The other side...

This far I have mostly written about how nice Zimbabwe and Harare are, and it is indeed a very beautiful and nice place to be and the people are very friendly. But does that mean that life is rosy in Zimbabwe? No unfortunately not, and here comes something from the other side.

Of course you hear a lot about how dangerous Harare can be and how careful you must be and how you should act to avoid robbery and car-jacking etc, but I must say I never felt afraid or un-secure. I mean, how could you? With two guards 24-7, high walls with electric fences on top, three dogs and two separate alarm systems. To me that sometimes felt even a little bit over exaggerated, but who am I to tell? Things do happen, and I guess all this equipment is there for a reason. And all the instructions about how you should avoid stopping at red-light at night if possible and always keep your handbag under your legs while driving probably also all make sense, not only in Harare. The wife of one of my colleagues got robbed during my time there and one of my local colleagues was robbed twice on his way home from work. But things like that happen in other countries too (although we had some suspicion that it might have something to do with the fact that he used to work for a regime critical news paper). Of course you should be careful, don’t do stupid things and keep an eye out, but I refuse to go around and feel afraid. That is such an impediment on my life. If I would have stayed longer in Harare I for sure would have moved around more and more.

One reason for the robberies etc is of course that there are a lot of poor people, who see no other way of getting the things they want. And there are indeed poor people in Zimbabwe. However I find it difficult to relate poverty. Someone recently asked me if there aren’t more poor people in Manila and if it isn’t poorer there. I can’t really tell. Of course there are statistics and measures of poverty that will provide an answer, but how do you compare poverty? In numbers there are probably more poor people in Manila as there simply are more people. To me the poor in Manila seems to have it worse partly because the density and the dirt they live in. The shanty towns often climb the banks of rivers and canals that are absolutely full of garbage and filth as they work as both water supply and sewage. Due to the heat and the humidity it is often very smelly and flies aboundant. In Zimbabwe people are not that crowded and the climate somehow seem more endurable if you only live in a hut, but how can I tell if it is better to have to walk long ways and always worry about how to get water in the dry season compared to living right by the water even if it is fetid and smelly? I really can’t tell! If you only get to eat some rice or sadza every day, probably does not make much of a difference. Some of the “shanty town areas” in Harare were simply destroyed last year. The government decided to drive the inhabitants out to the country side, without providing then with any alternative housing.

When talking about the political system and the economy I am a little more optimistic about the Philippines. Of course you can have serious doubts about the level of democracy and fairness of the elections and the political system there as well, and the corruption is wide spread, but still things seem to work somehow and there is some hope. When regarding things in Zimbabwe I feel much more pessimistic.

The Mugabe government has pushed the country so far down a negative spiral and you really can’t see much light in the tunnel. For us, diplomats and others with access to foreign exchange things are pretty ok. Of course you get annoyed with the constant power cuts. Even more irritating are the water cuts, which recently have gotten worse. The water authority simply don’t have foreign currency enough to purchase the chemicals needed for purification or spare parts for the waterworks, which mean they can not produce sufficient amounts of water. And the quality of the water produced is getting worse and worse. Another nuisance is the constant fuel shortage. Again, as a foreign mission we are lucky and get what we need, but for others there is a big problem. This is also mostly due to lack of foreign currency. When there is some fuel, people of course take advantage of that and sell it to really high prices. The state owned gas stations, which are forced to sell to controlled prices, gather long queues as long as there is still some fuel. Whenever you go for a longer drive you have to think of bringing full jerry cans with sufficient fuel, as you can never be sure that you will be able to fill up along the road.

As the cost of transport soars, so do other prices. This last week the supply of bread in Harare stopped. As far as I found out that is because the price of bread is fixed, but the costs for making it has increased so much it is no longer possible to bake if you can not raise the price. So for the last week there has simply not been any bread in the stores. This is of course a huge problem for the poorest as bread; along with the sadza is their staple food. Prices are constantly rising, the inflation is the highest in the world at over 1200%, but wages do not follow (for a simple example the price of a Snickers bar rose from 460$ to 780$ in one week!). For us with foreign currency it is still ok, but I don’t understand how the average locals manage! The Zim-dollar is pegged against the USD at a heavily overvalued rate of 250, this of course creates a huge parallel market (they don’t even call it black market any more). The rate at the parallel market is between two and four times the official rate. Unfortunately the prices follow the parallel rate, which makes things very expensive.

The low wages is one of the main things the trade unions wanted to protest against in their planned demonstration I wrote about earlier. As I suspected the demonstration never started because the police hit first. Some of the trade union leaders were arrested and some of then pretty badly beaten. This is probably one reason why people don’t complain and protest more, they are afraid. Still I was surprised how often people were complaining about the system and the economy, but of course that was in a “safe” surrounding and I was regarded a safe person to talk to, I guess under other circumstances things are different and people more afraid.

My departure from Harare was spiced by the coincidence that the president was arriving at the same time. He had been to a meeting with the Non-Aligned Movement in Cuba and was now expected back. My driver told me immediately when we saw all the people at the airport. The driver explained that the people are being paid and driven into town in busses from the provinces to greet the president on arrival, “the poor people do not understand what they are doing” he said. Many of them were sporting Zimbabwean flags and wearing t-shirts with “Vote Zanu-PF” print, some women even wore dresses made out of ZANU-PF printed fabric with Mugabe’s picture on it.

I had just been reading a book called African Tears (can be recommended!), written by a white Zimbabwean farmer woman who had had her farm confiscated in 2000 and telling her story about that. In the book she was also describing how the running up to the elections in 2000 was rigged. There was a lot of paying and bussing and forcing of people to attend ZANU-rallies. So, nothing much has changed!