Dear Zimbabwe,
I'd like to ask you a question: why? Sure things were awesome in the '80s - our dollar was one-on-one with the British Pound; we were the largest exporter of maize and tobacco in the sub-region; we all wore the same trainers (because there were economic sanctions and apparently only one shoe company existed in this country back then); we had Bovril (which is a less awesome version of Marmite made from dead cows not yeast, so it's lower in the vitamins B); you couldn't tell who the rich kids or poor kids were (because there was also only one carpet manufacturer, ceramics company, swimsuit manufacturer); our moms all had crazy lions-mane perms; we were all super-proud of our power station that was fuelled by the largest open-cast coal mine in Africa (I'm leaving discussion of the Gukurahundi massacres out, because that's not really the point of this post. Also, that was one of the not-awesome parts of the '80s, so shouldn't be listed here) - but that was more than two decades ago.
Since then: America has invaded Iraq (twice); other countries have had elections and changed presidents; we've found out about the down-sides of burning fossil fuels for energy; we've started driving cars that were not assembled in Zimbabwe with mostly-the-same bits as their overseas counterparts; we've discovered the joy of Marmite on our morning toast; scientists have proved that margarine is bad for you; nutritionists have repeatedly demonstrated the benefits of a varied diet; the population of the world has increased exponentially.
Yet here we are. I should probably mention that it's 4 a.m. as I'm writing this, because that's the only time when the electricity is on (I've been awake since my bedside light blinked into life at 11 p.m.). Sure, I'm all for living green, but I do need electricity to achieve things and (finally) finish a remunerative piece of writing. We're still being powered by the open-cast coal mine, and the generators at the power station regularly give up the ghost. In addition, we're sending electricity to Namibia (y'know, because, like, we totally have enough to spare), so we're upping their national carbon footprint as well. We gave up using our own dollar, because inflation was exponential, not incremental (no word of a lie: a few years ago the same bottle of cooking oil in the same store was $12,000 when the store opened, $24,000 at lunchtime and $48,000 by the close of business). Now we have American dollars, most of which are so tatty that you need to squint to determine which denomination it is. A number of times in the past decade, our economy would have failed if it hadn't been for people who had left the country sending money home to their relatives. Our municipal water is virtually non-existent, and when it does come through the pipes, it's got something in it that gives us all diarrhoea (I'm not counting the cholera outbreak we had a few years ago in this discussion. Nobody ever proved where that started). We need food aid just to keep our population alive, and now the government are considering planting genetically modified crops just to keep the food down.
So I ask you, why? Why are you content to sit and let s**t happen to you without so much as a squeak of protest? We're all (well, not all of us, from the looks of the mealies [that's maize for the non-Zimbos] that are growing on verges and in green belts around Harare) doing the Foundations for Farming mealies for the nation project to keep ourselves from starving this winter, and that's awesome, *hi5*. But nothing else is improving. Everyone is working so hard at damage control (whether it's buying a new generator, digging another borehole, or whatever) that nobody's even stopping to think what can actually be done. There are almost no solar panels or mini wind turbines (which, let's be honest, would be so much more convenient than having to find diesel to run the gennies), and we're all content with the bog-standard "it's load shedding" reply that we get whenever we call the electricity faults line to find out why we don't have electricity for another day. Why? How have you not all gone stir-crazy from being thwarted at every turn? Or maybe that's the answer - you're all so busy trying not to let it make you insane that you have nothing left to give when it comes to making progress?
I'd like to ask you a question: why? Sure things were awesome in the '80s - our dollar was one-on-one with the British Pound; we were the largest exporter of maize and tobacco in the sub-region; we all wore the same trainers (because there were economic sanctions and apparently only one shoe company existed in this country back then); we had Bovril (which is a less awesome version of Marmite made from dead cows not yeast, so it's lower in the vitamins B); you couldn't tell who the rich kids or poor kids were (because there was also only one carpet manufacturer, ceramics company, swimsuit manufacturer); our moms all had crazy lions-mane perms; we were all super-proud of our power station that was fuelled by the largest open-cast coal mine in Africa (I'm leaving discussion of the Gukurahundi massacres out, because that's not really the point of this post. Also, that was one of the not-awesome parts of the '80s, so shouldn't be listed here) - but that was more than two decades ago.
Since then: America has invaded Iraq (twice); other countries have had elections and changed presidents; we've found out about the down-sides of burning fossil fuels for energy; we've started driving cars that were not assembled in Zimbabwe with mostly-the-same bits as their overseas counterparts; we've discovered the joy of Marmite on our morning toast; scientists have proved that margarine is bad for you; nutritionists have repeatedly demonstrated the benefits of a varied diet; the population of the world has increased exponentially.
Yet here we are. I should probably mention that it's 4 a.m. as I'm writing this, because that's the only time when the electricity is on (I've been awake since my bedside light blinked into life at 11 p.m.). Sure, I'm all for living green, but I do need electricity to achieve things and (finally) finish a remunerative piece of writing. We're still being powered by the open-cast coal mine, and the generators at the power station regularly give up the ghost. In addition, we're sending electricity to Namibia (y'know, because, like, we totally have enough to spare), so we're upping their national carbon footprint as well. We gave up using our own dollar, because inflation was exponential, not incremental (no word of a lie: a few years ago the same bottle of cooking oil in the same store was $12,000 when the store opened, $24,000 at lunchtime and $48,000 by the close of business). Now we have American dollars, most of which are so tatty that you need to squint to determine which denomination it is. A number of times in the past decade, our economy would have failed if it hadn't been for people who had left the country sending money home to their relatives. Our municipal water is virtually non-existent, and when it does come through the pipes, it's got something in it that gives us all diarrhoea (I'm not counting the cholera outbreak we had a few years ago in this discussion. Nobody ever proved where that started). We need food aid just to keep our population alive, and now the government are considering planting genetically modified crops just to keep the food down.
So I ask you, why? Why are you content to sit and let s**t happen to you without so much as a squeak of protest? We're all (well, not all of us, from the looks of the mealies [that's maize for the non-Zimbos] that are growing on verges and in green belts around Harare) doing the Foundations for Farming mealies for the nation project to keep ourselves from starving this winter, and that's awesome, *hi5*. But nothing else is improving. Everyone is working so hard at damage control (whether it's buying a new generator, digging another borehole, or whatever) that nobody's even stopping to think what can actually be done. There are almost no solar panels or mini wind turbines (which, let's be honest, would be so much more convenient than having to find diesel to run the gennies), and we're all content with the bog-standard "it's load shedding" reply that we get whenever we call the electricity faults line to find out why we don't have electricity for another day. Why? How have you not all gone stir-crazy from being thwarted at every turn? Or maybe that's the answer - you're all so busy trying not to let it make you insane that you have nothing left to give when it comes to making progress?
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