Tendai Biti on CNN’s African Voices
FYI:
This week on African Voices, Zimbabwean Finance Minister and human rights activist, Tendai Biti. http://edition.cnn.com/CNNI/Programs/africanvoices/
Tendai Biti, is a tough-talking, football-loving Zimbabwean politician, who rose to prominence as one of the public faces of the opposition party - the Movement for Democratic Change. Tendai Biti trained as a lawyer - and his fight against injustice has taken him out of the courtroom of Harare and onto the streets… and now into the hall of power. Read more
Masoja nehuori
Today I went to the bank to collect my hard earned cash only to find a long winding Q’. As a good citizen, full of respect to the majority & as a principled man I decided to join the back of the Q’. Seconds later some members of the (un-informed) force came and went straight to the front in total disrespect to the general populace.
Allow me, dear reader to highlight the gross antisocial behaviour that l noticed with my Four eyes in broad daylight. These members of the unifomed forces have been allocated a branch of their own at market square were they will not mingle with civilians. However they display their stuborn nature & lack of discipline by simply neglecting their Branch as they come to harass poor inocent civilians. If you dare say a word to them u will be in for a real good treat. Such behoviour left me with a lot of questions than answers. Read more
On their return
“Pssst!”
I turned around with a start.
“Hallo.”
My heart sank. I had always known they would return. Everyone knew they would return. It was just a question of time. But none of us had expected them to return so, so, soon, with such speed and ferocity.
“You are back,” I said resignedly.
“We never left. We’ve always been here,” they said smugly.
1 August 2008 is not light years away. That day that heralded a new currency and the new transaction dispensation minus 10 zeroes. That week coins were all the rage. But we knew it wouldn’t last. Read more
Spare a thought for our national institutions
Far, far, from the licensed to deal in forex retail outlets, from the sleek posh cars blinging down streets, on the sidewalks of which moneychangers- cum- users hiss “toita zvemarands/ toplaza- plaza? and shrill cries of “Bacossi airtime yese ” or whatever…far, far from all this, and from the eyes of the wabenzi (enamoured from the sea of squalor around them by their lifestyles to rival the rich and famous of the supra-First World) our institutions are dying.
From city council clinics manned by a single overworked, underpaid senior nurse in an environment that has become sterile in a tragic sense (afflicted by a severe drought of medication)but faced by multitudes in various degrees of ailment desperate for affordable treatment… through the decaying referral hospitals, where those you are referred to are conspicuous by their absence, and if you are admitted, you asked to bring your own blankets, a candle and box of matches (in the event of a powercut, and the the generators commissioned in stately pomp and fanfare, probably never got there, or were redirected- or are simply out of diesel and there is no Diesel N’anga to salvage the situation)… Read more
1440 hrs- Someone heard my prayer
As if to answer my prayer about the heat, the clouds rolled in- looking angrier than the sun. Now it’s raining in Harare. Thank you God.
Now, how about that political and economic heat…
It is hot in Harare
It’s hot in Harare. I don’t remember it ever being this hot. Maybe it’s not so much that it’s so hot but that there are no cool drinks to quench the thirst, no water at home to take a cool shower with and no happy people on the street to share a joke with.
It’s hot. I felt the heat when I went out at lunch. The sweaty heat in the masses of people at CABS First Street- waiting for their money, waiting for the quenching of a thirst that they no longer acknowledge. Read more
