Dear Family and Friends,

As Zimbabwe struggles out of the darkness of a decade of dictatorship and political mayhem we are beginning to see how hard the return journey is going to be. And how long. Little snapshots tell the story:

Two policemen, in uniform and on foot, did a walkabout tour of some local businesses this week. They want to improve relations, they say, but need assistance with the basics. They desperately need tyres for their vehicle and are looking for donations from the public. If you can’t run to tyres then how about typewriters, or paper they ask, saying they have no stationery.

Typewriters! Can you imagine modern policing being done, not on computers but typewriters! For a couple of years members of the public have had to provide their own fingerprint forms, vehicle clearance forms and even their own affidavit forms when visiting a police station and then wait endlessly as records are handwritten. With such problems as pens and paper, it doesn’t bear thinking how long it might take to restore law and order at higher levels, in regard to things like property rights, human rights and farm invasions.

Two well known shops with branches all over the country went into darkness this week as their electricity supply was disconnected. Having no tills, computers, lights or other equipment took them back into the dark ages in a hurry. They had been disconnected for non payment because the amounts being demanded by ZESA (the electricity supplier) are in the thousands of US dollars – more than a company’s entire monthly turnover. Similar exorbitant amounts are being charged by the state controlled fixed line telephone company and everyone is reeling and then despairing as they are disconnected. It appears that the electricity and telephone suppliers are trying to recoup 10 years worth of collapse in just a few months but their greed and speed is putting business and the rebuilding of the country into a new cycle of shutdown.

Cause for much excitement this week has been the availability, suddenly, of telephone lines for mobile phones. For more than eight years these lines have been non-existent, available only on the black market. In January this year a line on the black market cost 135 US dollars.This week phone lines are available legally for 35 US dollars – still ten times more expensive than in our neighbouring countries but they are selling like hot cakes. Oppressive Zanu PF legislation concerning access to information and the free press has not been repealed but the sudden boom in phone lines is a dramatic step forward for Zimbabweans who can now send and receive their own information without the political shackles.

Until next time from the land of golden grass, thanks for reading, love cathy

Dear Family and Friends, This month’s municipal accounts are the first printed bills we’ve had from the local council for eight months. The accounts were hand delivered, door to door, post box to post box in residential suburbs. This, believe it or not, is cause for comment!

When a neighbour told me to look in my post box, I laughed and said that was a waste of time because nothing has gone into my home post box for nearly a year. The Post Office don’t deliver any letters anymore – who knows why. The bank’s have long since given up sending out statements to their customers and other street delivered items like electricity, telephone and municipal accounts have fallen by the wayside in Zimbabwe’s collapse. It’s been so long since anything’s gone into my post box that I had to use a stick to clear a way through the spiders webs and had to manoeuvre my hand carefully underneath a hanging hornets’ nest. There, lying in the dust and rust was my municipal bill. A couple of hornets flew out and the nest shivered in warning and alarm as I carefully lifted out the piece of paper. No envelope, not stapled closed, not even folded discreetly, the municipal bill may as well as have stayed where it was for the information it contained.

“All charges are in US Dollars and you are expected to pay on time to avoid inconveniences,” it said. The bill itemized municipal charges and included a Fire Levy. This was cause for much heated conversation in the street. “A Fire Levy,” people said, “for what?”. The last time a house burned down in our neighbourhood the fire engine didn’t come, apparently because it was picking up sick people.
Another item on the bill causing rage is that of Public Street Lighting. For three years the street lights in our neighbourhood haven’t worked so you can cross that charge off, everyone is saying. Then there’s the one that makes us all furious: Refuse Removal. It’s been over a year since our garbage has been collected. We burn what we can, because we have no choice, we bury what we can and we accumulate what’s left. Piles of trash lie under trees, on roadsides and dumped on any vacant piece of land.

Water charges on the municipal account are cause for disgust and contempt by residents. As I write this letter we are going into our fourth day without water – not a drop anywhere in the whole town and none are spared, not schools, hospitals, old age homes, industry or residences. The absence of water for days at a time is just one of our nightmares and does not address the issue of raw sewage flowing into the dam our water is being drawn from. Not to mention the levy for the pipeline from the new dam that we’ve been paying for years and yet not a drop does it deliver, in fact the pipe is not yet even laid in the trench dug for it.

Needless to say, no one is paying the ludicrous amounts being charged by the municipality. Charges so high that they amount to three quarters of a civil servants entire monthly wage. Everyone is paying something but only a small token. We have been paying in US dollars for electricity, telephones and municipal services for three months and now its time to receive service.

The new sentiment sweeping over Zimbabwe, at all levels, is: You deliver, we pay. You fix, we pay. You maintain, we pay. Until next time, thanks for reading, love cathy