About the only thing Zim dollar notes are good for has been banned.

At least sandpaper still appears to be an option!

We are begining to despair about how best to help Essy’s Mum and sister in Zimbabwe. Absolutely NOTHING is available in the shops and they are literally starving to death eating only a few vegetables a day. Previously we have been able to transfer money to them via Western Union with the specification that the proceeds are paid out in US$, until now this has worked and they have been able to exchange the US$ on the blackmarket or to buy goods in the single shop in their provincial town which has goods for sales in US$ only. Today we sent money and the local Western Union says they now can’t payout in US$ – “you must go to Westertn Union in Harare for US$”. Although Harare is 50 miles away that doesn’t sound insurmoutable until you realise that the bus fare (for a lethally overcrowded minibus) costs Zim$ 2 million and that the banks wont pay out more cash than Zim$ 500,000 per day. In other words it means four days queing at the bank in order to accumulate enough for a 50 mile bus trip, and of course during this time there is no money available for even a grain of rice!

Dear Family and Friends,
Most nights between 11pm and midnight a Spotted Eagle Owl patrols my neighbourhood. He’s a big grey and brown owl with bright yellow eyes and distinct ear tufts but it’s his haunting, Hu – huuu call that alerts me to his presence in or near my garden. The arrival of the owl often comes at just about the time the electricity is switched on and I think that in the years ahead whenever I hear the Spotted Eagle Owl hooting I will always remember these darkest of days when my home country was collapsing. It is a time when the losers of an election held eight months ago are still clinging onto power even though they cannot even provide the most basic requirements of life..

If we are lucky nowadays the electricity comes on in the middle of the night when we are asleep. It doesn’t last long. On good nights we have maybe five hours of electricity before it goes off for the next 19 hours. It is impossible to run a home, business or institution with just a fifth of our power needs. The electricity supply (ZESA) is a government run enterprise and is in a state of almost complete collapse. Zesa no longer send bills to customers – they say they have no paper on which to print the accounts. You have to volunteer payment, usually guessing what you owe, or risk disconnection – leaving you without even those four or five hours of power in the middle of the night. This week the government run ZESA refused to accept cheques from customers – customers who are paying them for not supplying electricity.

Water supply, controlled by ZINWA, a government enterprise, has collapsed everywhere and this week came the chilling news from Medicens Sans Frontiers that one million people in Harare alone are currently at risk from Cholera. In cities, towns and villages around the country our taps are dry most of the time, apparently because there are no chemicals to treat raw water. Desperate people resort to desperate measures including collecting water from shallow wells dug on open roadside land – even that alongside cemeteries – and from cloudy pools in stagnant streams where mosquitoes swarm in their thousands. Despite this, still we are required to pay water bills every month, for the dirty, smelly water that sometimes splutters out of our taps and into our toilets. ZINWA do not warn us to boil the water, they do not send out accounts and they say that from December they too will not be accepting cheques from customers – customers who are paying them for not supplying water, paying them for disease.

In the middle of this week I went with a cheque to pay for my telephone connection with Tel-One – a government controlled enterprise, and the only fixed line telephone system in the country. To connect to a number outside of my home town has become almost impossible in the last few months with the exchanges being out of order for multiple hours every day. Tel- One no longer send out accounts to customers so you must pay what you think you owe, or be disconnected. Tel- One refused to accepted a cheque for less than two million dollars. The next day a friend went to pay for their telephone connection and had a cheque for three million dollars. Tel- One refused to accept the payment saying they no longer accepted cheques for amounts of less than ten million dollars and said that from next month they will not be accepting any cheques at all.

Government controlled systems are collapsing all around us and ZANU PF have no solutions for any of the massive problems which are closing the country down, chasing away the tourists and leading a nation into starvation and disease. It is time for a new election in Zimbabwe, one in which losers actually lose and winners really win. I leave you with one last thought for those who do not know: the contentious Ministry of Home Affairs does not only contain the Police but also the Registrar General’s office where births, deaths and voters are registered.
Until next time, thanks for reading, love cathy.

What is it with �20 notes? They seem more common than �1 coins amongst the under 16’s. Today I’d build up a few pound coins and almost immediately some young person, enjoying half- term, would ask for a “half to xxxxx” I’d respond with “that’s 90 pence, please” and then be offered the young person’s standard payment of a �20 note. Both amusement and amazement at this wore pretty thin early in the day and I issued I don’t know how many change vouchers! Those who didn’t receive a change voucher (so long as I’d collected enough loose silver and copper) left the bus straining under the extra weight of vast amounts of small coinage :-)

“From now on the pound is worth 14pc less on the foreign exchanges. That does not mean, of course, that the pound in your pocket or in your purse or in your bank has been devalued” So said Harold Wilson in November 1967.

That’s not quite how Zimbabweans see things! And not the way we Brits saw it over 40 years ago. Devaluation means things cost more whether it’s in �’s or Zim$.

Here is the ever smiling, happy, Zimbabwean who last appeared here only 13 days ago when each of his 10 million Zim$ notes was worth less than 3 pence.

At lunchtime today I chatted with one of our Zimbabwean drivers at the Depot and commented on the exchange rate currently being 520 million Zim$ to the pound. “No” said Norman “The rate is now 550 million Zim$ to the pound”! I got home and told my wife of this new rate and she then told me that during the afternoon the rate had gone to 600 million Zim$ to the pound! Each note he’s holding is now only worth 1.66 pence.

Here’s the happy multi-millionaire who first appeared here on 21 January 2008 holding ten of the new 10 million Zimbabwe dollar notes. The exchange rate then was 10 million Zim$ to �1 so each note was worth �1

By 29 February the exchange rate had gone to 53 million Zim$ to the �1 so each note was then worth less than 20 pence.

Now the exchange rate is 370 million Zim$ to the �1 making each note worth less than 3 pence!! From �1 to 3p in 14 weeks.