- Dear Family and Friends,
-
- A shameful and very distressing report has just been
released in Zimbabwe. This time it does not come from the UN or any other
international body, but from Zimbabwe's own Ministry of Public Service
and Social Welfare. Research was undertaken and statistics gathered right
across the country and included 58 rural districts and 27 urban areas.
-
- The report says that living standards in Zimbabwe have
dropped by 150% in the last ten years. Malnutrition in children under 5
has increased by 35% and the number of people without access to health
care has increased by 48%.
-
- Seeing the percentages in black and white is bad enough
but when you see for yourself the evidence of this dramatic decline, it
is truly terrifying. In the last month the basic cost of living in Zimbabwe
went up by 47% percent. When you go shopping in a supermarket, everywhere
you look people are carrying almost nothing. Finding sources of affordable
protein is almost impossible. Meat is a luxury now - out of reach for almost
all Zimbabweans.
-
-
- Long, long gone are the days when we would buy strips
of biltong to snack on as we walked or when butchers would break off pieces
of beer sticks to quieten niggling kids. Now people are buying scraps,
bones and something called "shavings" which are the white crumbs
which accumulate under the blade of the saws and butchery knives. Cheese
is off the menu permanently; eggs and milk are very close behind. This
week one single egg is selling for 200 dollars and half a litre of milk
for 600 dollars (add 3 zeroes for the real cost). A cup of milk or an egg
for breakfast is now the height of luxury and when you understand that,
then you understand why malnutrition has increased by 35% in young children.
-
-
- It hardly bears thinking how bad nutrition levels must
be in the vast majority of our adult population. Adults who, when you ask
them if they have had breakfast say they are not hungry because they have
had a "very big drink of water" to fill their stomachs - it will
see them through till lunch time.
-
- Outside the supermarkets these days there are the usual
swarm of street children but if you look a bit harder, in between the hordes,
you see the really desperate ones. Old men, skin and bone, bare feet, shaking
hands, sunken eyes and it makes you just weep to see the depths we have
dropped to. So very many people need help now but so few are able to help
anymore.
-
- I end on a positive note with congratulations for our
rugby team. Its always very dangerous for me to write about sports because
I know so little about it - and understand even less, however this is a
story as much about patriotism as of sports. A friend wrote to say he had
just watched the Zimbabwean rugby team do a lap of honour in the pouring
rain at the end of a tournament being played outside the country. He said
the team had lost in the end but they had done Zimbabwe proud. They were
fine, upstanding men who had given their all and were so very obviously
proud to be Zimbabweans. The Zimbabweans in the crowd were equally proud
to stand and cheer the sportsmen from the country that is in such a mess,
but that we all love so much. The rugby pitch might be a million miles
away from the "shavings" in the butchery but all tell the story
of the people in this wonderful country. As hard as it is, we all try to
carry on as normal because we know that bad times don't ever last.
-
- Until next week, with love, cathy Copyright cathy buckle
9 December 2006.
-
- <http:/africantears>http:/africantears,netfirms.com
-
- My books: "African Tears" and "Beyond
Tears" are available from: <mailto:orders@africabookcentre.com>orders@africabookcentre.com
|
