- Dear Family and Friends,
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- As you approach the capital city the view is of men and
women bent over and digging. Everywhere people are digging holes and dropping
pips into the ground as at last the rains have arrived. After so many years
of hunger and then a cruel and punishing eighteen months when there was
no food to buy in the shops because of chronic misgovernance, we don't
take anything for granted anymore.
-
- If there's a place to grow food for a single meal,
people are clearing that space. Within a few metres of railway lines
and roads, outside
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- people's homes and alongside every stream and river bank
the land is being turned over. Around cemeteries, next to water and sewage
works and even in between and underneath massive electricity pylons, mealie
madness has gripped urban Zimbabwe.
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- Water siltation, soil erosion and environmental protection
have gone completely by the wayside and authorities seem not to care as
our towns and cities have been turned into a maze of unplanned, un-contoured,
hotch potch food growing plots. Scrappy strips of cloth, empty plastic
bottles and rusty tin cups and bowls planted atop sticks, demarcate people's
plots.
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- No one, it seems, has any confidence at all in Zimbabwe's
ability to grow food on farms again this year. As people scramble desperately
to plant on roadside squares, the madness goes on with renewed vigour on
farms.
-
- This week we heard, not in the State media but on short
wave radio, how farms in Chegutu are under attack by politicians. One farm
employing over 1400 people was being forcibly taken over by a senior political
player despite High Court Orders and SADC tribunal rulings protecting the
farm. On this one single farm 20% of the country's wheat used to be grown.
A quick glance at the recent list published in the Zimbabwean newspaper
of multiple farm owners within Zanu PF says it all. Included are Ministers,
Governors, the Commissioner of
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- Police, Head of prisons and numerous other senior officials
Agriculture has had no choice but to move into urban areas while the farm
grabs continue. It has become common to see sunflowers, wheat and sweet
potatoes growing on urban roadsides. Outside one new suburb approaching
Harare someone has even planted tobacco along the roadside.
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- Closer into the capital city the filth starts and doesn't
stop all the way into the centre of Harare. Streets named after famous
Zimbabweans and regional leaders and heroes are a disgusting disgrace.
The roads are lined with litter: plastic, glass, tin and paper are everywhere.
Great piles of uncollected garbage sit waiting for local authorities to
collect -ten months after they took office. Mounds of empty drinks tins,
seething with clouds of newly hatched mosquitoes are to be found everywhere,
you can almost see the malaria epidemic waiting to happen, not to mention
diarrhoea and other water borne diseases.
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- And then, amidst the dirt and the grime and when you
least expect it, you see the little gem that has the ability to raise a
smile. Outside State House, in full army camouflage uniform, helmet on
his head and holding an AK 47, a young soldier is behaving a bit strangely.
He's sort of swaying and nodding his head and for a moment you think he
must be sick. His camouflage jacket opens a fraction and then you see it.
He's got a shiny iPod clipped into his belt, a little wire crawls up his
chest and ends in an earpiece. The protector is listening to music while
he stands guard!
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- I end this week on a note of congratulation and recognition
for Jenni Williams and Magadonga Mahlangu who have just been awarded the
Robert F Kennedy Human Rights Award by President Barack Obama. We are so
proud of you.
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- Until next week, thanks for reading,
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- love cathy
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- Copyright cathy buckle \www.cathybuckle.com For information
on my new book: "INNOCENT VICTIMS" or my previous books, "African
Tears" and "Beyond Tears," or to subscribe/unsubscribe to
this newsletter, please write to:
-
- \cbuckle@mango.zw
|
