I placed the sticker at a footbridge. The bridge is badly damaged and broken and needs quick attention. It was built in 1987 and since then no repairs have been done. Now it is dangerous for the people, eg school children, the old, the deaf and drunkards.
- Andreki, a Kubatana member and participant in our FIX THIS.please campaign

I stumbled into one of Harare’s 24 hour emergency clinics early on Monday morning. I arrived clutching a hot water bottle, hair like an aged rocker. I looked like a slightly upmarket boozer tramp. I was called through fairly swiftly. Then I waited awhile until a man came in. He looked quite cheery given the early hour. He asked me how I was and I said not very well and he said I can see that. So why ask, dumbnuts, I thought. Anyway he stuck a thermometer in my ear for a quick second and yanked it out again. No cleaning or anything. We’re cool and groovy sharing earwax here in the Sunshine City. Then he took my blood pressure. In the meantime I gave him a long and involved rundown of how I was feeling and what my body was doing (be afraid). And he nodded and grimaced in all the right places. Then he said, the doctor will be with you shortly. I’d been telling my life story to the orderly.

After about ten minutes the doctor came in and we went through the whole splurb again. I got two injections and there was an attempt at a drip which didn’t work out too well. The needle wasn’t in straight apparently. I’d had to give the doctor the low down on my “stool formation” (sadly lacking any hint of shape or form) so I was a bit surprised when he gave me a tiny container in which to place a stool sample. A bit like asking an old age pensioner with bad fitting dentures out to a lunch of biltong. Nevertheless I accepted this mission impossible and went off clutching my small receptacle.

In my hour in the clinic I’d probably spent about ten minutes being attended to by a “medical professional”. All the other time was spent waiting and wondering whether someone had remembered me in my fluffy slippers in cubicle number 1.

The next morning I went off to see a homeopath who spent an hour and a half with me, and who actually spoke. I forgot to mention that the emergency clinic doctor could barely muster a mumble. She heard me out and came up with a suggestion of what I might have – a viral infection – and sent me home with some remedies. The emergency clinic is covered by my medical aid but my homeopath isn’t. Who gave me the best treatment is undisputed.

In the meantime I’d managed the impossible and the unformed stool was captured and secured. I won’t say how. For a couple of days its been smouldering like some form of biological warfare in the corner of my bedroom. Now that I’m feeling better, and with the said stool dating back to Monday, I’m wondering if its beyond testing. So now what? I’m not keen on anyone doing juju on my poo so I’ll have to return it to the loo. A sharp reminder of how levelling it is dealing with your own shit.

Too often people write analysis and commentary on Zimbabwe without ever really immersing themselves in our country, and its complicated politics. So I was very pleased to come across a blog by Craig Barnett who visited Zimbabwe and has taken the time to share his experience and reflections.

Living at Hlekweni, I gradually came to think that the reality is considerably more complex and ambiguous than this, and increasingly started to question the way our media represents Zimbabwe and other non-Western nations (especially those that are usually represented as outside the ‘international community’ of US allies).

More here

I wrote to the Mayor of Harare last year about my concerns regarding the flagrant abuse of zoning regulations for businesses in suburban areas in Harare. No response. No big surprise. Everywhere you look there’s a creche, or a cafe, or a restaurant, or a clinic, or a security firm … it’s just not acceptable. I can only think that the authorities in the City of Harare are just plain incompetent, powerless or corrupt. Years ago people operating businesses from residential properties used to duck and dive to avoid The Law. But these days in Zimbabwe, the rule of law, along with any kind of rules and regulations, are flouted with impunity. Do the authorities in the City of Harare honestly think that it is fair and just for home owners to have the value of their property plummet, along with their quality of living, on the back of second hand car dealers et al getting to operate businesses illegally?

Here’s Mr Dube from Eastlea who shares similar concerns. In the meantime, Mr Mayor, please Wake Up, or get the hell out ….

Open Letter to the Mayor of Harare

We, the residents of Wheeler Avenue, Eastlea, Harare, wish to register our strong objection to the granting of consent for the setting up of car sales or any other type of business along this road.

Previous experience has shown that areas zoned for car sales businesses along Robert Mugabe Road/Glenara Avenue are de-greened in order to create parking space. We do not want this environmental damage to happen again in our area. Trees are central to our existence and we know why they are important. We value most of the great natural beauty and the charm of the treed area than the current piece-meal planning. Let us build the environment, instead of destroying it.

Whatever the merits of that decision may have been at the time, conditions have since changed so much since then that is no longer relevant. Already, there are a lot of car sales in the area; we do not see the need for more! The hard practical truth, in our opinion (although we are not experts in traffic engineering or town planning), is that the zoning for car sales ignores the absolute necessity of widening this access road to the city centre. To serve the material increase in population in Harare, Goromonzi and Ruwa as well as traffic from the entire route (Mutare-Harare), Robert Mugabe Road now requires extra road space equivalent to a six-way freeway with separate levels of crossing traffic to remove congestion. The current developments will cause Robert Mugabe Road to remain at its present abnormally low width. The blossoming car sales in our area engender traffic problems. Public and private vehicles are now using the roads on both sides of Robert Mugabe Road which is supposed to be an arterial transportation route, to avoid congestion at the Chiremba road traffic lights.

At least your good offices should have had the courtesy of asking residents if they had any objections to the zoning of our neighbourhood for car sales or any other business. This raises questions about the professional conduct of business and accountability at the Harare City Council offices. We call upon those with the requisite expertise on environmental governance to cause the city fathers to reverse irrational decisions that have a negative impact on the environment, let alone a residential area.

We hope this matter merits serious consideration.

Your assistance is greatly appreciated.

Yours Sincerely

G. Dube
CHRA Member (Eastlea)

Inter office communications …  an answer in regard to a query on our browsing speed:

Let me investigate, but it seems to be ok on my side, not too fast, not
too slow.

From a Kubatana member:

On my way to the Tuku concert on Sunday 6th of May, I passed by the entrance to Monomatapa. I got closer to Tuku’s car than I did to the star himself. The concert was packed. After the fireworks my friend and I were pushed up against some metal barriers as a gang of youths swept through the crowd, with either the hot intention to swipe a few cellphones or the euphoria of Ishmael and Tuku’s jamming swelling their hearts.