- Dear Family and Friends,
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- The view from Zimbabwe's window is absolutely gorgeous
this week. Evidence of spring and renewal is all around us. The sky is
cloudless and blue, the temperatures are rising and the blue headed lizards
are out basking in the sun again. The indigenous woodlands that have survived
the army of winter woodcutters are breathtaking as the Msasa trees go
from red and burgundy to caramel and a shiny butterscotch colour before
finally preparing to shade our land for another year. After nearly two
months of government price controls and the ugly mess they have created,
the beauty and warmth around us is the only thing keeping many people sane
in this seventh spring of Zimbabwe's turmoil.
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- This week, after a long silence, government inflation
figures were announced and, as expected, the price controls have not helped
at all - exactly the opposite in fact. Inflation which stood at 4530% in
May, soared to 7634% in July.
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- I went to visit an elderly couple this week and we exchanged
delights about the season and the climate and then they showed me the letter
which had just arrived. I didn't know whether to laugh or cry at the news
about their pension. The letter was from a senior executive in one of the
largest pension fund companies in the country and read as follows:
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- "We confirm that you are entitled to a monthly pension
of $0.85 cents. This pension is currently suspended. As the monthly pension
has now been eroded by inflation, the company has now decided to pay out
the balance of your pension as a lump sum. The lump sum payable to you
is: $2.9 million dollars."
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- I can't think of words that adequately describe the outrage
of this. A monthly pension representing a person's working life and the
result of years of payments being now worth just 85 Zimbabwe cents. There
is not a single thing you can buy for eighty five cents in Zimbabwe, not
even one match stick; in fact there aren't any coins in circulation in
the country anymore. The couple told me they had agreed to accept the lump
sum payment because they really had no other option but they knew that
even this amount would only pay for 4 days of their board and lodge.
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- Young or old there is just one way to survive these bleak
times in Zimbabwe and that is one day at a time. We have all been forced
into short term thinking and even shorter term planning as we try and keep
food on the table in these days of government induced famine. There is
still almost no food to buy in our shops - no oil, margarine, flour, rice,
pasta, maize meal, biscuits, cold drinks or sugar. No soap, washing powder,
candles or matches. No meat, eggs, dairy products or confectionary.
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- In a weeks time our children go back to school but even
this fact does not seem to inspire our government into action. How do they
think schools are going to feed the children who stay for lunch or are
boarders? How do they think that parents who have been forced to run their
businesses at a loss for the last two months are going to be able to even
pay school fees? How do they think pensioners can survive on eighty five
cents a month? There are no answers to the questions at any level.
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- Even more worrying is that glorious as the weather is,
it is almost planting time again and yet there is no seed to buy in our
empty shops and our day at a time thinking caused by our governments day
at a time planning is condemning us to even harder times ahead. It hardly
bears thinking about and so we try not to and hope and pray that there
may be an end to this, just an end.
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- Until next week,
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- thanks for reading,
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- love cathy.
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- Copyright cathy buckle 25 August 2007. www.cathybuckle.com
My books: "African Tears" and "Beyond Tears" are available
from: <mailto:orders@africabookcentre.com>orders@africabookcentre.com
To subscribe/unsubscribe to this newsletter, please write to: <mailto:cbuckle@mango.zw>cbuckle@mango.zw
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