Posted on 02/03/2003 2:58:02 AM PST by Clive
Dear Family and Friends,
Some weeks I sit and stare at the blank email on my screen on a Saturday morning and wonder what on earth to write about. This is one of those weeks. What can I tell you that is not horrific? How can I sit here and describe the death of a country that was beautiful and thriving only 3 years ago ? Some weeks the depression is so overwhelming that I just do not know where to start. Shall I write about the riot police who fired tear gas to disperse a residents meeting called to discuss the water crisis in Harare? Maybe people would rather hear about the five international Lutheran church workers who were deported after being accused of being journalists in disguise, or the two American journalists who were detained by police for 7 hours after they took photographs of a grain marketing depot. Perhaps I should write about the announcement by the American State Department advising their nationals not to travel to Zimbabwe because of security concerns. Or shall I tell you how disgusted we are that the EU cannot reach agreement about renewing targeted sanctions against Zimbabwe's leaders. It almost seems as if now the world are just going to pump food into Zimbabwe to stop massive deaths from starvation but forgive and forget the man and his party who did this to us.
Some weeks writing this letter is an enormous burden because even though I know there are these vitally important things that need to be told, I just get swallowed up by the depression that comes from trying to survive just one day at a time. The stupidest of things become critically important to every day life. Like being told on Thursday that there was a petrol delivery and the queue was probably only a 2 hour long line. It was a little over that and gave me a chance to catch up on my reading and just sit and watch people. The things you see in petrol queues are awesome and are things that would never have been seen 3 years ago. White men and black men stand and talk together, they take turns to push each other's cars forward. Everyone looks out for line jumpers together and it's in these lines that more is being done to improve race relations in Zimbabwe than has ever been done in the past 22 years.
Petrol and food are already the two things that are uniting Zimbabweans. The shops are empty. In the main Marondera supermarket today there were 42 empty shelves. The list of things now unavailable in our town is getting longer every day and includes: bread, flour, milk, cereals, biscuits, pasta, margarine, dog food, sugar, salt, maize meal, washing powder. The worst news this week that wasn't political was that Colgate/ Palmolive is closing it's factory and relocating to South Africa. They are the biggest makers of detergent, soap and toothpaste in the country. It is so utterly tragic to see all these factories closing down because when they do we don't just lose the products, machinery and expertise, we lose the professionalism that has been decades in the making and we lose just another little piece of Zimbabwe's identity.
Our President and his party have taken our country decades back in time. Tractors and combine harvesters have been replaced with ox carts and hand ploughs. Bread and maize meal have been replaced with porridge made from wild nuts and berries. Women's sanitary towels and tampons have been replaced with toilet paper by those who can afford it and with leaves by those who cannot. Toothpaste, soap and detergent are next. This government and its policies have stripped our men of jobs and resources, our women of pride and dignity and our children of education. The school fees are unaffordable, the children are fainting in the classrooms and the drop out rates are escalating. We have become 21st century pioneers and scavengers, living like animals in the most modern of worlds.
God help us all in Zimbabwe.
Until next week with love, cathy
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