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Published: October 15th 2005
Waiting
Hours are spent waiting in this country, just to make it home or to work.Today, we finally got out of the city to see how the majority of Zimbabweans live. There are many things to explain about life here. Going to Ethiopia and Zimbabwe is like night and day. The main reason is Ethiopia was the only country, in all of Africa, that wasn’t colonized by another country. The lay out of the country supports this. What I mean is, there really is not a civil plan. Their buildings and communities are just dotted around the city in no kind of order. 90% of the streets have no name so, a new person really struggles to get around within the city.
Harare, on the other hand, was under Great Britain until independence in 1980. It looks very much like any western city you would visit. Civil planners designed this city and it could pass as any modern city in the US, except for a few things. One, it would be 98% black, there are Whites and Indians that live here, but so few that they really stand out. The whites used to be in control and had much of the wealth until independence.Then many of the white population moved to South Africa, when Robert
People wait for the buses
Most have been in line 5 to 6 hours and it late in the day. If the bus never comes they will start over the next day! Mugabe took power.
Another, would be the lack of basic supplies a city needs to function. Harare is lacking in many areas. It was amazing to see people by the thousands stand along the roads waiting for rides. There were drivers that would pick them up, if lucky, but thousands lined up for buses. The buses might or might not come. People were hoping to get home or to work. A worker in our hotel told me that for him to get to work by 8am, he must leave and pray one of the few buses came, by 4 am. He was still late to work that day.
The problems that have happened in this country are very sad. I fear things are on the verge of boiling over. There could be another bloody African war between those in power, and those not. In the early 90’s the country boomed with tourism and industry. They produced platinum and gold. But now years later, their money is worth almost nothing. The black market is operating in the country. This means twice the normal (official) rate for exchange, foreign cash flow is very low, which makes it difficult to
Waiting for fuel
Most of the cars in line are already out out of gas, so everyone works together to push each car forward as the line moves. get goods and services there.
Tourism is non-existence; on my flight into Harare there were 3, yes, people besides our group of 4. The airport was a ghost town, the hotels and restaurants are empty of tourists. The tour operators are going out of business. The main reason is a severe fuel shortage, like I have never seen before. You are only allowed so much petrol. Maybe 40-50 cars line up at gas stations, until the station runs out of gas. The people leave their cars and come back early the next day, to hopefully get a few liters of fuel. With no gas, it cripples business's. They can’t get their workers to their jobs. It is difficult to get imports, since this is a land locked country.There are very limited in and out going flights from the larger airlines that would normally service Harare. So the country is like it’s own prisoner.
Of course as in all societies, there are the very wealthy. Their suburbs would rival any well to do suburbs in the US. But, even these people are feeling the strain of the situation and are starting to rumble with discontent. The ones
who are less affected by the weakened economy are the rural people. The reason is you can’t take away what you have never had. This is Robert Mugabe's strength, rural people, who vote for him because they have not felt the impact of his decisions. They have never had a car, so gas is not of value to them. They live off their lands so the lack of food items in the stores is without concern. The rural people have never had any money, so the weakened Zim dollar, also doesn’t phase them. So they vote again and again for the same man, mainly because they know his name.
The other terrible thing that many have heard about, in Harare, the city council is bulldozing thousands and thousands of people's homes and businesses. They have ordered that all homes without a “plan” will be destroyed. (A plan according to most is a link to the government in which your house will be spared.) Thousands are homeless and have no way to make money. What is even worse, they were promised until July to get out and the bulldozers came two months early. The bulldozers literally destroyed everything that the
people owned, leaving them not only homeless, but with nothing to even start over.
I witnessed the huge areas all around the city and countryside where you still see people wandering around picking through demolished houses, seeing if there is anything worth saving. The rationale behind this movement is that it was unattractive to see the many squatter towns around Harare, even though those areas have stood for decades. Most think is it a power play by the govenment to show their strenght.
I also found their health care system in as much disrepair. The hospital I went too was as large as any major hospital in any city in the US. It was older with many repairs that needed to be done, but overall, in very good shape compared to the ones that I had visited in Ethiopia.
The problem is there is almost no medicine to treat the sick . Many of the high tech medical equipment acquired in the 90’s when the country was prosperous is broken and unable to be fixed. This is due to the difficulty of getting both parts and qualified people to fix it. With the HIV crisis reaching
The babies...
I got to play with the lion cubs that were rescued from the bush, they loved my camera strap and tried to climb up my leg. You "almost" want to bring one home until you look at the adults and think, Maybe not!!!! 1 in 4 adult under the age of 37, and Malaria, TB and the many African illness's affecting the people, their system like many countries on the continent is overwhelmed.
My driver discovered what I was doing in Zimbabwe and started to tell me about his nephew. He is his guardian, since both parents, died of HIV years ago. He described symptoms to me that his child was having. He told me he had never had an HIV test. Yet, each symptom to me screamed louder that, this is what the child needed. He was diagnosed with TB, but any doctor in Africa knows that TB goes hand in hand with HIV. To treat one without the other is almost a crime. I suggested he have his child tested and to ask for Level 1 drugs, if he is positive. I feel bad because based on the symptoms that the child was having, and his age, he probably is full blown AIDS. Who knows what the outcome will be. The reason I think he went untested for so long is because for the state it is very expense and difficult to get Anti- retrovirals. The longer they can
put off a diagnosis, the more money can be saved. Clearly this child should have been on something, at least as far back as his TB diagnosis, but somehow he was missed. I hope he doesn’t have to pay with his life.
I have never been anywhere where HOPE is hiding. (I believe in HOPE, but sometimes you have to look hard for it and this place it hides well.) What I mean is the future is still very cloudy. President Mugabe is in office until 2008 and shows no course of weakening his policies. The people are getting more and more restless with the very harsh realities their lives offer. The numbers for Malaria, TB and HIV grow. It is like a ticking time bomb, but most point out that the “peoples” power is limited, with no money or guns, which the government holds tight too. So what is the future for this forgotten nation of 30 million, who knows? I do know that the people and the culture are wonderful. The land is beautiful and the potential is endless. It was really sad to leave not knowing what will become of this nation.
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Ruth Ellsworth
non-member comment
Your trip
Kim - it is impossible to tell you how your writings are telling a story that's needed to be told for so long - I'm posting your comments on our "church prayer/comment board and I can't tell you how the people are appreciating the opportunity of reading your story. Thanks so much Ruth