More than you ever wanted to know about Grif's time in Zim

Finally leaving for the Vumba on Sunday. It's a whole new region for me. Nicole is coming with me for Sunday and Monday nights, come home Tuesday and back to work on Wednesday. It's supposed to be freezing up there, so hopefully the inn will have a nice fireplace.

Margie met me at the office today. We were supposed to go visit a woman who's leaving the country, so I could see about buying her microwave. But she flaked out on us, so Margie came with me to a government hospital. The doctors have been on strike for almost a week over low wages and poor working conditions (no gloves, no needles, no medecine). Nurses also went on strike, but are supposed to be headed back to work this week. The hospital was almost empty, they're not taking admissions. The patients already there have army doctors caring for them. The emergency room smelled of rot, and the paint was peeling off. It happened that the church was having an auction that day of all its old furniture and even some medical equipment, which only added to the sense that the place was folding up. By the time we got to the auction it was mostly rusty chairs, sofas with springs and stuffing sticking out, some broken looking medical consoles and lockers and whatnots. Poor auctioneer was having trouble getting even Z$100 for the chairs. I was hoping to find patients trying to get treatment to interview them for a feature, but I think the patients are either saving their money for private care or just giving up. Used to be Zimbabwe had some of the best public health care in Africa, but a doctor I talked to this morning said since AIDS has taken hold the caseload has skyrocketed and there's not enough resources to go around. Zim has a medical school and trains lots of doctors, nurses, pharmacists, but they get recruited to work in other countries for more money. The doctors wouldn't say how much they earn, but the nurses are manking about Z$18,000 a month, just about US $100 at the parallel rate. Can't blame them for leaving really. That's only enough for three tanks of diesel in my car.
posted by Griffin Shea at 10:26 PM

Today's giggle: Mugabe said "balls."
Well, it was in Shona but it was all over the state media. As in, "I only want ministers who have balls." What a stitch. He was talking about a minister who quit -- because he disagreed with a policy of having business managers beaten as a labor relations tool. That was one of the few guys in the entire government who had the balls to speak out against all the government-backed mayhem.

More exciting news: Trip to the mountains is back on for Sunday. The fabulous singer Nicole and I and maybe a few others are heading to the Vumba for two nights. It'll be freezing, but that should make the coffee taste better.
posted by Griffin Shea at 10:29 PM

It continues to crack me up that a government that rails against the British all the time still operates in fully British regalia. Today at the opening of parliament, Mugabe showed up in a Rolls Royce, escorted by mounted guards in those pointy-colonial white hats, and the judges all had their powdered white wigs in the audience. There was a little drumming outside as he walked in, but inside the parliament it was all trumpets. This for a speech about how Mugabe was going complete the process of decolonization...It could also be that I'm still laughing from all the bubbly on Sunday. The trusty Manuel had a bathtub full of ice and Mukuyu sparkling, everyone's favorite, hard to open, Zimbabwean champagne. Horribly embarrassing to show up at work Monday an hour late with baggy eyes.
posted by Griffin Shea at 10:13 PM

Stella came back from Mutare on Tuesday. They had the burial and memorial for her brother on Monday. She seemed to be doing OK when I spoke to her on the phone, but still must be sad.

The man who ran her brother over has been denied bail and his trial is supposed to begin August 1, though it could take years. Even if it wasn't a hate crime, I figure the best he can hope for is manslaughter. He didn't stop the truck to get out.

We've had Lionel, the technician from Johannesburg, here for a few days, so life at the office has been a little livelier. He's one of the most patient technicians I've ever met, very good about holding our hands when we have troubles. But the days have also been running later in the night...we've all been going out for dinner and drinks every night since Tuesday. When will it end!

Yesterday I spent of the afternoon on a cricket field in one of the townships. It looked abandoned, but that's where they do the equivalent of little league. The provincial cricket board has split in two, and the new group held their press conference on the field to show how little money has gone into maintaining the facilities in the mostly black neighborhoods. So the black and Indian cricket clubs in Mashonaland have formed their own league, after the regional association voted off all the non-white members. It's amazing to me that something like that could happen in 2001. In Zimbabwe, whites are less than one percent of the population, but in cricket most of the local clubs are still white. There's a lot of criticism that the national team is still mostly white, compared to other former colonies like India and Pakistan that have hugely successful teams and no white players. The breakaway group says even South Africa has done a better job of integrating in just eight years since apartheid ended. I didn't write a story on the new group...it seemed too local as a news item...so I'm turning around ideas for turning it into a feature somehow.
posted by Griffin Shea at 10:36 AM

Today my Shona teacher took me to the second clothing market in Mbare for my lesson, to practice my bargaining skills. What fun! I got a shirt from the Gap for Z$100 (about 60 cents), a Perry Ellis sweater for Z$220 (about $1.10) and homemade pants for Z$250. I'm never going to the shops again!

I spent most of the day trying to come up with equivalent ingredients to make home food, and experimenting with the stove. What my oven thermometer has taught me is that is just keeps getting hotter and hotter regardless of what setting you put it on, which may explain why baked goods never turn out and baked chicked is always too dry.

So when the AFP gang comes for dinner tonight, they'll get to try corn bread made from sadza. It's white corn meal instead of yellow, but hopefully will taste the same.

Still no news from Stella. Hopefully Sue will have heard from her...
posted by Griffin Shea at 5:49 PM

Sad morning. Last night a guy called from Bindura to say that some of the people I had interviewed on Saturday were beaten by ZANU-PF supporters after I left. I can't help but feel slightly responsible, even though I realize that it's not my fault the government pays bands of thugs to beat up people it doesn't like.

Then my friend Stella, who works for Reuters and is about the nicest person you could ever want to meet, lost her brother Saturday. When I spoke to her on Saturday, she was heading to Mutare to see about making arrangements, and she just said it was a car accident. This morning the state paper is running his death as its lead story, saying it was a race killing and that a white farmer ran him over then dragged his body for 20 meters. I haven't spoken to Stella yet today, but Susan tells me that Stella is not sure if that story is entirely correct. Who knows, anything is possible. Wait and see... As if it's not hard enough having someone die without it becoming a political event.

In theory I'm off today. A furniture maker is coming by to see about building me a coffee table, and maybe an armoire. I'm afraid this house won't have enough closet space when Trey arrives to keep all our things. Probably a sign that we have too many things...
posted by Griffin Shea at 11:38 AM

This afternoon I drove up to Bindura, about an hour north of Harare in a beautiful part of the country, to do a feature on political violence. They've had problems in that area for weeks, and we hadn't done anything on it yet because it's all fairly low-level and because there's so much intimidation in Zimbabwe it's impossible to cover it all. But that's left me feeling a bit like I was shirking my duties, so I went up to meet some of the people who have been beaten recently.

Bindura is due to have a parliamentary election at the end of the month, to fill a seat left vacant by a guy who was widely credited with orchestrating the ruling ZANU-PF party's (bloody) campaign in the elections last year. He died about two months ago in a car crash, which immediately prompted chit-chat all over Zimbabwe about whodunit. As the election gets closer, Bindura has gotten more violent, with most of it targetting supporters of the opposition. The man running for parliament for the opposition took me around to meet some of the victims. Eight guys said they were whipped with a shredded fan belt. A bartender said she was hit with sticks and iron bars. An old man started to tell me what he had been beaten with but then stopped talking to me when he recognized one of his attackers across the room. Almost everyone in the area had a story, which they told while looking over their shoulders and insisting on anonymity for fear of reprisals. The people doing the beating showed up toward twilight, wearing their ZANU-PF T-shirts, and threatened to attack to the candidate I was travelling with and everyone else in the truck. They backed down when the candidate stood his ground. He told me he's decided never to run away. He also carried a pistol now. Most people were worried about when the next attack would come, but not especially afraid. And everyone had a clear idea of who was committing the violence and why. I just wonder if they'll show up to vote. Some people have fled the area for fear of their safety, and they don't plan to make the trip back to cast their ballots.

It did make me feel a little silly for complaining so much that Conchita had scratched my face during the night.
posted by Griffin Shea at 11:14 PM

I've never been good at keeping a diary, but I'm hoping this will be a way for us to keep in touch, and maybe for me to organize my thoughts on Zimbabwe. It's probably more than anyone ever wanted to know, but...
posted by Griffin Shea at 9:14 PM