After a long Christmas and New Year break most schools in Zimbabwe opened on the 11th of January 2011. A hike in school fees was reported in most schools especially private and some government schools. It is that time of the year when you hear stories of school children being turned away for non payment of fees.

When I was in school my former school head used to say this on the first day of classes: “If you did not pay your school fees go back home and tell your parents that we need that money now!!”

It sounded harsh to the ears of the parents, especially mine. But since it’s now an offense to turn away children for not paying school fees most school and college heads have come up with some enhanced community relations skills in order to keep their image clean. This has helped the school heads in terms of public relations. They have toned down the language so that when you hear it you won’t fume like how my parents used to do.

They now tell students to go back home and collect receipts as proof of payment.  It sounds diplomatic and very kind but after you’ve let it sink into your head for a while it’s still the same as hearing that your child has been turned away for not paying fees. When I heard my little cousin telling me that she was told to go back and collect receipts that’s when I realized that it’s now simply a matter of manipulating words to get the message across.

Just imagine if you had not paid school fees for your child where on earth are you going to get the receipts from?

Zimbabweans have been urged by the US Ambassador to Zimbabwe, Charles Ray, during the Martin Luther King Day commemorations to emulate Dr Martin Luther King Jnr where their voices are heard in a non-violent manner. Read more here. It is true that we need to use non-violence to bring change and address areas of injustice in Zimbabwe. I believe every Zimbabwean has a little ‘Luther’ living in them but the environment around us is not conducive.

Take the example of men and women working with WOZA and MOZA. In 2010 83 members were arrested while they were having a peaceful march to mark International Peace Day. In Bulawayo two were arrested during a public meeting with the Competition and Tariff Commission to present views on ZESA. In Mutare two women were arrested a day after a peaceful protest.

Mr Ray, like Dr Martin Luther Jnr, has an ‘I have a dream…’ for Zimbabwe that is. The dream that was instilled in the 1990s when the government promised, ‘Education for all by the year 2000′, ‘Housing for all by the year 2000′ and ‘Health for all by the year 2000′. I still feel this can be achieved some year, say 2020. But my question today is how then do I gather 10 people to listen to my dream and not be picked up for being a public nuisance? I don’t just want to use my voice, I also want to do silent acts that bring change to Zimbabwe, which I so much love and I am so proud to be Zimbabwean. Like Rosa Parks, I want to remain seated for the cause of my plight. But I’m rather scared to give up my life like the vendor in Tunisia.

Zimbabwe’s economy is struggling to recover from years of mismanagement and looting. At an event in October 2010, tourism Minister Walter Mzembi lauded the potential of the “peaceful and apolitical” tourism sector to be at the fore of this recovery.

A Mail & Guardian article in December highlighted how Zimbabwe’s economic challenges have affected the tourism industry – things like shortages, power cuts, potholes clearly make it difficult to run a business. And finding the right balance between what you charge your guests (and who, if anyone, can therefore afford to come to your destination) and what you pay your workers (and therefore how motivated and engaged they are at work) can be difficult.

But a successful tourism industry also needs tourists – and tourists, as Mzembi intimated, typically prefer peace and stability.

So factors like the “Zimbabwe Mafia” which targets cars parked at the Harare airport picking up visiting holiday makers don’t inspire confidence in would-be tourists. Similarly, events like the invasion of recreational destinations at Lake Chivero such as Kuimba Shiri on the weekend don’t send an inviting message of safety and stability. It particularly doesn’t help if the police, when called, do nothing.

If Zimbabwe values its economic recovery – which it should do, if we are ever to move out of the current bifurcated economy of impoverished majority on the one hand, and South African import dependent comprador class on the other – it needs to do more to support Zimbabweans to buy into, establish, and maintain tourism locations for a variety of local and international guests, and less to scare off would-be tourists.

Raphael Chikukwa from Zimbo Jam shares some information about a forthcoming exhibition at the National Gallery of Zimbabwe:

Hope and Despair, a new exhibition at the National Gallery in Harare, features work from nine emerging artists and gives unique visual commentaries to and interpretations of Zimbabwean contemporary life, challenging you to rethink “the obvious.”

The nine artists are Calvin Chimutuwa, Muthabisi Pili, Tafadzwa Gwetai, Portia Zvavahera, Mercy Moyo, Richard Mudariki, Warren Mapondera, Zacharia Mukwira and Virginia Chihota.

The exhibition opens on January 27.

Find out more here

To celebrate Dambudzo Marechera’s posthumous 59th birthday this year, Zimbabwean writer, editor, and anthologist, Ivor Hartmann (administrator of the official Dambudzo Marechera fan page on Facebook – endorsed by The Dambudzo Marechera Trust – with over 5,000 fans and the only consistently updated web page solely focused on Marechera), will be compiling an anthology entitled and themed Remembering Marechera. It will consist of essays, reviews, short stories, poems, etc. that follow the title/theme.

Find out more from Zimbojam

Maybe sell some of Chombo’s houses or farms acquired by Zanu PF chefs? Or swing a bit of cash from diamonds towards salaries? Turn in the Mercs and Prados and buy more modest vehicles? Quit the trips and stay home for awhile?

Zimbabwe’s fiscal cupboard remains bare and the unity government will struggle to meet its wage bill for public sector workers in January 2011, finance minister Tendai Biti told the inaugural Global Poverty Summit in Johannesburg on 19 January.

“For the month of January we have only collected US$64 million and we are supposed to pay $101 million [public sector wage bill]. Where we are going to get the money to close the gap? I don’t know. I have made it very clear that we can only eat what we have killed and no more or no less.”

Read more