A Letter

Dear Family and Friends
by Cathy Buckle
 

I am writing this letter with the Constitution of Zimbabwe open in front of me. Outside on the road I can hear a man calling out: “kunama poto” (fixing pots) as he walks around the neighbourhood.
A young man, in his late twenties, he has a small blue and grey rucksack on his back and carries a gas welder everywhere he goes. This young man’s skill is fixing holes in cooking pots: 20 US cents for welding a small hole; 50 cents for a bigger hole and $1.50 for a broken handle.

I page through the Constitution and for a long time get stuck on the first half of the first sentence in the Preamble: “We the people of Zimbabwe, united in our diversity by our common desire for freedom, justice and equality…” . Such grand words give such hope before you’ve even begun and leave you staring wistfully out the window at the gorgeous blue sky, golden grass and deep shady trees.

Another man goes past; riding a bicycle he rings his bells and calls out: “bottles.” He buys old bottles, paying a few cents for empty beer and cold drink bottles or swopping your empty bottles for a few of the goods he has on the front carrier of his bicycle that day: fresh eggs, small packets of biscuits, bags of sweets and chewing gum.
Calculations are done with a stick in the sand on the ground outside your door and once both parties are happy, bottles are loaded into a crate on the back of his bicycle and off he goes.

While one man sits on the dusty ground fixing holes in pots and another buys old bottles for a living, I go back to the open Constitution on my desk because I know that something very sad is going on in the capital city.

The first change to Zimbabwe’s brand new Constitution is withinsight. Just four years after multi millions of dollars were spent drafting a new constitution, undertaking a national outreach programme to get people’s views followed by a referendum, parliament is right now debating the first amendment to our sacred document of fundamental principles. Zimbabwe’s Constitution (2013) states that all candidates for the bench (Courts) must go through a public interview process after which names of successful candidates are forwarded to
the President for appointment. The first amendment to our new Constitution, proposed by Zanu PF, would, however, enable the President to appoint the Chief Justice, deputy Chief Justice and Judge President, overriding the democratic process of public interviews.

There is nothing coincidental about the timing or reasoning of the proposed first amendment to our new Constitution; we are now just a year away from general elections. I glance back at the Constitution on my desk. I am still on the first page, the Preamble, and It is ironic that the closing words read: “imploring the guidance and support of Almighty God, hereby make this Constitution and commit ourselves to it as the fundamental law of our beloved land.”

Promises, hopes and commitments made in Zimbabwe’s new Constitution haven’t even lasted four years.

One last glance at the Constitution takes me back to the pages I always find myself at: Chapter 3: Citizenship. This section outlines who is a citizen and allows for dual citizenship. This, undoubtedly, will be the next section of our new Constitution that the government of Zimbabwe will amend. Just a month ago, Tobaiwa Mudede, the Registrar General said: “As the Ministry of Home Affairs, we have decided we are not going for realignment (of the citizenship Act to the Constitution) but for amendment.” Dual citizenship, promised in
our new Constitution is obviously not going to happen and 3-4 million Zimbabweans in the Diaspora will be disenfranchised, as will any born Zimbabwean whose parents were not born in the country.

Who will guard the guards? Until next time, thanks for reading, love cathy. 23 June 2017. Copyright ? Cathy Buckle. www.cathybuckle.com <http://www.cathybuckle.com/>

For information on my new book, “RUNDI,” about hand rearing baby elephants in the mid 1980’s , or my other books about life in Zimbabwe: “SLEEPING LIKE A HARE,” “MILLIONS, BILLIONS, TRILLIONS,” “CAN YOU HEAR THE DRUMS,” “INNOCENT VICTIMS” “AFRICAN TEARS”, “BEYOND TEARS” and “IMIRE,” or to subscribe/unsubscribe to this letter, please visit my website or contact cbuckle@zol.co.zw <mailto:cbuckle@zol.co.zw>
. (To see pictures of images described in this and other letters go to: http://www.facebook.com/cathybuckleafricantears)

 

Cathy Buckle posted
October 17 ·2019

"High risk of chaos in Zimbabwe," is my letter from Zimbabwe this week. Please visit http://cathybuckle.co.zw/ for previous letters and www.lulu.com/spotlight/CathyBuckle2018 to order my books

Dear Family and Friends,
Everything’s upside down in Zimbabwe this October. Usually known as suicide month because of extremely high temperatures, the blistering heat has yet to take hold this summer. Instead of shorts, T shirts and slip slops this mid October we’re back in jackets and jerseys until midday in my home town. Every day high winds rip the new fruit off plum and apple trees and strip the purple flowers off the Jacaranda trees and every night the temperatures drop to ten degrees Celsius or less. The summer birds are back in our gardens: red winged Louries, paradise Flycatchers and the beautiful ghost bird (grey headed bush Shrike) who spends most days being mobbed by other birds as it raids nests and snatches eggs. So far there’s no sign of the Abdim’s Storks whose appearance usually signals the arrival of rain and while we wait for them, and the rain, we also wait for something to happen in Zimbabwe as every day we move closer to a state of complete paralysis.

For eight months, with lowered eyes and gritted teeth, we have watched the Zimbabwe government turn us into a nation of paupers. In a single day in February 2019 when they converted all our US dollars in banks, savings and pensions into Zimbabwe dollars they condemned 95% of the population to poverty. What had been one hundred US dollars was now called Zimbabwe dollars and worth only forty US dollars; eight months later that one hundred dollars in the bank or on the pay slip is only worth six US dollars. ‘Everything is upside down’ is the phrase on the streets because the real problem is that the prices of everything we buy is pegged to the US dollar exchange rate so prices go up every day but salaries and wages don’t.

A loaf of bread was ninety cents in January, now it’s almost sixteen dollars; a tin of baked beans has gone from eighty cents to eleven dollars; sugar from two to forty dollars and maize meal from eight to seventy dollars in the past eight months. The price of electricity increased by 580% last week, going from three to twenty dollars per kilowatt hour. A litre of fuel was $1.31 in January, today it’s $18.60. It now costs almost one thousand dollars to fill a standard sixty litre car fuel tank. It’s no good saying oh but that’s only sixty five US dollars, the fact is that 95% of the population don’t have or earn in US dollars and for them, this money, food, medicine, fuel and electricity crisis is a silent death sentence, gathering victims by the day.

Zimbabwe’s economy is forecast to shrink by 6% this year and retailers say their sales have dropped by 50% in the last few months. A survey last week showed that food prices in Zimbabwe are 50% more than in South Africa. The sad fact that we still import most of our food from South Africa twenty years after the Zimbabwe government seized all commercial farms, continues to be lost in the propaganda, ignored by the media. Connecting the dots just isn’t happening at home but we wonder if our neighbouring countries are watching our freefall and preparing for the inevitable influx under their border fences.

Meeting a friend this week whose salary was US$250 in February, he should now be taking home Z$$3,875 if his pay was being converted at the current bank exchange rate. It’s not of course and he’s only actually getting Z$600 a month (US$40). In eight months his salary has gone down by eighty percent leaving him and his family in dire straits. It took one relation with persistent diarrhoea and his month’s salary was depleted in a day. Doctor’s consultation fee, antibiotics and simple medication left a bill Z$550. “I don’t know what to do next” he said and there was no answer, not for him or literally millions of others in exactly this same situation. In Zimbabwe’s last economic collapse in 2008 people went and worked in neighbouring countries to survive and send money home. This time they can’t even do that as there is a 370,000 backlog of passport applications and a waiting list of two and a half years.

As I write doctors earning less than the equivalent of US$80 a month have stayed away from work for six weeks. They say they are incapacitated and can’t afford to go to work. 230,000 civil servants are about to follow their lead. They want their salaries linked to the US dollar and converted to Zim dollars at the prevailing exchange rate. Lowest paid civil servants currently earn the equivalent of less than seventy US dollars a month. Teachers Union President Mr Zhou said there is “the urgent need for a national declaration of incapacitation” and said members were being “mobilized to go on strike” next week. The Council of Churches Secretary General Rev Mtata said last week: “There is a high risk of chaos if the situation is not solved urgently.” Zimbabwe has now, undoubtedly, passed the point of no return and we are very fearful about what lies ahead. Our government remain silent on the way out of this mess.

There is no charge for this Letter from Zimbabwe, now in its 19th year, but if you would like to contribute to production and mailing costs please visit my website. Until next time, thanks for reading this letter and supporting my books about life in Zimbabwe, love cathy 17 October 2019 Copyright © Cathy Buckle. http://cathybuckle.co.zw/
For archives of Letters From Zimbabwe, to subscribe/unsubscribe or for information on my books about life in Zimbabwe please visit my website http://cathybuckle.co.zw/ or go to www.lulu.com/spotlight/CathyBuckle2018

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