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Zimbabwe -- Cathy Buckle -- The names are felled
Letters written by Cathy Buckle ^ | 2008-10-25 | Cathy Buckle

Posted on 10/26/2008 4:55:13 AM PDT by Clive

Dear Family and Friends,

Every day ends in Zimbabwe with the most magnificent golden sunset at this time of the year. As the sun drops over the horizon we are bathed in orange, copper and caramel and are then so spoilt to witness a magnificent vista of stars light up our night skies. Some evenings the wattled plovers call in alarm as someone walks near their nests, other evenings the bats swoop over the garden catching insects but every night I think of a friend who has now left who told me that no matter how bad things got, I should keep looking up!

Looking for a telephone number in my address book the other day I got distracted by the names of people who needed to be erased as they aren't in the country anymore. In the last eight years all of my immediate and extended family members have gone; my lawyer, doctor, optician and chiropractor have emigrated; the vet I took my animals to has left so has the electrician, plumber and car mechanic. Nurses and teachers that I knew are gone, so has a physiotherapist, radiographer and three pharmacists. The farms where I bought meat, eggs, fruit and vegetables have all been taken over and none of them produce anything for sale at all anymore - they have been reduced to dusty weed lands housing a few desperately poor subsistence farmers and their families. The two huge agricultural companies where I bought tools, seed, fertilizer and equipment are all but empty. The stock feed companies where I bought cattle and chicken food, flour, salt and maize meal for many years now have nothing at all to sell, not even a bag of dog food. The polythene factory has closed down, two transport companies have gone, a butchery, abbatoir, florist, sports shop and school outfitters have closed down. The nursery where I used to buy tree seedlings has collapsed and the flower nursery has gone too and then of course come the friends and neighbours who have left. Page after page in my address book the names are felled and each one is crossed out with a heavy heart. How far Zimbabwe has fallen and all because a handful of people are so determined to stay in power.

For the last eight years those of us who have managed to stay in Zimbabwe have been deeply traumatized witnessing the break down of communities and the collapse of our country. Most days we don't know how, when or if, it will ever end and if we can ever be "normal" again. At the same time, the millions who have left the country are just as traumatized by everything they've left behind: families, friends, pets, homes, memories and simply that feeling deep in your soul that you are at home. I can't wait for the day when I can write to the millions of Zimbabweans scattered all over the world and say: come home, we are ready to rebuild. Sadly that time has not come yet, we hope it will be soon.

Until next time, thanks for reading, love cathy.


TOPICS: Culture/Society; Government; Miscellaneous
KEYWORDS: cathybuckle; communism; zimbabwe
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1 posted on 10/26/2008 4:55:13 AM PDT by Clive
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To: blam; Cincinatus' Wife; sarcasm; happygrl; Byron_the_Aussie; robnoel; GeronL; ZOOKER; Bonaparte; ...

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2 posted on 10/26/2008 4:56:49 AM PDT by Clive
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To: Clive

I’m having the uneasy feeling this too may be our future, under a President Obama.


3 posted on 10/26/2008 4:58:41 AM PDT by SatinDoll (NO FOREIGN NATIONALS AS OUR PRESIDENT!!)
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To: Clive

This may seem callous, but it is a very sad thing to see someone who has been consigned to hell and is still thinking “it’s just the thermostat is broken - someone will fix it soon”. History is full of examples where sufficient warnings weren’t heeded.


4 posted on 10/26/2008 4:59:05 AM PDT by Gaffer
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To: Gaffer

Yeah and the bells are ringing off the walls in the USA right now.

Jimmy Carter’s Mugabe ... remember how wonderful it would be?

Why are all revolutions communist?


5 posted on 10/26/2008 5:04:20 AM PDT by Tarpon (Barack Obama will ban all the guns he has the votes for ...)
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To: Clive
Here's such a sunset from Malawi, not to far from Zimbabwe and in Malawi, a delightful country and just as in need. If you like this picture, please view my website at www.afriendofmalawi.com.

As a former Peace Corps Volunteer, I enjoy sharing my photos of my time there in the late '60s.

Should you visit, please leave a message in the Guest Book, found at the bottom of the "Home Page". Thanks and enjoy.

As they say in Charlevoix, MI, "Have fun or don't".


6 posted on 10/26/2008 5:15:32 AM PDT by jws3sticks (Hillary can take a very long walk on a very short pier, anytime, and the sooner the better!)
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To: Clive
I can't wait for the day when I can write to the millions of Zimbabweans scattered all over the world and say: come home, we are ready to rebuild.

Not in your lifetime Cathy.

South Africa is next.

7 posted on 10/26/2008 5:41:14 AM PDT by Timocrat
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To: Tarpon
"Why are all revolutions communist?"

Other then the American Revolution when did the right wing revolt against their country?
I am just thinking out loud, I don't know the answer.

8 posted on 10/26/2008 6:46:38 AM PDT by Steve Van Doorn (*in my best Eric cartman voice* 'I love you guys')
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To: Clive
I've read these posts for awhile ,trying not to be cynical, and find them to sound like fiction....or maybe a literary tool in order to show the plight of her/his country.

Is this lady real? Why doesn't she move?

As for the larger question, When will she call her countrymen home? Uh, never. Unless there are men willing to fight and die for a cause, never. Cause that's what it took to take her country in the first place. A man and his followers willing to fight and die to take a country. Actually a very easy thing to figure out.

Which of the sides and when to be the one to take up arms and fight are the real questions. Otherwise, sit in your house, pray that the man with the gun doesn't show up at the door and keep writing from the "African Archipelago".

9 posted on 10/26/2008 6:54:01 AM PDT by Dick Vomer (liberals suck....... but it depends on what your definition of the word "suck" is.,)
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To: Dick Vomer

It appears her situation is even sadder when one looks into her past. If I read her blogs correctly, she was a supporter of Mugabe.

How tragic to get what you want


10 posted on 10/26/2008 6:57:12 AM PDT by SoftballMominVA
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To: SoftballMominVA

“It appears her situation is even sadder when one looks into her past. If I read her blogs correctly, she was a supporter of Mugabe.
How tragic to get what you want”

A LOT of Americans are going to find that out, very soon.

- John


11 posted on 10/26/2008 7:06:28 AM PDT by Fishrrman
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To: Clive

What a pathetic missive.

Cowardice is the inability to react to a threat. It will prove her undoing


12 posted on 10/26/2008 7:16:03 AM PDT by bert (K.E. N.P. +12 . Ferengi?.....Probably not, but he sure has the lobes)
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To: Steve Van Doorn

Actually I was talking about the communist Obama-nuts. It seems the talk of revolution is always the talk of communists.


13 posted on 10/26/2008 7:30:55 AM PDT by Tarpon (Barack Obama will ban all the guns he has the votes for ...)
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To: Steve Van Doorn; Tarpon

Start with the Spanish Civil War.

And, by the way, the American revolutionaries weren’t right wingers in the modern sense. Although the Confederates were.


14 posted on 10/26/2008 7:43:34 AM PDT by PAR35
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To: PAR35

The confederates don’t fit the category of revolution. There people just wanted out of a union they saw as unjust. But since I wasn’t there ...

What I see in a modern revolution is what happened in Venezuela, where people were conned into thinking they were going to get the free pies only to find the baker quits.

It’s what the minstrel man Obama is selling. Split the tip between two homeless guys and the homeless guys will out vote the waiter everytime. It’s a con job.


15 posted on 10/26/2008 7:51:13 AM PDT by Tarpon (Barack Obama will ban all the guns he has the votes for ...)
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To: PAR35
Spanish Civil War?
I am not sure about that.

Francisco Franco was a fascist that would make them left wing. But then again he got support from the fascists but I know he resisted them after he took power.

So, I am bit hazy on that war.

16 posted on 10/26/2008 9:08:24 AM PDT by Steve Van Doorn (*in my best Eric cartman voice* 'I love you guys')
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To: PAR35
"the American revolutionaries weren’t right wingers in the modern sense"

what would you call them? They were not socialists that is for sure.

17 posted on 10/26/2008 9:10:23 AM PDT by Steve Van Doorn (*in my best Eric cartman voice* 'I love you guys')
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To: Tarpon
Venezuela the people have not done anything as of yet.
The people do with out pie now. At what point do they say I want pie?

In Zimbabwe they are doing without any kind of food and still nothing is happening.

18 posted on 10/26/2008 9:15:41 AM PDT by Steve Van Doorn (*in my best Eric cartman voice* 'I love you guys')
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To: Steve Van Doorn
what would you call them?

Modern terminology, libertarian would be the closest. Historically, liberal.

19 posted on 10/26/2008 11:16:39 AM PDT by PAR35
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To: Steve Van Doorn

Franco was a nationalist first, probably a monarchist second. He had to take his allies wherever he could get them in his fight against the Communists and Internationalists.

To simply slap the fascist label on Franco is to fall for the leftwing propaganda.


20 posted on 10/26/2008 11:23:58 AM PDT by PAR35
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