- Inflation in Zimbabwe doesn't go up by fractions, units
or even hundreds anymore, instead it increases by multiple thousands of
percentage points from one month to the next. The latest official figures
have just been announced and in October 2007 the inflation rate was 14,840%
- a staggering increase, almost doubling from eight thousand percent in
September. If you sit down and try and work out a standard family budget
with basic food needs, unavoidable service bills, transport costs and essential
medical needs, and then factor in almost fifteen thousand percent inflation,
you will get a glimpse of our life here. In a word, its a nightmare.
-
- Every day people are being forced to juggle with priorities
- what can they do without for another day, which bill can again be shuffled
to the bottom of the pile and which packet of carefully saved food can
be left in the cupboard for one more day. Wages need to go up by the week
at the very least, by the day would be more realistic. Some employers are
giving monthly increases, bonuses or allowances to their employees but
many others are not - they have moved into self survival mode and find
it useful to quote government regulations and do nothing as their workers
struggle, stumble and fall. Now more than ever before life has been reduced
to a primitive battle for existence and there is easily visible evidence
of hunger, poor diet, and plain exhaustion. It is common to talk to people
who are halving essential medications to make them last longer and very
common to see people selling household items to raise money to get through
one more month.
-
- Those people that can are working harder, doing two jobs
and trying to 'make a plan' that will get them through this. Some relief
at least comes with nature and our ability to be less dependent on the
rules, regulations and controls of The State The rainy season has now set
in and everywhere green has replaced brown, mud has replaced dust and swarms
of flies, gnats and mosquitoes have emerged. Our neighbourhoods are suddenly
filled with men, women and children bent over and cultivating a few square
metres of roadside. This year most people have resorted to planting seed
saved from last year's crop - they know it will give greatly reduced yields
but have no option. The usual piles of green and pink treated maize seed
have not appeared in our shops this year and last week the shocking figures
came out in a report by a Lands and Agriculture Committee.
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-
- Of the fifty thousand tonnes of seed maize needed around
the country this season, there is a deficit of 21 thousand tonnes - almost
half. The government have proclaimed that this is to be: "The Mother
Of All Seasons" - a phrase absurdly simplistic and totally unrealistic
of the facts on the ground, not least of which include huge deficits of
seed, fertilizer and fuel and an inflation rate of almost fifteen thousand
percent. It's going to take much more than slogans and propaganda to get
food growing this year. As impossible as it is to believe and to accept,
it seems inevitable that still harder times lie ahead for Zimbabwe.
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- Until next week, thanks for reading,
-
-
- love cathy.
-
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- Copyright cathy buckle 17 November 2007. <http://www.cathybuckle.com>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
- To subscribe/unsubscribe to this newsletter, please write
to: <mailto:cbuckle@mango.zw>cbuckle@mango.zw
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