Grace Mutandwa

A dash of serenity and buckets of madness

Over our Heroes holidays, a few weeks ago, my partner and I drove to the Vumba in Zimbabwe's scenic eastern highlands.

I needed a break and so did my partner. After the break my partner was facing the possibility of winding down business at his media monitoring organisation. Like a few other media organisations, they were in financial distress.

So we certainly needed to go away somewhere tranquil. I felt for him. In 1999 he had had to stop publishing his investigative magazine because lawsuits from politicians had bled the magazine dry. His heart was broken.

We needed to be somewhere where we could relax and put things into perspective. A trip to the Vumba was just what the doctor ordered. We booked ourselves into a cottage at Seldom Seen.

The weather was quite warm during the day so we went for long walks, took pictures, and at the end of each day visited Tony's for his decadent famous cakes.

The evenings found us relaxing in front of a blazing fire in our cottage. There was no radio and no television to disrupt our break from city life. We played board games, read or simply talked.

Seldom Seen has views that are truly, seldom seen throughtout Zimbabwe. It has some cottagesthat overlook valleys and mountains into Mozambique. The plant life is amazing. I saw azeleas that were neatly trimmed into hedges. In Harare azeleas grow but they are usuallystruggling stunted plants. The cool moist conditions in the Vumba encourages the health growth of azaleas and other exotic plants.

While in the Vumba we thought we would pay a hotel there a visit for lunch. We went to its golf clubhouse where we had to ask a waiter three times to clear the available table on the veranda. He grabbed the dirty paper serviettes and plastic drinking straws, crumbled them and threw them right over my shoulder into the flowerbed behind me.

We were speechless. He then came back with drinks which he was about to put on the dirty table. We asked him to wipe the table, which he did grudgingly. We ordered but werenow quite certain the kitchen where the food was going to emerge was most likely a health hazard - but we were hungry.

My partner's chicken burger tasted anything but a chicken burger. My steak roll was a sickly thin piece of "carpet". It was the toughest and tasteless steak roll I have ever had the misfortune to partake of.

The following day we visited a lodge that we really like because of its scenic views, very different from those at Seldom Seen. After a long leisurely walk in the lodge's woods, we were ready for a light meal.

Getting drinks at that lodge took us 20 minutes and our orders for food took almost two hours. When we went to the reception to cancel our food order we tired of waiting. The waiter told us the food would be ready in 15 minutes. We did wait, had the food which was nothing to write home about.

The manager of the place suddenly materialised apologising profusely. I couldn't help but point out to him that they were in the wrong business. They could not entertain guests. It wasn't as if the place was teeming with guests waiting to be served. Apart from us there was one other couple.

Apart from Tony's and one or two other places, the Vumba needs a real shake-up. Service provision has gone out of the window. Even small guesthouses in South Africa knowhow to look after guests, not so in the Vumba. Maybe it is a good thing we do not have hoardes of tourists, otherwise we would be embarrassed no end.

People in the Vumba are generally friendly and gentle. Save for a few mad drivers on the road, driving back was uneventful. We both felt rested and I was ready for work while my partner was ready to deal with the pain of winding down business and giving the bad news to his staff.

I came back to be attacked in a violent smash and grab. Just a week ago, driving out for dinner our car had its front passenger window shattered. Some huge thug grabbed my bagwhich was wedged between my thighs. I had the strap in my left hand and was not about tolet go.

I told my partner to increase speed and when he did I yanked the bag out of the thief's hand. He stumbled and almost fell across the road. I had cuts on my fingers, was bleeding heavily but I had my bag. Our chief of security Dave Wells is always telling us to be careful and not to fight off thugs - very sound advice. If I was anyone else I would have screamed and let go of the bag but I refuse to be a victim.

In 2000, in broad daylight while covering parliamentary elections I was held by four thugs at knifepoint. I let them take my tape recorder and mobile phone but after that day I also vowed anyone who dared attack me again would have a hell of a fight on their hands.

A group of middle-aged women in Kenya are taking self defence lessons because they are sick and tired of being raped and assaulted by thugs. You get to a stage where you say enough is enough. And I have reached that stage. Do not take my advice - but I will fight back.

Harare is getting too violent, increasing house break ins and car jackings do not make it an attractive city.I am already yearning for the tranquil of the Vumba.

Posted at 14:43 02 September 2009 by Grace Mutandwa  |  Comments[4]

A country that works

This week I am working from our offices at the High Commission in Pretoria, South Africa – job shadowing. I am working with Russ Dixon and his team.

Just one day in the Pretoria office gives you an idea of just how hard these guys work. The amount of work they do and the number of programmes they whizz through in a day make you realise just how much work we in Harare would be able to do if we were working in a normal environment. South Africa is a country that works. The guys in the Pretoria office have an inspiring fire in their bellies. They have such an overwhelming sense of enthusiasm, it is contagious.

I will admit that I am quite envious of the fact that my colleagues can actually sit down and plan various projects and programmes, set up meetings that bear fruit and confidently speak of what they would like to do in the new year. Coming from Harare, Zimbabwe, I cannot very well say I can confidently say what our public diplomacy strategy will focus on and I cannot even realistically promise that our key objectives will be achieved. I sound despondent but the reality is that my colleagues here are in an enabling environment and I am coming from a place where tomorrow is definitely not promised!

We do a lot of good work in Harare but this week has made me realise just how much more we could achieve if the political situation normalised. We could do more were the environment less hostile. The Zimbabwe story is a major story down here. The difference is that there are so many papers writing about it and all in a very different way – it is just so refreshing even though some of the papers get it wrong. There is a media diversity that makes me envious. Here is a country that has its own political problems but has seen the benefit of different views. Community radio stations are in abundance. They are at least not seen as enemies of the state. Yes, the South African government has many complaints about the media but it is mature enough to realise that with democracy comes the responsibility of ensuring that the various freedoms are respected and upheld. Journalists do not live in fear of being abducted or brutalised. Zimbabwe could learn so much from countries that allow free speech. It might even start developing in the right direction. In the early 80s, I and I am sure several other Zimbabweans took so many things for granted. We lived our lives in a vacuum and allowed so many things to go wrong. We let go of our freedoms and rights and when we started realising our mistake, it was too late. We ceded power to people we trusted to look after our welfare. We went to sleep and forgot that good governance, democracy and human rights are precious commodities that need to be kept under close and constant guard. What we did can happen to any nation that relaxes and forgets or ignores the fact that absolute power corrupts absolutely and that leaders are people who need to be constantly made to account for their actions.

Yes, my colleagues in Pretoria buzz around and get things done. This used to happen in the early years of our independence in Zimbabwe. Development and humanitarian agencies worked efficiently because the country’s wheels were firmly on and were well greased. I feel really energised and there are many lessons I will take from Pretoria but will I still have a country to apply what I have learnt to? The decline in Zimbabwe continues.

As to the negotiations between ZANU PF and the two formations of the Movement for Democratic Change (MDC)- we are told by the leaders that people want a deal now. Really? Has anyone cared to check exactly what kind of deal the people want? Power is good but real power should always be vested in the people. Real power should be drawn from the people. Many people are already on one meal a day but I am sure even as the days get bleaker no one wants a deal that will be meaningless. We all want our country to work again and it can work again. There was a lot of goodwill at independence in 1980 and that goodwill is still out there. We just have to do the right thing as a country.

Posted at 17:05 22 August 2008 by Grace Mutandwa  |  Comments[5]

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]