Grace Mutandwa

A Trail through Two Cities

It is the best of climes, the worst of crimes....

I can honestly say, even on day 742 of my posting in Zimbabwe, that I never overlook the beauty. As I’m brewing up in the kitchen, I see armies of Abdim’s storks impaling frogs, shadows 10 metres long cast by the dawn sun; hooded weaver birds defying gravity with their nest-building and my ancient Rhodesian Ridgeback, bounding around consumed with the joy of another bright morning, impervious to the fact that the country he’s named after no longer exists. It’s a great day for us both to be alive.

Sadly not all is beautiful in Harare and as I cycle the 20km from home to the British Embassy, I see much that is vile and immoral, alongside the decency and kindness of a terribly put-upon people.

First I pass the turn-off for Hatcliffe Extension: a township flattened by the Government in 2005 as a collective punishment for electing an opposition MP. I remember standing chatting with Savemore, a remarkably crinkley granny, in the ruins of her house, a plastic sheet her only roof. She can’t understand why she’s been targeted, as she’s never voted. Her grown-up son and daughter-in-law died of AIDS leaving her to look after four grandchildren, in her damp and feeble shelter. God knows if she’s still alive – and indeed God is the best chance for her and her family. Churches are doing brave work rebuilding homes and lives smashed by the Government in 2005, with a little help from the British taxpayer.

Onwards up steep Crow Hill. As I labour along, gasping and wheezing, everyone has a friendly word – wishing me a good morning and asking after my health. (My health would be better if I lost some weight). The humblest Zimbabwean is literate and fluent in several languages and the universal practice of good manners never fails to lift my spirits. There is a dark-side, of course. Female cyclists can be harassed with wolf-whistles and rude suggestions; an echo of the silent crimewaves of rape and child abuse, which shatter families and fuel the HIV epidemic.

Finally the top of the hill – it’s flat all the way now. There is a remarkable number of people waiting at the junction for a bus. The buses aren’t running too well at the moment, because ZANU-PF has appropriated their fuel for electioneering.

And there’s another problem deterring people from travelling. The police – plundering like modern Defarges – have set up a roadblock a few hundred metres along. They are pulling over buses and making passengers turn out their bags. Anyone carrying maize meal is threatened with arrest for being an illegal trader. So people trying to take food to their families on the other side of town don’t want to risk boarding transport just yet. They may have to wait for hours. As I cycle round the roadblock the coppers give me a cheery wave – amazing how people can be so happy while condemning their compatriots to hunger. But I suppose they are desperate too trying to survive on a few pence a day.

Down Domboshawa Road I cycle past waste ground. A group of Apostolic women pray in radiant, white robes. Graffiti: "Vote MDC!" has been crossed out and replaced with blood red letters: "Vote ZANU-PF or you will all starve." It’s normal for parties to play dirty tricks on each other, but the message is a chilling reminder that the campaign leading up to the election here on 29 March will be more than dirty – it will cost many lives.

Picking up speed, I head into town on Borrowdale Road. I pass a particular rock, about the size of a football. It sticks in my memory because one dark, rainy night a year ago the Presidential guard pulled a man from his car, beat him, then hit him on the head with that rock. His ‘crime’ was failing to pull his car sufficiently far off the road as the motorcade roared by. He was lucky to survive. The truck carrying these brutes then drove dangerously fast to catch up with the presidential limousine and had a horrific head-on collision. L'État, c'est moi.

A right turn into quiet Fifth Street. I pass a hospital and remember a sunny day when I handed over a generator paid for by the British Embassy Community Projects fund. We do what we can to help the people left behind as the economy crashes. Again there are darker memories, of March 11 last year when dozens of civic and opposition leaders were brought here after being tortured by the regime. Doctors braved death threats to help them - it is a far far better thing they do than I have ever done! The state media accuses us of using British resources to bring down the Government. In fact our assistance goes to victims like those tortured on March 11. We have nothing to apologise for.

Nearly there now. Avenues lined with dense purple jacarandas. Parents carrying children tied with towels to their backs. I pass State House, dripping with gaudy furnishings. I can almost imagine the residents to be Louis and Marie, baking huge cakes to celebrate their endless birthdays, which the people never eat.

The Embassy. Two floors of a failing office block right in the centre of town. There’s a power cut, so no traffic lights. I weave my bike through gridlocked chaos. The lifts are out so I drag my sweaty blubber up six flights. As I get into reception a stick-thin woman gets painfully to her feet and introduces herself as Esther. Can I look at her application for funding? I could really murder a shower and a coffee (and maybe a doughnut), but there’s a spring of hope in Esther’s eyes, rather than the usual winter of despair. She’d like a few billion dollars - which luckily translates into little more than a hundred pounds - to set up a small peanut-butter factory in her area for HIV+ people (of whom she is one). The scheme is well thought-out, practical and offers a chance to a group of people who will soon return to dust if they can’t make a living. I agree to the grant on the spot. I hope she doesn’t think I spend my whole day in crumpled shorts and a sweaty t-shirt.

After meeting Esther I check out the notice on the Embassy door. The exchange rate for a pound has gone up from $12 Million to $35 Million. Damn. I’ve got $500 Million in my pocket, so I’ve just lost £25. We live in the age of foolishness here.

Finally through the door and nearly in my office. It’s 8.05am, I’m almost on time, the day’s just starting, but I feel that I’ve lived my whole life in Zimbabwe - a country with everything before it and nothing before it - in the course of my journey to work.

We've decided to expand this blog from just my observations to those of other members of the Embassy. We hope this will enable us to give a broader picture of life in Zimbabwe and our work here.

Posted at 14:50 29 February 2008 by Philip Barclay  |  Comments[19]