office, there are half a dozen other desperate people also trying to get explanations for massive electricity bills. Voices are raised.

ZESA have been under-charging since February, we are told. The rates have gone up and been backdated 7 months. When we ask for proof, Zesa tell us the new rates have been approved by the Minister of Energy, Mr Mudzuri. When we ask for written notice of the new rates and for the Ministers approval of the back-dating, we are told to come back another day. For now the growing crowd of angry customers all have to pay 10 US dollars to be reconnected and have to agree to a debt re-payment plan. Its a ridiculous plan because the monthly repayment is already more than most people's entire monthly income.

As hard as we fight our way out of the deep hole the previous government pushed us into, so the parastals and utilities suppliers fight just as hard to destroy us again. Many people are saying there's a hidden agenda here, perhaps there is ?

Until next week, thanks for reading, love cathy

Cathy Buckle's Weekly Letter from Zimbabwe !

ARRANGED MARRIAGE OF INCONVENIENCE !

5th September, 2009.

Dear Family and Friends,

Zimbabwe is breathtakingly beautiful this spring. Everyone is talking
about the spectacular colours of the new leaves on the trees. Perhaps
its because we are all just so utterly worn out after a decade of
decay and horror or maybe we are finally allowing ourselves to see
beauty again and begin feeling hopeful about the times ahead. One
friend who is back in the country for a month after having spent 3
years in exile in the Diaspora, said that just sitting under the
Msasa trees was enough to decide her.

'I'm coming home,' she said.

The wide blue sky and warm sun, the open spaces and rugged beauty and
the calls of hoopoes, sparrowhawks and bulbuls is enough to weaken the
hardest of Zimbabwean hearts.

Coming home will not be easy. The flush of saved money doesn't go far
in these times when every American dollar that we have buys food and
pays bills with nothing left over for the other essentials necessary
for life and health. It will not be easy learning to negotiate the
flood tide of officials in every government department and building
who want, need, demand, a bribe in order to do their job. For many
who come home it will be a bitter pill seeing the evil still walking
free amongst us: the men (and women) who beat, burnt, raped and
murdered us and our families, friends and relations this last decade.
Perhaps hardest of all for people coming home from democratic
countries will be accepting that lawlessness still exists depending
on your political affiliations and that mayhem and thuggery continues
in farming areas where "land" is still used as a smokescreen for
theft, looting, arson and murder.

Events of this week are likely to put paid to thoughts and plans of
coming home for many Zimbabweans in the diaspora. Hardly had the fire
died down and the ash settled from the suspicious fires which
destroyed the farms and homes of Ben Freeth and Mike Campbell when
yet more dire news came. These two farmers who have endured so much
and fought so hard for their legal rights - and who have won their
cases in Zimbabwean and SADC courts are now bereft. The farmers and
their farm workers and all of their families have lost everything -
homes, jobs and futures. Listening to Ben Freeth talking on an
independent radio programme this week, the tears filled my eyes.

"I told my workers I'll be back. I promised them we'd rebuild,"
Freeth said.

They are words that many thousands of commercial farmers have said to
their faithful and loyal employees as they've been evicted,
dispossessed and lost everything this last decade. Promises that
farmers have been unable to keep as Zanu PF have changed laws,
amended the constitution and disregarded rulings made by their own
courts. This week legal Affairs Minister Patrick Chinamasa

hammered in the last nail. Zimbabwe, he said, will no longer appear
in front of the regional SADC courts, will not recognise their
rulings or respond to any actions or suits instituted by the SADC
tribunal.

As beautiful as Zimbabwe is this spring we are still a long way from
being free of the clique who cling to power and fill their pockets.
But, as every day passes, we are closer to the day when this arranged
marriage of inconvenience can be over and we can hold free, fair and
democratic elections and start again.

Until next week, thanks for reading, love cathy

Cathy Buckle's Letter from Zimbabwe !

OF SWINE FLU AND FLYING PIGS !

20th August.2009.

Dear Family and Friends,

Swine Flu has officially arrived in Zimbabwe. A ZBC TV news bulletinthis week reported that there were a number of confirmed cases ofswine flu in Mutare. The report said that people should not panic because hospitals were prepared, staff had been trained and information would soon be disseminated to private practitioners. Special attention is apparently going to be given to critical areas like the country's border posts.

This latter cannot come soon enough and I am sure that every poor soul who has had to endure the horrors of Beitbridge border post will agree with me. In the last few days I have met two Zimbabweans who have been through the Beitbridge border post this month. They say it is hell, a nightmare, a national disgrace, a shame on our country, a deep embarrassment to Zimbabwe. And this is being polite!

When you arrive at Beitbridge from South Africa you are overwhelmed by touts. Aggressive young men in their twenties who swarm around you and solicit bribes in order for you to proceed through the formalities. The touts control the speed and progress of everything: the queues, the forms, the stamps and signatures, the customs inspections and the final scrap of paper, the gate pass, that allows you get through the boom and into Zimbabwe. Both of the travellers I spoke to said they simply found it impossible to proceed without giving in to the demands for bribes. Every time they got near the counters in the border post the touts and their customers would push in ahead of them with great piles of papers and none of the officials on duty were interested in intervening, not immigration, security,customs or tax collectors. Touts appeared to be making an average of 500 Rand, or 50 US dollars per customer - half the month's pay of a trained teacher in Zimbabwe.

The toilets at the border are apparently a swamp, there is no toilet paper, no towels and no way at all to keep yourself clean. Everyone waits till they are through the border and then pull up on the roadside and relieve themselves in the bush. If we are to believe ZBC, it is into this madness of Beitbridge border post that there is going to be swine flu detection and control. Pardon the pun, but pigs might fly!

Zimbabwe's unity government has been in place for six months but it is still the thieves, con-men, blackmailers and bullies that are manning the entry points into our country. Until they are gone and until Zimbabwe can clean up the shop window to the country we haven't got a hope of controlling swine flu, of tempting tourists into the country or of getting any of the overflow of visitors from the 2010World Cup football games in South Africa. Its about time that some of our senior leaders went incognito to Zimbabwe's borders and saw the thieves and bullies holding tourists, visitors and returning residents to ransom.

Until next week, thanks for reading, love cathy

Cathy Buckle's Letter from Zimbabwe !

CONFUSED PRIORITIES !

15th August, 2009.

Dear Family and Friends,

A growing number of analysts are starting to say that the "honeymoon is over" for Zimbabwe's unity government. For the last six months the very long suffering Zimbabweans have been patient, very patient. After living through nine years of violence, hunger, disease, poverty and oppression, everyone wanted to try and make this botched up and hugely over-staffed government work.

"Its a transitional" stage, we were told by our MP's in March, April and May.

"Be Patient!" they urged, " in June and July. "The collapse is widespread, the corruption rampant and change is going to take time."

At a local level services remain largely non existent - garbage iss till not collected, street lights don't work, roads are full of potholes and water supplies are scarce.

At a business level conditions continue to be extremely precarious. For the last three months the NEC (National Employment Council) have been announcing new wage levels for employees in the business sector.They are demanding increases for workers of 40% in some sectors, 50%in others and are saying that new wage rates are to be backdated by 2,3 and even 4 months. Employers are saying that if the wage levelsare enforced they'll have no option but to make half their staff redundant and reduce business by 50%. Employees say they understand on the one hand but threaten to strike on the other. It's a timebomb.

At a professional level government doctors have finally reached tipping point and gone on strike. After a minimum of five years university and hospital training and working very long hours with negligible equipment and facilities, they've said enough is enough.They say they will not continue working for 170 US dollars (106British pounds) a month.

Government teachers are very close to withdrawing their services too.Three or more years of tertiary education, teacher training, classroom experience and every afternoon of every school day spent supervising or travelling to one sporting event or another, teachers are very disgruntled. In return for their labour they are currently earning only 140 US dollars (87 British pounds) a month.

To put all this into perspective are two pictures:

First is the driver of the truck which killed the Prime Minister'swife, Mrs Susan Tsvangirai. The truck driver was reportedly earning 300 British pounds (US$ 480) a month at the time of the accident.(for which he was fined US 200. ) A truck driver earning almost double the salary of a doctor?

Secondly are the new NEC rates for security workers. A man standing at the gate of a complex lifting a boom across the road for vehicles to enter is now earning 140 US dollars a month, before transport, lighting and housing allowances. A gate guard earning more than a teacher? Zimbabwe's priorities are confused and patience grows ever thinner.

Until next week, thanks for reading, love cathy

Cathy Buckle's Weekly Letter from Zimbabwe !

Caramel sunsets

Saturday 1st August 2009

Dear Family and Friends,

There are stirrings of spring in Zimbabwe which lift our spirits and tease us with promises of better times to come. Seasonal changes are evident everywhere: hard green wild oranges weighing down leafless branches; pink and white Bauhinias flowering along roadsides; rolled, hooting calls of the as yet unseen Coucals; the veld grass bleached and brittle. And every evening caramel sunsets smudged with smoke blanket the horizon before the vista of African stars cover the sky. The smallest things which a decade ago we took for granted are now so rare because of unchecked environmental destruction. But there are still glimpses of life and therefore hope: a slender mongoose darting across the road; the slow heavy flight of a heron overhead, the nagging chattering of a hammerkop as it patrols what’s left of the wetlands, searching for frogs amongst the streambed cultivation which is destroying our vleis.

This spring and summer we look to our unity government to give some long overdue attention to the environment – not just on the farms but in and around our cities and towns, in and around our streams and rivers, forests and bush. Even the rocks have not been spared: beautiful balanced granite boulders, the edges of kopjes and even roadside rocks are being chipped away into building stones by men, women and children desperate to make a few dollars.

Already the uncontrolled fires are everywhere, smoke rising and staining the horizon in all directions. Six months into their terms of office municipalities continue to argue about assets and sit on their hands while garbage piles up on roadsides, under trees and in stinking piles outside flats and shopping centres. Residential areas in my home town, and many other areas, have not had dustbins collected for nearly two years, street lights have been off for four years and yet still every month the councils bill us for services they don’t provide. Someone in Harare wrote saying they’ve not had a drop of water in their suburb since the 27th of June 2008. In other parts of the capital city it has been even longer and yet they too receive accounts every month for water they do not receive.

The ugly scars of Zimbabwe’s dark decade are everywhere but the best news came this week when the BBC were allowed back into the country. Excellent news too came of the un-banning of the Daily News newspaper – hopefully they can be re-capitalized and start again. At last the real truths can be exposed for all to see and the puerile propaganda of ZBC TV and Radio will be counterbalanced.

Until next week, thanks for reading, love cathy

Cathy Buckle's Weekly Letter from Zimbabwe !

BABY IN A BOX !

25th July 2009.

Dear Family and Friends,

Late in the afternoon a friend got a call on his mobile phone. The
words were garbled and broken up, the call lasting just a few seconds
before cutting off. The musukuru (grandson) is serious, come now. You
have to be a Zimbabwean perhaps to know that the word 'serious'
usually means very sick. What would be a problem, even an emergency
in the "normal" world was destined to be a nightmare in our broken
country.

Again and again my friend tried to phone for more information about
his grandson but after numerous attempts gave up. He was wasting
time. His grandson is in a rural village, it was almost dusk and he
knew he must go. A fifteen kilometre bicycle ride got him to the
village. It was completely dark when he arrived. By the light of a
candle he looked at his precious little musukuru. Teeth clenched,
face in a grimace, body curled in taut foetal position, the two year
old boy obviously needed help. He had been vomiting copiously,
shaking and arching his back and now the slightest movement caused
him to scream in pain.

The nearest clinic is 3 kilometres away. There is no transport,
private or public. No telephones. No electricity, not even any
running water to wash away the vomit. An ambulance will not come from
the nearest town, not unless you can pay cash, in advance, up front:
50 US dollars.

As gently as possible the musukuru was laid in a box which was lifted
onto the back of the bicycle and tied securely with strips of old
car-tyre inner tubing. Blankets underneath and on top of the musukuru
in the freezing cold winter darkness, the journey from hell began.
Every stone, bump and gully on the disintegrating gravel road caused
a scream of agony from the child. Words of comfort were measured
against the urgency of the journey. At the clinic at last, there was
no sign of attendance. Calling, shouting, knocking finally produced a
youngster: No nurses here, he said.

The next clinic is another 7 kilometres away. The grandparents
finally arrived, pushing their grandson in the box on the bicycle at
2 in the morning. Shivering and with frozen fingers their lifted
their precious musukuru into the hands of the nurse. They knew what
to expect and had bought a small sheet for the bed, their own
blankets, a towel and even maize meal and a small pot to make
porridge for the child. A drip went in, that's 14 US dollars, payable
immediately. An intravenous antibiotic was given, that's 12 US
dollars, payable immediately.

Two days later my friend was back in town and stone broke. The
musukuru is still in the clinic, still on a drip and still has a
problem. There are no doctors there. The nurses say that sekuru must
pay for more drugs. His cell phone is flat. He has no money, no
airtime left and back there, down the dusty pot-holed road the life
of his little grandson is in his hands.

Until next time, thanks for reading, love cathy

Cathy Buckle's Weekly Letter from Zimbabwe !

BRICKS AND HUNEY

Dear Family and Friends,

On the side of the main highway near Harare there's a hand painted
sign on a piece of battered tin. 'Bricks 4 Sale,' it says, the
message wedged into a forked stick. Standing in a forlorn heap
alongside are the very bricks. Its a sad little assortment of rubble:
lumps of red, odd sized, second hand bricks with eroded edges, cracks
and chips and some even with splotches of white paint on them.

A few kilometres away a very battered blue pick up truck with no
number plates and a seriously twisted chassis is below a bridge
across the main road collecting water from a stream. The stream bank
is full of litter - plastic bags and drinks bottles, broken glass and
beer tins. In the back of the truck there's a huge white plastic
container that must hold a thousand or more litres. Three women and
four men are working in a line with buckets, pouring murky water from
the polluted stream into the water tank.

A little further along the road a crooked tree branch is propped up
with chunks of cement, a thin plank nailed onto the top. Standing in
a line along the plank are six old plastic jam jars. They have no
lids and are half filled with a murky brown liquid. "HUNEY" is the
sign that's written in charcoal on a stone nearby.

A group of soldiers stand right in the road trying to wave down a
lift and as you swerve to avoid them you see how very young they are,
almost children still and yet wearing army camouflage. No private cars
stop, no one knows who's who these days. The big 4x4's flick past,
windows closed, doors locked, huge aerials swinging. On their car
doors are the stickers announcing that they are the people keeping
Zimbabwe alive, the international aid organizations.

Strange scenes are everywhere in our broken country after a decade of
collapse, even in upmarket suburbs. Rounding a corner in a quiet
residential neighbourhood its not unusual to come across a great
gathering of people. At the hub is whichever house in the street is
fortunate enough to have a borehole, and whose owner is gracious
enough to share. A hosepipe over a wall fills countless buckets, tins
and twenty litre plastic containers. Patiently men and women wait for
a share, some carrying their containers in aching hands, others
pushing wheelbarrows and hand carts.

Even with such abnormality around us, not to mention the disgusting
scenes of hooliganism at the constitutional conference recently,
there are little glimmers of light coming into view. The removal of
20 US cents worth of government levies from fuel is one, the lifting
of import duty on newspapers, mobile phones and computers is another.
A breath of fresh air is blowing into our country and lets hope it
turns into a gale and blows away what newspaper owner Wilf Mbanga
calls Yesterday's Men.

Until next week, thanks for reading, love
cathy

Cathy Buckle's Weekly Letter from Zimbabwe !

PATRIOTISM IS PUNISHED !

Dear Family and Friends,

After weeks of peculiarly warm weather which wasn't winter but wasn't
summer, people had begun commenting that even the trees were confused!
A large, old Msasa tree standing alone on an urban street corner
suddenly dropped all its leaves and produced a glorious canopy of new
red leaves. It's a good six weeks too early and the precious new
growth is exposed to a winter which has now finally arrived. In one
freezing night a bitter wind bought our belated winter. For the first
time ever in my memory the water in my birdbath turned to ice
overnight and didn't thaw until mid morning. A cold wind, drizzle,
mist and grey skies are now the order of our highveld winter days. In
this atmosphere a cruel and heartless act was undertaken in my home
town.

The word being used on the street in my neighbourhood is
"Murambatsvina." People were comparing the cruelty of events this week
to the government's massive human evictions of mid winter 2005.

ZESA, the government controlled electricity supply company went door
to door and disconnected people's electricity. Working in pairs, they
walked through residential neighbourhoods and house by house they
switched people off. In the road where I live, 90% of homes were
disconnected on a freezing July afternoon. The picture was repeated
across town. Families with babies in the house were not spared; homes
with sick and disabled occupants were switched off; homes with elderly
people in their 90's were disconnected. There was no mercy or
compassion, no compromise or humanity - just like it had been in
Operation Murambatsvina.
Worst affected were civil servants who earn just 100 US dollars a
month. Not even these dedicated professionals who could be earning ten
times their wage if they left the country were spared. Their
patriotism was punished with the flick of a switch

Since February most civil servants have been paying 10 or 20 US
dollars a month to ZESA for their electricity. This is all, if not
more than they can afford on a salary of 100 dollars, it is 10 or 20%
of their wage. Zesa say it's not enough and are demanding massive and
backdated amounts ranging from 250 to 500 US dollars for small
residential homes.

The reality of the disconnections is very cruel. Teachers at work all
day educating our children are coming home an hour before dark and
having to light fires outside to cook on, to heat water for bathing
and washing and then have to sit and mark books by candle light.
Four months into our supposedly new and improved Zimbabwe the sound
of wood chopping fills the air, smoke constantly rises and women
stream out of the bush with mounds of newly cut Msasa branches
balanced on their heads. Shame on you ZESA!

Until next week, thanks for reading, love cathy.

Cathy Buckle's Weekly Letter from Zimbabwe !

GOLD AND DIAMONDS!

Dear Family and Friends,

A few months ago a friend was approached by a vendor who had a large
walnut -sized transparent stone. The vendor didn't want to say where
he'd got the stone from but claimed it was a diamond and he was
trying to sell it. The stone had a sharp edge which made a deep
scratch in a steel drill bit without damagaing the stone.Was it a
diamond? Who knows but there are plenty of stories like this doing
the rounds. People in Mutare tell of deals going down all the time,
men in dark glasses, cars with tinted windows and little bundles
changing hands. Some talk of clear stones, others are grey or cloudy
but whatever the colour we are all wondering just who died while
digging for these stones.

A chilling report has just been released by Human Rights Watch
implicating Zimbabwe's military in horrific abuses at the newly
discovered diamond fields in Chiadzwa. Human Rights Watch collected
evidence of violence, murder and forced child labour at the diamond
deposits in Marange. The report talks of military helicopters gunning
people down, of teargas being thrown into shafts and of people buried
alive. It says that at least 214 people were killed during a three
week military operation in October 2008 and of people buried in mass
graves. Press reports quote Georgette Gagnon, Africa director at
Human Rights Watch as saying: "The police and army have turned this
peaceful area into a nightmare of lawlessness and horrific violence."


Human Rights Watch says that: "Zimbabwe's new government should get
the army out of the fields, put a stop to the abuse, and prosecute
those responsible."

It is incomprehensible that this is going on even now as Prime
Minister Tsvangirai tries to persuade the west that we have changed
and are deserving of their money.

The Human Rights Watch report could not be more damning, or more to
the point when it notes:

"The government could generate significant amounts of revenue from
the diamonds, perhaps as much as $200million US dollars per month, if
Marange and other mining centres were managed in a transparent and
accountable manner. This revenue could fund a significant portion of
the new government's economic recovery programme."

There remains little doubt in anyone's mind just exactly why Zanu PF
refused to concede defeat in the 2008 elections: from farms and
wildlife to gold and diamonds.

Until next week, thanks for reading, love cathy.

©Copyright cathy buckle 27th June 2009.

Cathy Buckle's Letter from Zimbabwe !

WHAT WHEAT CROP?

Dear Family and Friends,

The first little seed of truth was planted in the government controlled Herald newspaper this week. In a report about the country's annual wheat crop, we were finally told in writing what we already know and can see with our own eyes, which is: What wheat crop!

The Vice President of the Zimbabwe National Farmers Union, Garikai Msika said the winter wheat cropping programme was a total failure. The report cited the usual litany of plaintive excuses including a lack of money, seed, inputs and the change to US dollars. The report said that the Zimbabwean government should immediately start mobilising funds to import wheat.

Tragically, the report did not even mention the continuing farm seizures or the effect they are having on food production in the country. We are still trying to take in the news that an American doctor, resident in the USA for the past 30 years and with an established medical practice there is trying to take over the remaining 60 hectares of a Chegutu farm. The doctor has not lived in Zimbabwe since Independence three decades ago and yet now she says she is merely correcting an 'historical imbalance.' Even harder to comprehend was the doctor's own admission that it was her sister, a church Pastor, who had tried to evict the farmer. I am reeling still, to think that a woman of the church would be involved in this and cannot help but wonder what example this is for the parishioners in her church.

Most distressing of all is that 4 months into Zimbabwe's unity government this madness is still going on. As fast as Prime Minister Tsvangirai and Finance Minister Biti persuade the world to give us money, farm grabbers are just as fast sabotaging all attempts to pull the country out of starvation. Daily we hear of maize crops being stolen by the truckload, of export oranges and mangoes being looted or going rotten in cold rooms and all because there continues to be no law and order on the farms.

The UN said recently they expected to have to feed 7 million Zimbabweans by the end of this year. We have wasted our chance to grow a winter wheat crop and the Red Cross are even having to feed our prisoners. While this goes on non resident doctors, church Pastors, politicians and security personnel continue to ravage Zimbabwe's few productive farms. Surely the time has come for Prime Minister Tsvangirai to put a stop to this.

I am delighted to close with the news that my book "African Tears" is at last available again, as an E-book. Have a look at my website and follow the links if you are interested.

Until next week, thanks for reading, love cathy.

Cathy Buckle's Weekly Letter from Zimbabwe !

Dear Family and Friends,

Life is strange, almost surreal, in Zimbabwe this winter 2009. A week
into June and the weather still can't quite decide if its winter or
not. Mosquitoes, usually long gone by now, continue to emerge at dusk
and come into our houses, sitting on ceilings and roofs waiting for
victims. The weather isn't the only thing that's weird at the moment.

Deputy Prime Minister Mutambara came to our town this week. One port
of call was the local government hospital which has been in a state of
near collapse for a couple of years. Gaping potholes that littered the
road leading to the hospital were hastily filled before the Deputy
PM's visit but the patching stopped a couple of metres past the main
entrance gate. You fall into the holes on this main road just a corner
away. The mentality of making things look good just for the leaders
and only when VIP's visit, continues to haunt us and the rights and
needs of ratepayers and members of the community remains elusive.

There's a notable increase in the amount of big 4x4 vehicles
belonging to international charities on our roads. UN departments,
food programmes, medical organizations, religious charities. We hear
this week that the ICRC are feeding our prisoners, providing inmates
with blankets, soap and clothing. Unicef are drilling boreholes at the
University and our supermarkets are filled with South African goods.

'Zimbabwe for Zimbabweans,' the much quoted Mugabe mantra, is never
more hollow than now.

So destroyed is our agricultural foundation and so collapsed

our production at home, that imported South African goods are cheaper
than home grown food. Imported frozen chickens continue to be 2 US
dollars (20 SA Rand) cheaper than birds grown in our back yards. Its a
surreal situation not likely to improve any time soon as farm grabs by
senior political and security men continue unashamedly even as we try
to put the country back together again.

Perhaps the most surreal and frightening thing of all is that 4
months into Zimbabwe's unity government, truth, justice and
accountability is simply not featuring. The very men and women who led
us to this diabolical state; the ones who stole, beat, burnt and
killed are walking amongst us untouched - as if nothing happened.
Zimbabwe cannot be allowed to move on without truth, justice and
accountability.

Until next week, thanks for reading, love cathy.

Cathy Buckle's Weekly Letter from Zimbabwe

Rusty paper clip

Saturday 30th May 2009

Dear Family and Friends,

The unity government is being torn apart over the retention of the Reserve Bank Governor, Gideon Gono. While they argue, threaten and grandstand, we look at our tattered lives.

In a box, abandoned and covered in dust and fluff, lies the evidence of my lost life savings, seizure of my home and property and destruction of my pension. I am not alone but am one of ten million Zimbabweans who find themselves in the same position, one that has unfolded in just 9 ugly years.

At the bottom of the box are the last accounts from our farm that was seized by the Zimbabwe government in 2000. The accounts show no income and there is a note attached with a rusting paper clip which says: "No compensation paid for house, fixtures, fittings, infrastructure, fencing etc." That statement remains true 9 years later.

Next in the box is a tattered orange cardboard file. Most of it's contents are still too painful to revisit. One section deals with lost life savings which had been invested in a bank that was closed down by Zimbabwe's banking authorities.

In dog eared, dirty bundles held together with melting, perishing elastic bands there are piles and piles of money. Purple 500 hundred dollar notes, olive 1,000 dollar notes and then strange things called 'bearers cheques. They are blue, red, brown, purple and green bits of paper with expiry dates and values ranging from 5 to 100 thousand dollars. They bear the signature of Reserve Bank Governor, Gideon Gono.

Then other bundles with even higher denomination 'bearer cheques' ranging in value from 1 to 500 million dollars. These too have expiry dates and are signed by Gideon Gono.

There in the box are the records of new attempts to save money - futile efforts because Mr Gono slashed three zeroes from the currency and thousands became single dollars overnight.

More bundles of money, this time they are in billion dollar denominations and are called Special Agro Cheques. they too have expiry dates and are signed by Mr Gono: purple, green, brown, blue, valued from 5 to 100 billion dollars.

Then more records of how everything was lost again when Mr Gono imposed daily withdrawal limits from the banks. We could only draw out enough of our own money to buy half a loaf of bread a day; the queues were in the thousands and our money lost all its value before we could get it out of the banks.

Again Mr Gono removed zeroes from the currency; in a single swipe billionaires became paupers. New bank notes which started at one dollar soon got bigger as mismanagement continued and again we had bank notes for 500 thousand, 1 million, 1 billion. We went dizzy as notes were issued by Mr Gono for 1 trillion, 10 trillion. When Mr Gono's presses physically couldn't print the money fast enough, all out trillions, quadrillions and septillions were lost when trading in Zim dollars was suspended and we moved into US dollars.

At the top of the box is a small newspaper cutting. It quotes Mr Gono admitting that he removed money from private bank accounts to fund government expenses.

And after all this there is cause for argument?

Until next week with a view of scarlet poinsettias, love cathy

CATHY BUCKLE'S WEEKLY LETTER FROM ZIMBABWE

GREED AND SPEAD !

Dear Family and Friends,

As Zimbabwe struggles out of the darkness of a decade of dictatorship
and political mayhem we are beginning to see how hard the return
journey is going to be. And how long. Little snapshots tell the
story:

Two policemen, in uniform and on foot, did a walkabout tour of some
local businesses this week. They want to improve relations, they say,
but need assistance with the basics. They desperately need tyres for
their vehicle and are looking for donations from the public. If you
can't run to tyres then how about typewriters, or paper they ask,
saying they have no stationery.

Typewriters! Can you imagine modern policing being done, not on
computers but typewriters! For a couple of years members of the
public have had to provide their own fingerprint forms, vehicle
clearance forms and even their own affidavit forms when visiting a
police station and then wait endlessly as records are handwritten.
With such problems as pens and paper, it doesn't bear thinking how
long it might take to restore law and order at higher levels, in
regard to things like property rights, human rights and farm
invasions.

Two well known shops with branches all over the country went into
darkness this week as their electricity supply was disconnected.
Having no tills, computers, lights or other equipment took them back
into the dark ages in a hurry. They had been disconnected for non
payment because the amounts being demanded by ZESA (the electricity
supplier) are in the thousands of US dollars - more than a company's
entire monthly turnover. Similar exorbitant amounts are being charged
by the state controlled fixed line telephone company and everyone is
reeling and then despairing as they are disconnected. It appears that
the electricity and telephone suppliers are trying to recoup 10 years
worth of collapse in just a few months but their greed and speed is
putting business and the rebuilding of the country into a new cycle
of shutdown.

Cause for much excitement this week has been the

availability, suddenly, of telephone lines for mobile phones.

For more than eight years these lines have been non-existent,
available only on the black market. In January this year a line on
the black market cost 135 US dollars.This week phone lines are
available legally for 35 US dollars - still ten times more expensive
than in our neighbouring countries but they are selling like hot
cakes. Oppressive Zanu PF legislation concerning access to
information and the free press has not been repealed but the sudden
boom in phone lines is a dramatic step forward for Zimbabweans who
can now send and receive their own information without the political
shackles.

Until next time from the land of golden grass, thanks for reading,
love cathy

Cathy Buckle's Weekly Letter from Zimbabwe

NO GOING BACK !

Dear Family and Friends,

We were disappointed but not surprised when Prime Minister
Tsvangirai's planned address to Parliament on the 13th May was
cancelled. By then the deadline given by the MDC to resolve
outstanding issues in the very unequal power sharing had passed but,
surprise, surprise, nothing happened. Ultimatums and deadlines still
don't work against Zimbabwe's old order - everyone knows that, or
almost everyone it seems!

Then we were told that Prime Minister Tsvangirai would make a
statement on Friday the 15th May announcing what's to be done about
Provincial Governors, Foreign

Ambassadors, the Reserve Bank Governor and Attorney General, all of
whom were appointed unilaterally by Mr Mugabe. That statement also
didn't happen and so we are left to speculate and remain stuck in
no-man's land as the struggle for real power continues.

Even as the stalemate continues everyone looks at the MDC to DO
SOMETHING but no one looks at Zanu PF to do anything. It's like we
have collectively stopped expecting anything from Zanu PF. Almost
every day Zanu PF wail about sanctions and no one even bothers to
correct them

anymore and say: sanctions are not imposed on Zimbabwe but on
specific, targeted individuals.

'Shall we come home?' is a question some Zimbabweans living in exile
are already asking but so far there's not a sensible answer to give
them. To people who grow food for a living we can only say: farm
seizures are continuing; Title Deeds are still worthless; police
still don't get involved because "it is political." To professionals
we can only say: government teachers, nurses and civil servants earn
just 100 US dollars a month; lawyers get arrested for defending their
clients and people go to prison for months at a time for their
political beliefs; none of the repressive and oppressive legislation
has been repealed and dual citizenship is still outlawed. To everyone
we have to say: there are no jobs; the cost of living is crippling;
there is often no water and electricity and infrastructure is in a
state of near collapse.

Its not all bad though because despite the tragic loss of both his
wife and his grandson in the last three months,

Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai is still saying he's not giving up.
"There's no going back" is the phrase he keeps repeating and it is
the hope that we keep holding on to. Until next week and from under a
wide blue sky, thanks for reading,

love cathy.

CATHY BUCKLE'S WEEKLY LETTER FROM ZIMBABWE

Rooftop Food !

Dear Family and Friends,

Winter is moving into Zimbabwe and even though the days are shorter, the wind cooler and the temperatures dropping, it is a beautiful time of year. The grass is tall and gold, the cassia and mimosa trees arecovered in yellow flowers and the aloes are promising a spectacular display in the weeks to come: their spikes a mass of blooms waiting to open. On the roadsides the white poinsettias are covered in flowers, the Munondo trees are crowned with chocolate pods and in the vleis and wetlands the red hot pokers are a sight to behold.

As our growing season comes to an end and after the good rainy season we've had this year, I'd like to be able to tell you that out here in the country areas there is a great bustle of harvesting underway. Sadly that is not the case this May 2009. Roads out of once busy commercial farming areas are stagnantly quiet. All season many of our farms have lain fallow because of no seed, no fertilizer or quite simply no interest from the people who took them over. Zimbabweans travelling east, west, north and south can testify to seeing this same picture of empty fields in all directions.

Thankfully in urban areas the small roadside, suburban plantings(similar to allotments) of maize, beans and sunflowers have done quite well. Maize cobs are lying out to dry on verandahs and roofs in urban areas and this has become a common sight; it is a graphic demonstration of how hunger has infiltrated right into our cities, towns and urban neighbourhoods. This rooftop food is how Zimbabwe's teachers, nurses and civil servants are going to survive the months ahead - on what they've grown on the side of the road. We are reminded this week that the MDC have been participating in Zimbabwe's power sharing unity government for a hundred days. Most days its been very hard for ordinary people to see the power sharing as it has had so little effect on our daily lives. Criminals still walk free on our streets; political prisoners are still juggled in and out of detention; chaos continues on farms; water and electricity supplies are pathetic and an undoubtedly fierce battle for real power rages just out of view. Most people are saying that 100 days is long enough, the honeymoon is over and its time to get down to business. No more delays, stalling,empty ultimatums and promises. We want to see action from this enormous government that we have, real action that will improve ourlives and lift us out of the filth and despair that we've tolerated for the last decade.

Until next week, thanks for reading, love cathy

Cathy Buckle's Weekly Letter from Zimbabwe

Shocking legacy !

Tuesday 17th March 2009

Dear Family and Friends,

Its been a month now since Zimbabwe's unity government took office and this seems an appropriate point to record the changes that are affecting everyday life.

The economy is now running completely on US dollars and the prices of most goods are still two, three or sometimes even four times more expensive than in our neighbouring countries. But, on the positive side, more and more shops have got products back on their shelves so at least now we can find food - even if we can't afford most of it! Basic economic rules of supply and demand and competition are coming back into play and forcing the outrageous profiteers to back down. Seeing shelves stocked with food is such a shock that we still stand and stare wide-eyed at the sight of tins and packets and bottles. For such a long time we've been scavenging, scrounging, bartering and just going without that seeing food for sale again makes us realize the terrible abuse that was inflicted upon us by the previous leadership.

Another positive development has come for civil servants who have begun receiving a small monthly salary in US dollars, and a top up in Zimbabwe dollars. Frankly the top up in Zim dollars is a waste of time and utterly useless as there is nothing at all that you can buy in local currency - not even a single banana or cup of ground nuts from a woman on the roadside. The US dollar amounts being paid to civil servants is nowhere near enough, is not linked to people's qualifications and is not comparable to salaries being paid for the same work in the region, but it is a start.

I had to visit a Police station recently and seeing the appalling circumstances under which these men and women have to work is truly shocking. Ceilings falling in, broken tables, chairs collapsing and without backs, no stationery, nowhere for people to sit, doors falling out of their frames, roadways almost unusable because of deep gullies and potholes. This situation is similar in almost all government buildings and is another shocking legacy left by the previous leadership.

In the last month utilities, licences and other urban service fees have gone through the roof and despite our paying in US dollars no changes are yet noticeable on the ground. Garbage is still not being collected (its been a year now) roads are a maze of deep potholes, street lights still don't work and sewage continues to run openly in some streets. Water and waste management is in a perilous place and the handing back of assets, tools, chemicals and other equipment by ZINWA (controlled by government) to the local municipalities has opened a writhing can of worms. Water pumps have gone missing, chemicals have vanished and assets which actually belong to the ratepayers, have simply disappeared. We are told by the incoming MDC officials that legal action is being taken and that people will be held to account. This promise is a breath of fresh air but actions speak louder than words!

It's very early days and a mountain of decay, corruption and plain thievery stands in the path but the feeling of hope continues to grow. Change must come from the top, the middle and the bottom; we're ready at the bottom!

Until next week, thanks for reading, love cathy

CATHY BUCKLE'S WEEKLY LETTER FROM ZIMBABWE

Ten trillion !

Saturday 24th January 2009

Dear Family and Friends,

The ticking of Zimbabwe's time bomb is getting louder and faster by the day. Power sharing talks have again collapsed; cholera is spreading and the death toll rising; teachers, nurses and doctors are demanding payment in US dollars in order to report for duty and the poverty of most families is growing worse by the day.

There is now nothing you can buy in Zimbabwe dollars as even roadside vegetable vendors have resorted to selling their wares in US dollars or South African Rand. A handful of tomatoes, a bunch of onions, half a dozen bananas or even a single, sweet, sticky mango - all are priced in American dollars. If you don't have foreign currency you go hungry, it's as simple as that. You also go sick, can't get a bed in a private hospital, can't have a baby, can't get on a bus, can't get a passport, can't even buy a packet of headache pills.

The only thing you can do with Zimbabwe dollars, if you can get them out of the bank, is pay your telephone, water, and electricity bills. The authorities running Zimbabwe continue to refuse to allow the utilities companies to charge in US dollars and so the services they provide have deteriorated to the point of almost complete collapse. Stick thin employees at parastatals wearing threadbare suits continue to report for work while everything around them falls apart. They have no stationery to invoice customers, no receipt books, no ink for computers. They have no answers to the increasingly angry queries from their customers such as why have dustbins not been collected for eight months; when are blocked sewer pipes going to be cleared, when are cavernous pot holes on the roads going to be filled. These civil servants have little reason to go to work anymore and it seems only a matter of time before they just don't bother anymore.

For people without foreign currency life has become a living hell. A government teacher I met showed me her December pay slip. Her monthly salary was 10 trillion dollars. The exchange rate on the day meant that in a month she had earned just one US dollar. I asked her if she would be returning to the classroom when schools re-open and she said no. She said the bus fare to get to her school on the first day alone would cost her one US dollar, and then how would she get home, what would she have to eat, how would she get to school the next day.

Zimbabweans are looking to SADC and the African Union in the days ahead. Surely soon they will have to say: enough suffering, enough death, enough?

Until next week, thanks for reading,

love cathy.

Cathy Buckle's Weekly Letter from Zimbabwe

WELCOME HOME!

Dear Family and Friends,

It's not hard to spot the Zimbabweans heading home at the international airport in Johannesburg. They are the ones buying bottles of water, loaves of bread and whatever basic foodstuffs they can still squash into their bulging bags. Other travellers passing through the airport are buying gifts, souvenirs and treats but not us - we are still scrabbling for essential food and trying to survive the madness of Zimbabwe. Distinctly third class treatment begins as soon as you get to the departure gates: shouted announcements, dismissive airport staff, not enough seating and overcrowded buses."This Is Africa," you hear people saying, a shameful excuse which disguises bad manners and bad service. It doesn't bode well for international attention coming to South Africa with the 2010 world cup football.

It is an eye opener looking down on Zimbabwe from the air this January 2009.

There is a lot of water to see and the rains must have been good. Rivers are flowing, dams filling and green is everywhere - but that's all. Gone are the views of neat fields filled with crops; gone are those giant cropping circles carved out into the red soil. The view from above is only of trees, bush encroachment and scrubland and the feeling is of a broken land whose fields are untended. Welcome home to a country still in waiting.

Waiting in line at passport control at Harare airport a woman in front of me struggled to carry three bags filled with bread. "I don't want to be here," she said. "How much longer must this go on? I want to bring my Mum chocolates and perfume, not bread." Her words spoke volumes. In front of us on the wall two stern, grim faced portraits of Mr Mugabe stare down at weary travellers who are already bracing themselves for the nightmare that awaits.

At the exit boom of the airport car park the attendant says I can pay in South African Rand or US dollars; he takes the foreign bank notes but has no change and does not give a receipt - welcome home to street law.

At a road block on the journey home a painfully thin Police woman in uniform comes to the car window. She does not check the vehicle, licence or papers but instead says: "Happy New Year, have you got anything for me?" Welcome home to a hungry, broken civil service.

Despite being well into the rainy season the view from the window is of scrawny, yellow, ankle high maize plants in a sea of weeds. Maize plants which should by now be waist high, deep, dark green and about to silk. Welcome home to another year of hunger.

Zimbabweans have only one wish for 2009 and that is for an end to this horrible state of affairs. Until next week, thanks for reading,

love cathy

cCopyright Cathy Buckle 3rd January 2009.

Cathy Buckle's Weekly Letter From Zimbabwe !

The names are felled !

Saturday 25th October 2008.

Dear Family and Friends,

Every day ends in Zimbabwe with the most magnificent golden sunset at this time of the year. As the sun drops over the horizon we are bathed in orange, copper and caramel and are then so spoilt to witness a magnificent vista of stars light up our night skies. Some evenings the wattled plovers call in alarm as someone walks near their nests, other evenings the bats swoop over the garden catching insects but every night I think of a friend who has now left who told me that no matter how bad things got, I should keep looking up!

Looking for a telephone number in my address book the other day I got distracted by the names of people who needed to be erased as they aren't in the country anymore. In the last eight years all of my immediate and extended family members have gone; my lawyer, doctor, optician and chiropractor have emigrated; the vet I took my animals to has left so has the electrician, plumber and car mechanic. Nurses and teachers that I knew are gone, so has a physiotherapist, radiographer and three pharmacists. The farms where I bought meat, eggs, fruit and vegetables have all been taken over and none of them produce anything for sale at all anymore - they have been reduced to dusty weed lands housing a few desperately poor subsistence farmers and their families. The two huge agricultural companies where I bought tools, seed, fertilizer and equipment are all but empty. The stock feed companies where I bought cattle and chicken food, flour, salt and maize meal for many years now have nothing at all to sell, not even a bag of dog food. The polythene factory has closed down, two transport companies have gone, a butchery, abbatoir, florist, sports shop and school outfitters have closed down. The nursery where I used to buy tree seedlings has collapsed and the flower nursery has gone too and then of course come the friends and neighbours who have left. Page after page in my address book the names are felled and each one is crossed out with a heavy heart. How far Zimbabwe has fallen and all because a handful of people are so determined to stay in power.

For the last eight years those of us who have managed to stay in Zimbabwe have been deeply traumatized witnessing the break down of communities and the collapse of our country. Most days we don't know how, when or if, it will ever end and if we can ever be "normal" again. At the same time, the millions who have left the country are just as traumatized by everything they've left behind: families, friends, pets, homes, memories and simply that feeling deep in your soul that you are at home. I can't wait for the day when I can write to the millions of Zimbabweans scattered all over the world and say: come home, we are ready to rebuild. Sadly that time has not come yet, we hope it will be soon.

Until next time, thanks for reading,
love cathy