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Sadly what did make front page news this week were the shocking words: “Don’t sup with whites: Mugabe.” Mr Mugabe said that people who had been given seized farms were leasing them out to white Zimbabweans and accused his own officials of being involved. “Some of my ministers are being mentioned here. They are refusing to remove white farmers from their constituencies… we are told that Chiefs are also involved in land deals,” Mr Mugabe said. “What annoys us... is where our own indigenous farmers sub-lease to the very same white farmers we took our heritage from yesterday,” he added....

Ten years to practiceSaturday 13th March 2010 Dear Family and Friends,As we come towards the end of our rainy season we hear the news that one in four Zimbabweans are in urgent need of food aid. We are not surprised. Since the start of the season 6 months ago, everyone has been commenting on the dramatic absence of crops on farms. Travel in any direction, towards any of our country's borders and you see grass, weeds and derelict farms. The best crops are those planted on roadsides and little squares of vacant land in urban areas. There has been...

All are welcome Saturday 6th March 2010 Dear Family and Friends, They say that a picture speaks a thousand words and the one I picked up on the roadside this morning certainly did. I'm not generally in the habit of picking up litter on public roads but this was different. It was the remains of a poster that had been torn off a street light pole. From the scraps of bright coloured paper left clinging to a number of other poles, it was obvious that a line of the same posters had all been torn down recently. I had travelled...

Dear Family and Friends, A few days ago I had no choice but to travel past the farm my husband and I legally bought in 1990 but which was grabbed from us by a mob of government supporters 10 years later in 2000. In the eight years since then I've never had any official written communication from the government of Zimbabwe about the farm - not even a letter informing me of the state acquisition of the property. I've never been offered or received any compensation for the assets seized. I am not talking about the land itself but about...

No Welcome mat22nd November 2008 Dear Family and Friends, Within half a kilometre of a main army barracks and in view of a steady stream of traffic and hundreds of people, a man lay next to a main road leading to the Harare airport this week. Barefoot, painfully thin and with thick, unkempt hair the man lay unmoving on the verge, his feet protruding into the busy road. Standing on the opposite side of the road four men in army camouflage stood hitch- hiking, choosing not to see the man lying a few steps away from them. Is this what...

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...

Dear Family and Friends, In the three weeks since a power sharing deal was signed between the winners and losers of Zimbabwe's election, nothing has happened except arguments. So many of us had such high hopes but these are fading fast. There is no sign of leadership, either from the old or the new, and all we hear is bickering and whining about wanting more mediation when all we really need is action. No one knows who is in charge, or who is going to be in charge of what and while this vacuum continues we have virtually turned into...

Hope Saturday 20th September 2008 Dear Family and Friends, On the evening of the 15th September 2008 I sat outside as dusk fell over Zimbabwe and I could almost hear a sigh of relief rising up from our broken country. It had been a day of such high expectation and with so much emotion that sitting quietly as the sun fell and the stars rose was necessary for the soul, to take it all in and to look back, and forwards. The "Zimbabwe Situation," as our collapse is called, started at different times for different people. For me it began...

Dear Family and Friends, If you come first in a running race, why would you give ninety-nine percent of the gold medal and prize money to the person who came second? The answer is obvious but as each day passes it seems the real winner, and the will of the majority of Zimbabweans is not going to be respected. The people and political party who came second in Zimbabwe's March 29th elections are simply not going to step down and their refusal to accept defeat has sent us into a dizzying collapse out of all control. The rich are getting...

Dear Family and Friends, The will of the people. It is impossible to believe that 140 days after Zimbabwe voted for an MDC Parliament and an MDC President the will of the people has yet to be accepted or implemented. After nearly five months we remain locked in a truly horrible state without sworn in legislators, without a parliament and without legitimacy. Everything around us is falling apart so fast now and yet the people and party in power for the last twenty eight years simply refuse to go. The electricity is now off more than on - in my...

Dear Family and Friends, Coming into Zimbabwe by road from South Africa is an experience not to be missed - for all the right and all the wrong reasons! As you approach Musina, the last South African town before the border with Zimbabwe, you are struck with a feeling of being in a place of great majesty and ancient history. Giant Baobab trees stand dramatically in the dry, scratchy scrub land. It's hard to take in their massive and strangely upside down appearance. They are leafless as summer approaches and you are left wondering if some great hand from above...

Dear Family and Friends, It is now clear that the will of the Zimbabwean people as expressed in the March 29th elections has been ignored and, as a result we find ourselves in the deepest crisis. Hundreds of people: men, women and children have started arriving at foreign embassies in Harare, begging for temporary refuge and humanitarian assistance. First it was the South African embassy, then the American embassy: crowds of people who are cold, tired, homeless, hungry and frightened and who have nowhere else to go and no one to turn to. They don't shout, scream, protest and demand,...

Dear Family and Friends, Every time the man insulted and complained in his ugly, raised voice, I could feel droplets of his spit on my neck. He was standing so close behind me that I felt distinctly uncomfortable. There must have been about twenty of us waiting in the queue at the supermarket but no one commented or said a word about the abusive tirade. The owners of this sort of behaviour are well known to us all and to stay safe we stay quiet. "Hey Manager," he shouted, "someone send for the manager. Why must I wait like this?...

Which way now? Saturday 24th may 2008Dear Family and Friends, They say that a picture speaks a thousand words and if that is true then a deafening roar filled the African sky this week. We have seen images so dreadful that they are haunting our thoughts and are etched into our memories. From The Zimbabwean newspaper comes the picture of a victim of political violence. A 22 year old woman beaten so badly that her buttocks have been reduced to cavernous holes." A mess of raw flesh" is the description used by Peter Oborne, the shocked writer who met Memory,...

Dear Family and Friends, This week I write about peculiar and mixed messages. This is very similar to what our lives have become here - disjointed, fragmented, confusing and almost always with nothing guaranteed. Everyone thought there would be an extension to the 21 days given by the Reserve Bank to hand in old currency and convert to the new money - that isn't really money and has been pruned of three digits. It seems we Zimbabweans haven't learnt a thing though, least of all the lesson that what we most expect is that which is least likely to happen....

Dear Family and Friends, I think that like most people I have an intense love hate relationship with Zimbabwe these days. It seems you have to go through all manner of hardships and horrors in order to truly be able to call yourself a Zimbabwean. These are Zimbabwe's rites of passage and they are not for the feint hearted. Land seizures; cancellation of title deeds; state acquisition of personal property and equipment; being removed from the voters roll; being called an 'alien' in the country of your birth and residence; having your own money seized from you by the state;...

Dear Family and Friends, On Friday morning, escorted by uniformed police, two young girls carried a banner through the Marondera town centre which proclaimed: "Protect Life On Earth." Behind them marched the Prison band in spotless bottle green uniforms with shining gold buttons and all carrying gleaming musical instruments. Behind the band came dozens of drum majorettes, young girls in bright and colourful uniforms. At the rear of the procession, which had bought the town to a standstill, were more police and an ambulance. There were reporters and ZBC TV camera men and on the Green tents had been erected,...

Dear Family and Friends, Two weeks into the change of Zimbabwe's currency and there is no shortage of horror stories about some of the things that have gone on. Stories of people being dehumanized at road blocks - ordered to strip and then being subjected to indecent searches in the hunt for concealed currency. Stories of multiple billions of dollars being seized, of mourners being ordered to open coffins and of huge bribes being demanded and given, to bypass the regulations and get old currency back into the banking system. The banks are full to bursting with depositors, the lines...

Dear Family and Friends, A friend recently sent an email describing how activists manage to cope in circumstances where fear, stress, insecurity and unrest continue for long periods of time. Determination, principle and routine, seem to be about the most important factors to consider. As the situation in Zimbabwe continues to deteriorate, more and more activists seem to be falling silent or just disappearing from sight. The recent split of the MDC has left most Zimbabweans feeling alone, betrayed and desperate about how to cope and which way to turn. It is now very difficult to keep depression and despair...

Dear Family and Friends, A friend of mine recently had occasion to visit a commercial farm that had been seized by the government for re-distribution. Just five years ago every acre of the farm had been involved in intensive agricultural production. Eggs, tobacco, beef, maize and mutton had come off this land every year. Over 50 men had been employed on this farm less than five years ago and these men, with their wives, children and extended families had lived and thrived on this property. And now, my friend who visited this farm recently, said that what he had seen...