Mugabe taking begging bowl to China

LINK

BEIJING. 29 Jul 2005. The Zimbabwe Independent newspaper reports that President Robert Mugabe plans to lead a high-powered delegation to China in search of a "comprehensive economic rescue package."

Mugabe is expected to meet Chinese President Hu Jintao and Prime Minister Wen Jiabao for talks that would cover a "wide range of issues." But his main aim, the newspaper reports, is to secure an economic rescue package to deal with an array of problems in Zimbabwe.

The country is reported to be suffering a shortage of foreign currency, needed to buy critical supplies such as fuel. because of its poor export performance.

The newspaper says Mugabe wants to take advantage of his close ties with the Chinese, which date back to the liberation struggle during the 1970s when Beijing trained and armed Zanu PF's military wing, Zanla....

Demolitions halted...for now

LINK

...."The demolition of illegal structures has been temporarily suspended with Government giving owners of such structures 10 working days - starting on Monday - to regularise them with council," the Herald said.

"Operators of unlicensed business ventures - including those who have converted their homes into offices or for other purposes - should promptly have them licensed and take immediate steps to pay the relevant taxes with the Zimbabwe Revenue Authority," it added.

The announcement offers temporary relief to residents in Harare's once prosperous suburbs who had started pulling down their own home-based kiosks after police warned their crackdown on illegal structures would be extended to new areas....

Sounds like they read my previous post saying they could make more money by taking bribes (aka "relavant taxes") than by just trearing them down...

The China connection

LINK

PDF LINK FULL REPORT

In a document released by the archbishop's office - entitled "State in Fear - Zimbabwe's tragedy is Africa's shame" co-authored by the archbishop and Roger Bate, who is the resident fellow at the American Enterprise Institute at Washington DC and Richard Tren, who is director, Africa Fighting Malaria, in Johannesburg - they argue the controversial clean up campaign "has pointed to the removal of local competition threatening newly-arrived Chinese businessmen whose stores sell cheap and often poor quality goods".

Influx of Chinese citizens

The document reports that Chinese investors in Zimbabwe were reported to have interests in Hwange colliery, electricity generation and platinum mining.

They note too that the Zimbabwean government had purchased goods from China "such as three commercial airplanes, buses, K-8 jet trainers and military vehicles, small armaments and riot control equipment".

China was also a major backer of the ruling Zanu-PF military campaign during the war against the former regime of Prime Minister Ian Smith.

New authority

Assessing the consequences of the operation - which has devastated both Harare and Bulawayo's informal settlements as well as informal businesses in recent weeks - the three noted that the licensing of stallholders had been taken out of the control of city councils - which were dominated by opposition Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) members - and applications were now being dealt with by inter-ministerial committees.

Land vacated by razed settlements has already been pegged out for houses to be built "which are reportedly being reallocated to police, army and party officials, which is consistent with Mugabe's past method of rewarding those who do his grizzly bidding", said the report.

AEI is right wing think tank, but usually puts out economic stuff...again, since I know nothing about economics, I report, you decide...

Spying on Zimbabwe

How does one "spy" on a poor country? Did they have new stealth airplanes and tell someone? or perhaps they stole a new tobacco plant? Or did they discover UFO wreckage that Mugabe was covering up? Exactly what is there in Zimbabwe that is a state secret?

LINK

Zimbabwe accuses church delegation of spying

By Africa correspondent Zoe Daniel

State media in Zimbabwe is claiming a South African church delegation which visited the country this week was funded by British spy agencies.

Oh, they were funded by spy agencies...Proof? Proof? we don't need no stinkin proof...

Citing government sources, the state-run Herald newspaper says the South African Council of Churches delegation was funded by a Zimbabwe-based British spy.

Let's see...a British Spy in Zimbabwe transferred a couple thousand dollars to the African council of churches to send the delegation...Paper trail? Wouldn't it have been more efficient for the Brits to have the money send thru a rich South African spy? Naah...too logical...

The newspaper reports that criticism from the delegation was part of a British campaign to bring about regime change in Zimbabwe.

Church leaders returned to South Africa highly critical of the Mugabe Government's demolition campaign which has left hundreds of thousands of people homeless.

The newspaper has previously accused Britain of using chemical warfare to cause climate change and drought in Zimbabwe.

I "fisked" a previous article with this absurd claim...saying that even Art Bell's conspiracy buffs would blame it on HAARP, not on "chemical warfare"...but we're not talking about logic here...

The Herald says a multi-million dollar shopping centre in Harare will be the next to be demolished because it was erected without the proper permits.

Heck, even in the Philippines, we don't demolish multi million dollar shopping centers for having no permits...we merely ask for a huge bribe not to close the place down for not having proper papers...come on, guys, why destroy it when you can make all sorts of money from bribes?

On the other hand, as I noted earlier, they are not merely "cleaning up" the cities, since rural markets have also been destroyed...a fact not reported widely...so this is probably merely an ideological destruction of the government's enemies...

Mugabe defends demolitions

LINK

The government has said the campaign, called "Operation Restore Order," was intended to clean up cities and help end crime and illegal trading in foreign currency and scarce commodities. It has been extended to more affluent areas.

And my friends report that rural markets have also been destroyed...

Mugabe said the government was moving swiftly to provide houses for those affected by the operation.

"Let's move as quickly as we can, so that people can see that in areas where land was subdivided into plots...houses have now arisen," said Mugabe.

Hmmm...did he suddenly import thirty thousand mobile homes? building houses takes time...and building a decent house might take a day, and longer for the electricity, water, and windows to be placed.

"There will be joy on the part of those who did not have homes, joy on the part of those who had homes which could not accommodate fully their families. Let's bring about that joy and we shall erase this image of a Zimbabwe that is in ruins."

Easy to say, hard to do...

The crackdown took place against the backdrop of a deepening economic crisis marked by acute shortages of foreign currency, fuel and food.

But if he built all those houses, he must have a lot of bricks...and cement...and wood...and glass...and tiles...and pipes...and electric cables...

Here is the story from the other side:

LINK:

BULAWAYO, 14 July (IRIN) - With a child tied on her back and a plate in her right hand, Florence Chilufya joins a winding food queue in an overcrowded yard at a township in Bulawayo, Zimbabwe's second city.

Although children, the elderly and the terminally ill are given first preference, the 39-year-old widow is confident that she will get a helping. "We have two meals a day: we eat in the morning and in the evening. There are many of us and, at times, if you are at the back of the queue you seem to panic, thinking that the food will get finished before you are served but everyone always gets something," Chilufya said. She is among the estimated 375,000 left homeless by the cleanup campaign launched in mid-May, which the authorities have claimed was part of an urban renewal strategy that will eventually build 10,000 homes at a cost of US $300 million.

Let's see...375 thousand homeless, and they plan to build 10,000 homes...that means each home would need to house 37 people...

Again, a history lesson, from the book The Reason Why...discusses the landlord in county Mayo who saw the overcrowding on his property, and decided the people would do better if these numerous people on tiny plots were replaced by small farmers with decent sized plots and more modern farming techniques...so when the potato famine came, and his Irish tenants couldn't pay the rent, they merely tore down the houses and threw them out...

And 150 years later, those of us descended from the survivors of county Mayo (myself, and Bob Geldolf) remember our history...so don't expect us to welcome Mugabe's fancy plans that ignore the suffering of the displaced poor...

And just as an FYI: When I traveled in County mayo, much of the land has no farms, but is now forest. So much for hard hearted utopian economic planning.

Economics 202: Is socialism the problem?

Thomas Sowell says yes, but then he is quite right wing.

However, this Becker Posner blog article says the same thing.

We report, you decide...

Peaceful protest is possible

Here's a BBC report of a small but peaceful protest in the Philippines.

LINK

It is "small" becauseboth of the people power revolutions had a million people demonstrating peacefully...

And Gloria (the prez of the Philippines) is only accused of stuffing the ballot box...

I posted this to put things into perspective.

Yes, we have about a murder a day of rural politicians, usually by the local communists.
Yes, we have corruption.
Yes we have shantytowns burnt down, usually by "accidental fires", but those displaced are usually aided by locals and churches and government officials, not told to go home to their villages.

But the chaotic democracy is viable here...the lack of protests to destroying thousands of homes is not a normal response of a free people to a government bully...

And now my friends say the destruction is not limited to Harare or even the larger cities, and that rural markets are being destroyed...

South africa wants to understand

LINK

"The deputy minister is the numbers' person. We need to understand what we are dealing with...and have it confirmed," she said.

Zimbabwe is in the throes of its worst economic crisis since independence from Britain in 1980, blamed on mismanagement by Mugabe's government. Mugabe denies the charges and accuses his domestic and international opponents of sabotaging the once prosperous country.

The economic crisis has deepened since the controversial March 31 parliamentary elections which gave Mugabe's ruling ZANU-PF party a two-thirds majority amid opposition charges of vote rigging.

Zimbabwe's petrol pumps have virtually run dry in recent weeks and the former regional bread basket has had to import 1.8 million tonnes of the staple maize crop after a late season drought destroyed most of its crop.

Zim's challenge to the left

LINK

Alas, it is written in the dialect of "leftist idological gobblygook" and is almost impossible to read...here's one of the less extreme examples of the jargon you have to wade thru to see his point:

For intellectuals working from within a historical materialist framework this is enormous challenge, but one that has to be faced if the analysis of the specificities of a concrete political situation is not to appear like a voluntarist addition to structuralist assumptions, with little organic basis in such analyses. Moreover this weakness will have serious political effects, particularly in the failure to understand the force of particular discourses, and the hegemonic reach of, potential or actual, of post-colonial elites in the region. This applies for example to constructions of Nationalism and Race in the region, to which the discussion now turns.

the best stuff are the quotes from Moyo, who at least can speak/write basic English...
Much of the negative fallout from the occupations movement, including its short term gain, has to be weighed more seriously against the longer term gains to the broader democratisation process, of creating space for awareness and participation in the basic social struggles hitherto dominated by formal state structures and urban civil society.

Translation: people will have to suffer to make a paradise....

Alas, the twentieth century is washed in the blood of democides by social engineering in the name of long term goals.

I believe the article is saying that human rights activists have to condemn the evils being done in the name of good....

South Africa deports Zim refugees

LINK
the news story makes a big thing about two people dying...but heck, stressed out malnourished people die quite easily. The big thing in this story is this line:

Correspondent Don Mafingenyi said over a 1000 refugees were forcibly deported from Lindela by the South African authorities last week, in spite of protestations.

If 1000 were deported, then how many refugees are in South Africa?

Mafingenyi was part of the large group that was deported. He said he was wrongfully arrested in Johannesburg on a visit there from Botswana and described the experience as 'shocking'

He said Zimbabwean refugees, detained as various centres in South Africa, are treated like criminals. Speaking to us from Gaborone on Monday after making his way through Zimbabwe, Mafingenyi saw first hand the dehumanising conditions detainees are made to live in.

Iran LOVES Mugabe

LINK

....The Iranian ambassador, for his part, highlighted the increase in the level of trade exchange between the two countries and said the Islamic Republic of Iran has supported Zimbabwe under various circumstances.

Proverb: You are known by the friends you keep...

Highlighting Iran's scientific breakthrough in recent years,

Quick: Name one major scientific breatkthru that occured in Iran....waiting...waiting....

he highlighted the close cooperation in the fields of research and academic centers as well as role of Iranian women in scientific sector.

The two sides agreed to follow up expansion of scientific and research cooperation by signing relative MoUs during the fifth meeting of Iran-Zimbabwe Joint Economic Commission in Tehran.

Mo'ayyer had earlier on July 2, too, met and conferred with Zimbabwean Minister of Foreign Affairs Simbarashe Mumbengegwi in the city of Harare on matters of mutual concerns.

During the meeting, Mumbengegwi expressed his gratitude to Iran for dispatching a high-ranking delegation to supervise Zimbabwe's parliamentary election held on March 31.

I'm sure that they honestly "supervised" the election...Like Mugabe, they stuffed the ballot boxes after intimidating voters, but Mugabe could learn a lot from them....after all, unlike Mugabe, they didn't let the opposition on the ballot in the Iranian elections...

The ruling Zimbabwe African National Union-Patriotic Front (ZANU-PF) won the election.

The minister said the election shed light on Zimbabwe's stances toward democracy, implementation of laws, and human rights against the US and Britain.

Yup. Zimbabwe's stances toward democracy and implemention of laws and human rights....

Mugabe resists African pressure to talk with opposition

LINK
July 13, 2005 ZIMBABWEAN President Robert Mugabe is rejecting pressure from fellow African leaders to re-start talks with the opposition on political reforms, the state-run Herald said overnight.

Nigerian President Olusegun Obasanjo, the current chair of the 53-nation African Union, met Mugabe twice last week on the sidelines of a AU summit in Libya to press him to re-open negotiations with the opposition Movement for Democratic Change (MDC).

South African President Thabo Mbeki also held a meeting with Mugabe in Sirte to push for crisis talks with MDC leader Morgan Tsvangirai, the newspaper said.

But Mugabe's spokesman George Charamba was quoted in the report as saying that the only contact that the government would have with the MDC would be in parliament.

tearing down the house

LINK
People are now tearing down their houses before the bulldozers come, so they can salvage things.

UN pushing abortion...ignoring genocide

Well, aside from the four horsemen of war, anarchy, famine and plague, what is the real problem for Africa?

They need help to abort their children....LINK

And another site said the UN added abortifactant drugs to the "necessary medicines".

But the abortion pills are no better than the local herbs, and have the same problem: Incomplete abortion, with hemorrhage and infection.

If I am sarcastic, it is because twenty years ago, when I worked in Africa, every village had a "pill lady", but until we got a grant from Germany, there were no wells to supply water in the dry season...and until we got a grant from Oxfam, there were no village health workers to give out rehydration fluid.... I support family planning, but only if you can guarantee the children born actually don't die of other diseases...the fact our women could get the pill, but not clean water, makes one wonder about priorities...

Oh yes: The public health nurse who supervised the village health workers (and ran our under fives clinic for immunizations) was Sister Patricia Walsh....

Now the cleanup goes into rural areas

LINK

.....Sebastian Matema, headman for Matema village castigated the impending demolitions saying they were uncalled for. "I was born here and now I am 58 years old. We have been elbowed out of our fathers' land. Svinurai suburb has taken our fields," he said.

Ray Zhanje, the headman for Zhanje village asked: "I don't know what they mean when they say people will be removed. What will be the role of the chief?"

Farai Matema, who lives in Matema village, described the move as vindictive and retributive to perceived Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) supporters.

"We thought the operation was a clean-up in urban areas but for them to come to the rural areas is senseless. Where will we go? They are talking of development at growth points but there is no industry here (Dema) save for a few bottle stores,"

A 69-year-old woman who only identified herself as Mbuya Marikopo bemoaned the manner in which the government was acting and was worried about the graves of her relatives.

Scores of graves, which predate the road, are adjacent to the road.

Chief Seke pleaded for some of the houses to be spared but the DA dismissed his plight saying it was impossible to accede to his request.

"I am sorry chief, if they don't have the papers they will be removed," Mubaira said.

Meanwhile police continued to demolish housing structures around the country last week despite claims by the government that the controversial "clean-up" exercise had been stopped to pave way for the construction of houses.

The government launched "Operation Garikai/ Hlalani Kuhle" under which it says $3 trillion has been set aside for the building of houses to replace those demolished by the "clean-up exercise".

In Bulawayo, the demolitions were still taking place in the high-density suburbs of Gwabalanda, Luveve and Emakhandeni, while in Harare cottages were on Thursday destroyed in Westwood and Epworth.

The demolitions continued in the country despite the presence of UN special envoy, Anna Kajumalo Tibaijuka, who was here to assess the impact of the operation. She left Harare yesterday......

Why Mbkei loves Mugabe

LINK

But Mbeki travels alone. Civic leaders in South Africa - from Nelson Mandela to Archbishop Desmond Tutu to Cosatu, the powerful trade union congress, opposition parties and even members of Mbeki's cabinet - have expressed outrage at human rights abuses in Zimbabwe.

Mbeki and his fast-diminishing coterie in the ruling ANC have refused to budge. Even when senior South African election observers were beaten up by pro-Mugabe youths in the 2002 elections, Mbeki ensured that the team declared the election free and fair.

In November last year, after Tutu questioned 'quiet diplomacy', Mbeki attacked him as having no respect for the truth. On its website the ANC sought to discredit Tutu, accusing him of having been a struggle hero of the West and white South Africans - not South Africa's black masses. Last year Mugabe called Tutu 'an angry, evil and embittered little bishop'.

Even Mandela has declared that people like Mugabe 'want to die in power because they have committed crimes'.

Cosatu - the country's biggest trade union federation and an ally of the ANC - has been accused of recklessness for its Zimbabwe human rights campaign. After being kicked out of the country on a fact-finding mission last year, secretary- general Zwelinzima Vavi said: 'Nepad - the New Partnership for Africa's Development - will stand no chance if a government such as Zimbabwe willingly disregards its own laws in this manner. The continent will go nowhere if its leaders can act with impunity.'

Mbeki knows this. He knows too that he stands alone in South Africa on Zimbabwe. The business community, which backed 'quiet diplomacy', now calls on him to speak out.

At the centre of this is his belief that calls for Mugabe's departure are racially motivated. He will not be lectured to by the West.

'It is clear some within Zimbabwe and elsewhere in the world, including our country, are following the example set by [Ronald] Reagan and his advisers to "treat human rights as a tool" for overthrowing the government of Zimbabwe and rebuilding Zimbabwe as they wish. In modern parlance, this is called regime change,' he said in a letter after the Commonwealth meeting.

In just the past few weeks of mass evictions in Zimbabwe about 300 people have died. More than 1.5 million are homeless. All are black. Where is Mbeki's solidarity with them?

Nope. Marxism requires blind faith...I see nooothiiing....it's blair's fault...it's bush's fault....

· Justice Malala

South African clerics to visit Zim

LINK

LINK

Nice...but I suspect the real problem will be in the rural villages.

You see, Hatfield had reports of what was being done...but many of those displaced will go to their home villages, where there is little food, due to the poor rains and no harvest. So they will die. They will die of HIV (untreated) but mainly from "famine" disease, like diarrhea/cholera. Or minor wounds. You see, when there is no rain, the local water supplies are far (no running water, but two miles away, you go to a mudhole to get water) and dirty, so you die of diarrhea. Your nutrition is lousy, so you die of minor infections (colds become pneumonia, cuts lead to sepsis) and don't forget that major killer: Tuberculosis...babies are especially suseptible...but adults will die also, but will not be counted as "famine deaths" since they didn't die of starvation (This is nothing new...in the Irish potato famine, one million died of hunger, but hundreds 0f thousands died of cholera or on the "coffin ships" and often are not counted among the dead...and contributing to the death rate was the fact that those not paying rent had their houses torn down, so many died of exposure).

So the headlines "Five killed in Hatfield" are not the problem.

And unless these clergy bother to go beyond the Potempkin villages, they won't see the deaths either.

Food aid? We don't need no stinkin' food aid

LINK

JOHANNESBURG, 8 Jul 2005 (IRIN) - Despite an estimated 4.5 million Zimbabweans needing food aid this year, the government insists there is no need to launch an official appeal for international assistance.

"No state of disaster will be declared, and there are no plans to appeal for food aid," Leonard Turugari of the ministry of public service, labour and social welfare, told delegates at a regional food security meeting in Johannesburg, South Africa, on Friday.

The two-day gathering of government representatives, UN agencies and NGOs from the region aimed to tackle specific challenges arising from a decline in agricultural production in recent years....

Although there were no plans on the table to ask the international community to step in and kick-start a general food distribution programme, Turugari said the "door was not closed to donors". NGOs could continue giving assistance to the vulnerable, provided they worked "within their mandates".

International NGOs operating in Zimbabwe have come under fire from the government for allegedly using food aid to campaign for the opposition Movement for Democratic Change (MDC); on the other hand, the MDC has claimed that the government used food as a political weapon by withholding it from perceived opponents.

When asked if there was a guarantee that the 1.2 million mt of imported maize, which is to be distributed by the state-controlled Grain Marketing Board, would be channelled to the most vulnerable, Turugari said there was "no evidence to the contrary".

To quote Rummy: The absense of evidence is not the same as the evidence of absense...all you need to do is keep people from reporting the truth..

He also commented that, contrary to reports, the scarcity of basic commodities was due to producers hoarding essential items.

I just read the book "Hungry ghosts" about the massive Chinese famine caused by the economic/farm policies of the "great leap forward" of Chairman Mao...and that famine, like the earlier Russian famines of the early 1920's, was blamed on food hoarders also...

The 64 million dollar question

LINK

Make poverty history – or make dictators history?

Sokwanele Comment: 7 July 2005

A banner erected along a main road in Scotland, a short distance from where the G8 leaders are meeting. This and the image below was sent to Sokwanele by an activist in the UK who asked that we let Zimbabweans know that "we are listening and we care about what is happening to innocent Zimbabweans".

Leaders of the world's richest 8 countries have gathered at Gleneagles in Scotland to discuss two matters of global significance - how to protect planet earth from irreversible environmental damage, and how to rescue the African continent from debilitating and dehumanizing poverty. While acknowledging that the two issues are inter-related, and in no way wishing to detract from the importance of the first, our main concern here is with the second issue.

The poverty issue has been highlighted in recent weeks by an international campaign under the banner "Make Poverty History", which culminated in the Live 8 concert and mass marches of last weekend. In Scotland alone a crowd of some 225,000 people marched behind banners calling for debt relief, more aid and improved trading terms for Africa. The Live 8 concert brought together an impressive international ensemble of singers and bands, and it is estimated that 5 billion people around the world watched the spectacle on television. Enough to make the point to the world leaders gathered at their plush resort in Scotland that there is enormous interest in the topics under discussion, and great expectations that significant moves will be made to rescue Africa from the debt trap.

A great deal of international lobbying has already been done in preparation for the summit on the issue of debt relief, and a clear consensus seems to be emerging among the most technologically advanced and wealthy nations that Africa deserves a break. At a popular level in the West there is massive support for debt cancellation, and some governments have already pledged to write off all, or a significant part of, historic debts and to increase the level of aid to the continent. There has been noticeably less offered in the way of what in the longer term is of greater importance to the economies of Africa, namely improved trading terms. Nonetheless there remains a considerable amount of goodwill and a clear determination to help lift Africa out of poverty. The discussion is already down to specifics in many cases and the economies of the most indebted countries have been closely examined to determine where and how debt relief should be applied.

The one country in Africa which has been conspicuously omitted from the discussion is of course Zimbabwe. The reasons for this are obvious. The Zimbabwean economy is in terminal decline. All the economic indices are negative. Plummeting industrial and agricultural output, soaring inflation, unemployment and national debt - all combine to give Zimbabwe the unenviable reputation of having the fastest shrinking economy in the world. Surely a prime candidate for international aid - except, as we all know, this is a man-made crisis......

Go to link for entire article...

An ordinary day

LINK

A New day in the life of a Zimbabwean

Yesterday I caught a cold and today I woke up with a cramp; it isn't very comfortable sleeping at a friend's couch with one blanket in this cold winter. Of course you might already be asking why I'm sleeping on a couch, well, the thing is, this is not my house and it is crowded as it is. So maybe again you ask why I'm not sleeping in my own house? Good Question!

See my cottage was demolished by Operation Murambatsvina (Operation 'we don't want dirt')on Thursday last week, so I had to move in with a friend since I had nowhere else to go. At least I didn't have to do the urban-to-rural migration that most peeps who have been hit by the tsunami (which is what we now call the Operation Murambatsvina these days). Not that its a major benefit that I'm still living in the 'bright lights'. Only the day before yesterday we had no electricity at night, I don't know whether this is one of those rationing cut-offs or someone at the power company forgot to put the switch to 'ON' before knocking off from work.

Anyways, that day, the day of the powercut day, I had to buy bread (or at least I wanted to), I rushed out to the nearest tuckshop by the corner, which was.... you guessed it, tsunamised ! So there was no way in Zim I could get bread there, so I put my tail between my legs and went back home to hope that ZESA would just come back before I sleep so I can eat something warm. And so the story goes, I slept, with no power and no food in my stomach.

That's then. Today I woke up with a cramp, you see I'm still trying to master the art of sleeping on the couch in someone else's house. These days I have cancelled breakfast, because the typical breakfast that I can afford: Three slices of bread with two cups of very sweet tea and occasional fried egg; has become impossible to prepare. The last time I saw sugar it was being sold from the back of TM supermarket with a long queue winding to the front of the shop. Cooking oil is rare. I have seen some brands that look like imported stuff going at unearthly prices which are quite out of reach. The only bread that you get these days has a name like 'Super white' or 'Special Milk bread' and also going at not so humanly prices. So there goes my breakfast.

So after bathing I had to rush to the bus stop. I have, by the way, parked my Mazda 323 1999 model in a fuel queue at Wedzera Filling Station in Samora Machel. Its been 7 days now with the tank dry and no supply of fuel. I got to the bus stop at 6:30am, I needed to be at work by 8. I was lucky to get a gonyeti (a haulage truck) that was coming into town. The other day my trousers got hooked on some metal and got torn I had to go back home and change.

On the way to work we were talking about the tsunami (our Murambatsvina), how this clean-up should have been done, how some police were being beaten by zvitokoroshi (goblins of some sort) in some of the shacks they were destroying. Which, I was being told, is the reason why they no longer destroy anything but want you to demolish your own stuff.

When I got to the office I tried to call my pal, but I'm on this cellphone network that has recently 'successfully upgraded their systems to give better service', so what happens is I have to try 10 times before I get through. Of late it has been behaving strange, when I do get through, the other person could not hear me at all even though I could hear them clear.

But anyway, I called him to find out if he had had any breakthrough with getting fuel, I needed about 5 litres to move my Mazda 323 from that filling station to another one that has been pouring at night. He told me that for some ZW$ x00,000.00/per litre I could get something on the other market they usually called 'black'. I had no option so I said OK, but hopefully I will have it tomorrow.

I also tried to look for accommodation, its not safe anymore to rent a cottage at some dude's place cause you don't know when tsunami will strike. Flats in the Avenues have reviewed prices drastically so I wont be able to afford it there.

So now as I'm sitted here writing this, I'm thinking about the 3-5 combi's that will take me home. Well, small combi's are being banned so it'll be even more tricky. But I'm not complaining, this is life. This is the new way we are living it down here in our lovely Zimbabwe.