- Dear Family and Friends,
-
- I don't know what the colour of sadness is, but this
October 2007 I think it must be purple. The streets in our suburbs, towns
and cities are lined with Jacaranda trees and they are in full blossom,
carpeting the roadsides with soft purple flowers. The Bougainvilleas are
covered in flowers too - mauve, lilac and bright purple. It's hard to believe
that with such tropical brilliance all around us this hot October, there
is such sadness too. For three months or more everyone's been talking about
the fact that there's no food in the shops because the government ordered
prices to be cut to below production costs. Most of us have been so busy
trying to find enough food to survive and support our families that we
haven't really been looking at how other businesses are coping with absurdly
low controlled prices. Well, to put it simply, they're not.
-
- I took a walk around my home town this week and was shocked
at what I found. Two big clothes department stores have closed down in
the last month. These weren't little family shops but big outlets stocking
clothes, shoes and accessories for men, women and children. Their huge
glass display windows stretching for more than half a block along the pavement
are completely empty. Peering in, you can see nothing except vast expanses
of grey concrete floor. Carpets have been removed, naked wires hang from
ceilings, light fittings have gone, clothes racks are cleared, shelving
has been taken off the walls and the employees are all gone. Where are
they now, I wondered and how are they surviving. A great sadness welled
up inside me; home is dying a slow and tortuous death.
-
- I wandered into a bookshop which is all but empty and
into two clothes shops which have almost nothing left to sell. All tell
the same story: they cannot sell goods for less than they have paid for
them. Shop owners look gaunt, exhausted and desperate, they say they cannot
sleep at night and that their stomachs are in tight knots: they are watching
their work and investments of a life time just ebb away. I went into another
shop which has been in the town since the 1960's. Their doors are still
open but its as good as pointless.
-
-
- Three smartly dressed salesmen wearing name tags
stood against the wall talking to each other. There are perhaps fifty items
left to sell in this branch of a shop which has outlets all over the country.
The teller sat counting wads of dirty almost useless money - bank notes
which have expiry dates on them and which we've been warned may be changed
at any time in the next few days or weeks. I asked the teller if the shop
was closing down. 'No,' he replied, 'if we do then they (the government)
will just take us over.' I asked him how they could stay open and he just
shook his head sadly. 'We are broken,' he said; 'we are just waiting for
whenever the last day comes.' I didn't know what to say but then the man
looked around to see if anyone was listening before he said : 'It's political
you know.'
-
- That little phrase slammed me back in time instantly
to the day when the war veterans were shouting at me through the farm gate.
Threatening to shoot me, armed with a pistol, one had bragged that he could
"drop me at ten, twenty, even forty meters." This is my farm
he had screamed at me, my house, my fields, my cattle and then later, when
the Police finally came, they said they could do nothing because :"it
was political."
-
- I stared at the teller with his empty shop and filthy
money and his eyes were filled with despair. 'Where will I go,' he said;
'what will I do?' I had no answers and could just say: I am so sorry, so
very sorry. As I left and the trees dripped their purple flowers at my
feet the tears were in my eyes. We are a nation traumatized, regardless
of our age or sex, the colour of our skin or our profession and yes, it
is all political.
-
-
- Until next time, thanks for reading,
-
-
- love cathy.
-
-
- Copyright cathy buckle 13 October 2007. www.cathybuckle.com
My books: "African Tears" and "Beyond Tears" are available
in South Africa from: <mailto:books@clarkesbooks.co.za>books@clarkesbooks.co.za
and in the UK from: <mailto:orders@africabookcentre.com>orders@africabookcentre.com
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