I’m scripting this below a deep purple sky the place the lightning is spectacular in opposition to the darkish clouds within the distance. The rains have began in Zimbabwe, bringing reduction after seven lengthy dry months, changing scorching dusty whirlwinds with sturdy contemporary damp breezes.
You can see the rain coming, typically in sluggish, quiet curtains whispering throughout the bush and different occasions in noisy pounding storms crammed with hail stones. Along with the rain has come the return of paradise flycatchers and ibises, and nearer to the bottom sausage flies, rhino beetles and chongololos (millipedes).
Despite the wonder throughout us it was a shock studying methods to survive in Zimbabwe once more after a few weeks away.
No water for eight days and counting, electrical energy cuts for 10 to 12 hours at a time, huge gullies the place rain water has scoured the roads, and authorities who by no means come to restore the harm.
And then there’s the nightmare of purchasing …
World Bank statistics present that Zimbabwe now has the very best meals inflation on the planet at 353%.
The telltale signal is what number of groceries have been deserted on the tills as a result of consumers couldn’t afford them.
A number of months in the past I wrote about groceries being ‘thousand-dollar shopping’. Now abnormal meals purchasing is extra like a hundred-thousand-dollar purchasing.
Read: Thousand-dollar purchasing in Zimbabwe
A latest authorities report [quoting a 2022 FinScope Consumer Survey] exhibits that poverty ranges are rising and greater than 73% of the inhabitants now earns lower than US$100 per thirty days, with 61% of the inhabitants having to “skip a meal due to lack of money for food” [Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe National Financial Inclusion Strategy II (2022-2026), 31 October 2022].
Brain drain gathers tempo …
“I’m done with Zim,” a person stated to me this week. “I can’t wait any longer.”
He’s an engineer however is leaving the nation as a result of he can’t assist his household and can’t even afford sufficient meals for his kids anymore.
When I stated I hoped he wouldn’t miss Zimbabwe an excessive amount of, he stated he was positive he would cease lacking it after a yr or so.
I doubt that, however he’s not alone in leaving because the mind drain gathers tempo with yearly that the state of Zimbabwe continues unchanged.
A Health Services Board report final week stated that over 4 000 well being employees have left Zimbabwe since 2021 – 1 700 registered nurses left in 2021 and 900 have left up to now in 2022.
Doctors and nurses have been pleading for a dwelling wage for years to no avail and they end up having no alternative however to go.
In weird irony to this actuality President Emmerson Mnangagwa stated in a weekly e-newsletter printed in a state newspaper: “We have to competitively reward our doctors in order to guarantee greater staff retention.”
There are actually solely 3 777 registered medical practitioners in a rustic with a inhabitants of 15 million. Of these 3 777 practitioners, 1 982 are common medical officers, 713 specialists, 250 dentists and 627 interns – all of whom are certainly carrying an unbearably huge case load whereas they will barely survive themselves.
Open letter to the president
Extracts from an open letter written by Zimbabwe’s internationally famend musician Thomas Mapfumo to President Mnangagwa final week maybe say it finest as to the state of our nation 5 years after the ousting of Robert Mugabe and six or so months earlier than our subsequent election …
Dear President Mnangagwa,
I’m writing to you at this determined hour… I’m positive you possibly can really feel Zimbabwe taking place the drain as a nation …
The providers are decaying day by day, and the state of affairs is now hopeless. You could attempt to cowl it up, however the reality retains popping out … People want clear water … Hospitals haven’t any drugs or gear. Medical workers are working away. Power cuts are actually commonplace. Urban transport is now disastrous.
Why are we going by a lot struggling? What is the tip to all this struggling?
Corruption is now going by the roof. You have performed nothing to cease this …
All the large fish which might be stealing the assets of Zimbabwe are let out by the courtroom system.
The catch and launch methodology is actual and thieves are at all times freed. What instance are you setting sir?
What message are you sending to the nation?
(Read the complete letter on Nehanda Radio here.)
I finish my column this week with a message of because of the thousands and thousands of Zimbabweans on the market within the diaspora who haven’t forgotten us, who proceed to assist us, encourage us, foyer for us and give us power to not hand over.
Copyright © Cathy Buckle
