agricultural fair in Harare

The formerly huge and well-known (very colonial) agricultural fair in Harare has lost a lot. It is comparingly small and not interesting.
However police and riot control are omnipresent, and so are batons.
and headlines like: stop power cuts = stop vandalism
...or the one on the left






From Associated Press, 30 August:

Price control authorities ban cattle auction at Zimbabwe agriculture showcase

Angus Shaw

Harare - Price control authorities banned a public livestock auction at Zimbabwe's main agriculture show Thursday, fearing it would make a mockery of price controls on beef that have forced meat off the shelves across the country, show officials and farmers said. Farmers expected to get the market value of at least double the government's price on commercial prime beef per kilogram and up to five times the fixed price on peasant-raised cows. The government had waived its fixed price on cattle for the long-awaited auction of about 160 animals, which was widely publicized in state media as one of the main attractions of the annual Harare Agricultural Show. Show officials said they were notified at the last minute the auction would not be allowed to go ahead. Most of the cattle were from peasant farms within about 100 kilometers, or 60 miles, of the showground arena.

Farmer in jail

On Monday the farmer I wrote about on august 26 spent the day in jail for unlawyully setting foot on his land, which was just taking off him for being a white farmer.

food situation getting worse and worse

Poor little children because there is really no milk and no formula at all to be found nowhere. I can live without milk or bread or eggs or oil but babys just can't live without their milk!

On a FAO meeting on food security in Zimbabwe I found out that more than half of the rural population of Zimbabwe suffer from malnutrition or/and food insecurity.

dishwashing liquid

yesterday I saw this huge advertisement for dishwashing liquid on the side of the road and I wondered why the company might be worried about not selling enough dishwashing liquid as it is almost the only thing you can buy in the supermarket.
so two possible explanations arouse in my head:

1. the ad was sponsored by the government because they want us to live on dishwashing liquid as possible and when everybody has enough for the next few decades and the shelves will be empty there will be food again.
2. the company has to sell as much dishwashing liquid as possible to be able to sell food at the low prices, the government has set and still be able to pay for the fuel that drive their generators.

Removing Mugabe won't mean democracy: opposition

From SABC News, 27 August

Removing Zimbabwean president Robert Mugabe would not automatically deliver democracy to the troubled African nation, said opposition leader Morgan Tsvangirai. Tsvangirai, whose campaigning against Mugabe has seen him brutally attacked, said a political culture of abuse and corruption needed to end before democracy could return. "Let's not get too preoccupied with Mugabe," Tsvangirai told Australian television today. "Let's be preoccupied with the political culture that has been instituted, which disrespects people, that violates people's rights, that undermines the economic well being of people. "So removing Robert Mugabe may suit our own egos but certainly it does not remove the political culture. Removing Robert Mugabe may not necessarily mean we have created democracy," he said. Tsvangirai said the killings and violence under Mugabe's regime was enough to take the Zimbabwe leader to court on criminal charges, but such action would only cause instability. "Given the choice between giving Mugabe amnesty and allowing him to leave so that we can get on with our lives and restore the stability of the country, I think people would chose that," said Tsvangirai. Mugabe had rigged elections over the past six years to maintain power and his grip on the country had led to political, economic and health crises, said the opposition leader. Aids kills almost 4 000 Zimbabweans a week, inflation is running at 14 000%, electricity is a luxury and about one million school-age children are not going to school, he said.

(...)

in the national park

in a national park

I have been to a national park near a lake just out of Harare today. Apart from the fact that they burnt all the surroundings down, including th entrance gate to the national park it is amazing how little people and how many wild animals we could spot.
3 of the supposedly 3000 rhinos that are left in southern africa, ostriches, zebras, different kinds of antelopes, fisheagles, kingfisher, a warthog and all sorts of birds that looked really nice.
Eventually we hactically packed our picknick bags back into the car because the rhinos were coming closer and closer. In vein, they didn't even get worried when the baby started crying.

cigarettes and beer

Who thinks cigarettes would be what we use instead of money now is mistaken. They are probably still too cheap.

However:

Beer stocks running out as Zimbabweans hit the bottle

Beer has joined the list of commodities fast running out in Zimbabwe, led by a high demand for lager - a sure sign of people hitting the bottle to drown economic hardships, a drinks company said yesterday. "We have witnessed an unprecedented demand for our lager beer products. Average sales are rising fast and approaching the 300 000 litres per day level," George Mutendadzamera, general manager, corporate affairs, of the country's biggest beverages producers, Delta Beverages, said in a statement. Last month alone, the level of beer consumption in the crisis-ridden nation was about 50% up on the similar period just a year ago. Mutendadzamera said the current high demand also pointed to a "worrying trend of alcohol abuse. (…)

(From The Star (SA), 25 August)

traffic, and...

Zimbabweans still don't seem to know the difference between long distance light and normal light. A lot of light is always good, they seem to think.

and sitting in the trunk or on the back of a pickup is en vogue. I do that too now. However some of those vehicles rather look like those refugee boats that regularly appear at the shores of sicily. and most of the busses that drive around here wouldn't even pass the elk test if there are no elks around.

farmers,...

I just heard the history of those (white) farmer- familiy who got 80% of their property taken away in 2001 and now the rest of it. Of course they are rich and of course they probably never payed for their land, but on this huge farm there had been many people employed that are now unemployed, there was a school and a kindergarten that doesn’t exist anymore, and lots of food had been produced on this land which is now not being used for anything.

Another farm story. A native zimbabwean just got a bit of land abot 50 km fout of harare, put up a fence and shortly later the giraffe was dead and 40 sable gone.

40 percent of Zimbabweans mentally ill

From Zim Online (SA), 24 August

By Prince Nyathi

Harare - About 40 percent of Zimbabweans suffer from mental disorders as a result of current economic hardships and the effects of Operation Murambatsvina, a top medical consultant has said. Dickson Chibanda, a consultant with the World Health Organisation and Ministry of Health, said cases of mental disorders have worsened since the 2005 controversial government slum eviction programme as well as ongoing economic hardships that have seen most Zimbabweans failing to meet daily needs. "In Zimbabwe latest data on common mental disorders indicated prevalence close to 40 percent. Operation Murambatsvina caused a lot of mental disorders to those who were forced out of their homes," he said. The internationally condemned Operation Murambatsvina (Drive Out Filth) displaced over 700 000 families and forced hundreds of children out of school.

According to Chibanda, a survey of Harare's low-income suburbs in 2006 showed a prevalence of 36 percent. A similar survey involving HIV patients utilising the opportunistic infection clinic at Harare Central Hospital yielded 44 percent mental problems incidence rate. He said the percentage of Zimbabweans suffering from mental health problems could be higher now due to the deteriorating economic climate in the country, which has seen inflation topping 7 634 percent last July, the highest in the world.

desperately looking for milk

Just been to this poosh white shops that don’t look very african but very colonial and expensive too. Image a perfectly white mercedes that looks like even the rims get polished every day on the car park in front of the café there on the red sand. That’s what it is like.

But they had milk at least.

white men and big cars

How can anyone in a shanty town believe western white people that they seriously want to do something for them and that we wanna share our wealth, knowledge or whatever with them if we always drive there with a big brandnew 4x4?
I personally would always feel like second class people then. Not to mention that in their eyes you are so rich that you could always help them out and still have enough to live well. Not that you wouldn't really want to help them but its still always you first. And they will possibly always feel that you can't understand them because you live in another safe world. and feel dependent on your moods and sympathies.
And even if this bloody car is absolutely necessary for the work you plan with them so that you can not only help 5 people but maybe 500, the feeling about it stays the same.
Does it really have to be like that?
What is the alternative?
Do nothing?
Go there with nothing in your hands but expertise and encouragement to really build something up together?

To all englishmen:

I haven't seen tee and milk for ages!

Cricketers told to eat only in hotels

From The Daily News (SA), 22 August

By Thando Ncube

Zimbabwean cricket authorities, in an attempt to mask the food shortages in Zimbabwe, have instructed the Proteas, to eat at the team hotel and not look for food outside. A Zimbabwe Cricket (ZC) official said they have made sure that there is enough good food at the team hotel for the Proteas and any player who went looking for food outside would be taking his own chances. "We have made sure that whatever the South Africans need in terms of food is there at the team hotel,"said the official.

miscellaneous

- From Zim Online (SA), 22 August Zimbabwe inflation hits 7 251.1 percent
I have to confess I have no idea what the inflation is. You just soomehow loose the sense of all those zeros on your banknotes

- Cutting down trees has become a new trend here because there have been power cuts so often. That makes the landscape quite interesting.

We talked with one of the women from Kambuzuma about politics. She believes what zimbabwean politics are saying. Shop owners are guilty because they did not sell food at low prices. That is why the government had to cut the prices down. But then the neither the industry nor the government can fill the gap because they have no fuel. And they have no fuel because of the “smud sanctions” that western countries are imposing on Zimbabwe. That is about what she said. She still wants a change though. And the reason is, she said, that she is confused, that politicians confused her.

Some more short stories and news:

Last week there was a blacklist of websites announced in the “Zimbabwe Independent”. It included amongst others: cnn and the american embassy in zimbabwe. How good that only few people have access to internet.

It sometimes happens, that you cannot get certain drinks, because of a lack of empty bottles. So please bring your empty bottles back in time!

I heard today, that some people died of diarrhoea in Harare due to contaminated water. Surprisingly they had water at all.

The government just announced it wanted to tackle the beef shortage in the country by reopening that had been shut down because they where not giving in to the price slash.

Shortage? Which shortage? I haven’t seen beef at all since I am this country.

BUT!

There was beer in the supermarket today! And I found bread, more specifically bread rolls in a shop for the first time since I am here.

I have been running today on the huge racecourse with modern stables and stands that is slowly moving to become wilderness again. As many things do here… It somehow reminds me of the book Collapse by Jared Diamond. Contrarily to that I have seen the golf club of Harare today. Quite nice! They even had bread! Of course we had to ask where from. They bake it themselves.

And that is also what we are trying to do here. So I keep trying to the make the sourdough perfect.

Aids Orphans in Kambuzuma

Selling food in front he house to survive

Aids Orphans in Kambuzuma

Aids Orphans in Kambuzuma

Aids Orphans in Kambuzuma

Aids Orphans in Kambuzuma

There are that many aids orphans. Nobody counts them, nobody knows who is infected or not. Just one example: Kambuzuma is just out of Harare. It is a suburb that was built in the sixties with about a thousend small houses containing two small rooms each and a little garden behind the house. they might even have electricity and water from the tap. there are about 17 inhabitants per house, mostly extended family, which basicly means grandma, aunts, oncles, cousins and many children, that are often orphants. It is not easy to get enough food for all of them considering an unemployment rate of over 80% in this area.

A lot of them don't really look healthy, but a ride in the bus to the hospital in town is very expensive for them. it is around 40€ cents. And then getting a blood test at the hospital just went up from 20 €Cents to about 3 €. And without this blood test you cannot get cheap antiretroviral drugs from the government. Which means that lady I have just seen will probably die very soon.

And even if not. Those cheap medicals are only given to you for one year. Then you have to renew the "free medical treatment" document, and that will only happen if your blood tesults are bad enough.

Starving in Zimbabwe 'amounts to genocide'

From The Daily Telegraph (UK), 21 August

By Sebastien Berger in Bulawayo

Zimbabweans are starving to death on a scale equivalent to genocide, a top opposition MP claimed yesterday. Four million people will need food aid by the end of the year, the World Food Programme said earlier this month, as President Robert Mugabe's Zanu PF government oversees the fastest-shrinking economy in the world. David Coltart, a senior member of the opposition Movement for Democratic Change, said there was "no doubt" Zimbabweans were already starving to death. "Arguably this is the world's greatest humanitarian crisis," he told The Daily Telegraph. "Zimbabwe has the lowest life expectancy in the world: 34 for women and 37 for men. To use a legal term, I would say this amounts to genocide with constructive intent. In terms of a complete disregard for the plight of people, not caring whether there is wholesale loss of life, it amounts to genocide."

Some observers believe that an internal coup in Mr Mugabe's divided Zanu PF party is the best, if not only, hope for change. But Mr Coltart, a lawyer and the MP for Bulawayo South, said: "I don't believe you can predict he will be gone in six months. It has been a mistake many have predicted in the past. If Zanu PF are happy with the notion of a vastly reduced economy with a powerful ruling elite living in a sea of poverty, then it is sustainable. There are several reasons Mr Mugabe has survived for so long. Few African leaders are prepared to openly condemn him despite the fact that, as Mr Coltart pointed out, "the overwhelming majority of the people who are dying as a result of the regime's policies are black Africans". Such sentiments were echoed by Kofi Annan, the former UN secretary-general, last month. "Africans must guard against a pernicious, self-destructive form of racism that unites citizens to rise up and expel tyrannical rulers who are white, but to excuse tyrannical rulers who are black," he said.

Zanu PF officials never miss an opportunity to denounce what they call the West's "illegal sanctions", blaming them for the country's turmoil - even though they only amount to a visa ban and asset freezes on named individuals. (...)

Zimbabwe has "safety valves" in South Africa and Botswana, he added. "Young people can vent their anger by going south. So you don't have the people who would be the vanguard of any uprising." But probably the main factor in Mr Mugabe's survival is, ironically, the very people who have fled his rule. With unemployment around 80 per cent, by some estimates three-quarters of Zimbabweans earning a living are doing so abroad, and their families survive on the money they send home. The funds also support the remains of the economy. (...)

That is not difficult to believe if you know that in Bulawayo, the second largest city of Zimbabwe, there is virtually nothing in the supermarkets. It is a Nbele region, that is probably why.

Zimbabwe's delivery from tyranny is far from certain

by

Chris McGreal

The shelves are bare except for what Zimbabwe's limping factories produce - baked beans at the cost of a month's salary, crisps rationed to two packets per shopper and all the cleaning fluid you want. The petrol pumps dried up a month ago. Water and electricity are off more often than they are on. The national currency has an expiry date of July 2007 stamped on it but it's worth hardly anything anyway, so nobody seems to care. Some Zimbabweans find a perverse comfort in all this because they believe, as the American ambassador put it, that Robert Mugabe is committing regime change on himself with his mad economics. It cannot get any worse, they say, but it can. As bad as Zimbabwe gets, it still seems that there is a long way to fall. Mobutu Sese Seko ran Zaire into the ground for more than two decades and was only removed by an invasion. Successive military governments plundered Nigeria, wrecking its economy and infrastructure and still retained power. Zimbabwe may be far from the tipping point.

That said, everyone except Mugabe and his inner circle seems to agree that with inflation accelerating so fast no one really knows what it is, and with much of the economy decamped to the black market and a system of bartering, total economic meltdown cannot be far off. The US ambassador's prediction sent a shudder through the upper echelons of Zanu PF (the ruling party) and prompted Mugabe to order the police and army into the shops to enforce the cutting of the prices of everything by at least half. While it demonstrated Mugabe's loose grasp of the causes of inflation, the efficiency with which reductions were imposed also showed that in some way he remains very much in control. Mugabe's neighbours are divided and even those bearing the brunt of his chaos appear paralysed. He arrived at the summit of southern African Presidents to thunderous applause. To many, he remains a liberation hero and it offends their African nationalism to see him pushed around by the Americans and British. The Angolans are behind him. The Zambians and South Africans are more critical, but Mugabe appears scornful of Thabo Mbeki's efforts to mediate a settlement between Zanu PF and the opposition. Zanu PF delegates simply didn't turn up for the first round of talks. When they did, there was little evidence they viewed them as anything more than a sop to Mbeki. Mbeki says he wants to reach agreement on terms for a free presidential election next year.

Why would Mugabe agree to that? He's spent seven years rigging elections precisely because he knows he's going to lose and has no intention of surrendering power - at least not to anyone outside Zanu PF. He can go into another election pretty much on his own terms and may not need to rig it so much after all. The opposition is weak and divided and has lost the confidence of the people. About one-third of the population is estimated to have walked out of the country, most to South Africa. That relieves pressure on the regime by removing some of those most likely to rebel, along with potential opposition voters. It also provides a steady stream of hard currency back to Zimbabwe. Mugabe appears to retain the loyalty of most of the security chiefs, partly because they are old comrades in arms, but also for more immediate interests. The central bank is little more than a cash dispenser for the elite who buy dollars at the official rate and sell them at 800 times more on the black market. Some of Mugabe's inner circle also have good reason to fear what will come next. The military and police chiefs have enough blood on their hands to face trial under another administration, although the opposition has offered an amnesty and power sharing in an effort to encourage Zanu PF to dump Mugabe.

Yet there are signs of discontent among those around Mugabe. Questions continue to swirl around the death of the head of the presidential security guard, Brigadier General Armstrong Gunda, who was supposedly killed when his car was hit by a train. Six days before Gunda was killed, about 15 members of his force were arrested and accused of plotting a coup, although not the general. Ordinary Zimbabweans are still trying to work out if there really was a coup plot or whether Mugabe was simply demonstrating once again that he still sets the agenda. But the mystery over Gunda hints at the direction any solution may have to come from. The region's leaders can't provide the solution, neither can Britain. Change will have to come from within and if the opposition can't do it, perhaps Zanu PF's survival instincts will kick in and it will ditch its greatest liability. But don't count on it happening soon.

From The Associated Press, 18 August

Harare - A private security guard attacked and killed a colleague he accused of stealing his bag of cornmeal amid acute food shortages in Zimbabwe, the official media reported Saturday. The arrest of Voice Tongotaya, 29, for alleged murder followed the deaths Wednesday of two people crushed in a stampede for sugar. Tongotaya allegedly slashed a co-worker repeatedly with a machete after his 10-kilogram (20-pound) bag of maize meal - a staple in Zimbabwe - went missing at a security company depot in the eastern border town of Mutare, the state Herald newspaper reported. A 20-pound bag of cornmeal cooked sparingly can last an average family about 10 days. Shortages of food and basic goods have heightened tensions in the southern African country where lengthy and unruly lines of shoppers waiting at stores and markets for food deliveries occur daily.

In Bulawayo on Wednesday, hundreds of people surged toward the gates of a yard where sugar was expected. The perimeter wall collapsed, killing a man and an infant. Police were called to one Harare supermarket Friday to quell mobs jostling for cornmeal. A few blocks away, youths in lines for transportation hurled rocks at passing cars and the few minibus taxis still operating, witnesses said. Gasoline shortages have crippled commuter transport since a June 26 government order to slash the prices of all goods and services in efforts to tame rampant inflation given officially as 4,500 percent, the highest in the world. The order has left shelves bare of cornmeal, bread, meat and other basics. Independent estimates put real inflation closer to 20,000 percent on goods still available, often through illegal black market trading, and the International Monetary Fund has forecast inflation reaching 100,000 percent by the end of the year.

In other signs of rising tension, earlier this month, two soccer matches were abandoned before the final whistle after violent fans invaded the field to protest refereeing decisions, and music fans trashed the venue at a show by top local musician Alec Macheso. Such actions generally are rare in Zimbabwe. At least 7,000 executives, business managers, traders and bus drivers have been arrested since June 26 for overcharging. Most have been briefly detained and fined, some have been sentenced to community service cleaning dilapidated government buildings and one, described in court as an unethical and unrepentant businesswoman, began an eight-month jail term this week. No deaths have been officially linked to worsening food shortages though doctors have reported an increase in conditions related to poor nutrition, contaminated water in the nation's collapsing sanitation facilities, daily water and power outages and shortages of basic drugs.

Zimbabwe daily curiosities

This Blog is designed to report about the real situation in Zimbabwe as it reveals itself to people living and surviving in this beautiful country. It wants to be an alternative to international press always telling the same stories and government sponsored propanda press trivializing the situation.

To start with, there is the striking difference between government sponsored and western media. People here read the first of both of course. Maybe that is the reason why pepole are still keeping quite quiet about the situation here.

a few everyday examples:

- rubbish wouldn't be collected because there is no fuel

- airline personnel cannot deliver your luggage when it arrives the day after you arrive at the airport (which almost always happens when you fly in from Jo'burg) because of the same reason

- if there is milk in the shops it will be rationalized to two half-litre bags per person so be sure to bring your dog

- at least there are loads of cornflakes, muesli and dishwashing liquid

- it is incredibly cheap to phone overseas on landline from here, only that it will take you a few days to be lucky enough that the one-and-a-half existing lines are free.

- just get used to having power cuts 60% of the working day

- the minimum salary per month is worth about a loaf of bread. how good that you cannot get bread anyway.

- be aware that it might happen to you every day that you have to stop because the president is crossing the road

BUT

Zimbabwe is still one of the most advanced countries in Africa. There is electricity all over the country. There are proper roads all across the country. There are skyscrapers, supermarkets, street laterns and golf clubs.

And it is still safe to walk on the streets of Harare.