From Comrade Fatso, one of Zimbabwe’s best spoken word poets:

Mdhara we ma Sweets/Mr Candyman

They call him Mr Candyman, Mdhara we ma Sweets
Trodding all over town with bags of tricks ‘n’ treats
His scream like seventy sirens silencing the streets
He’s known to break into dreams and steal your signature while you sleep
His feet are bandaged with the people’s hijacked hopes
His hands hard as dogma hanging like hanging ropes
His bag filled with al the sleepers souls he stole
His eyes murky and deep like puddle that’s pothole
His goal is to teach the children to undream
Exchanging hopes for sweets is his sugar-coated scheme
Hawking his goods in this land half-full, half-empty
Telling people that his sweets are their sovereignty

Mdhara keeps tricks for his enemies and treats for his friends
For friends read vendors who lick his boots with no end
But then again no vendor ever truly made it
As soon as they got close to him their goods would be confiscated
One hawker though comes to mind
He became really popular -  Blaz we Airtime
Who sold cellphone credit and dreams to the poor
Let the people talk and talk some more
Everyone was connected and the people were enthralled
They texted his name, spoke of him when they called
Insisting he was inspired to change their world
All across the land they spoke his name
Blaz we Airtime had brought the winds of change

Mdhara got the message and read the text
Realised this time of air could be the end of his sweet success
This new network could knock him to the pits
So he reached deep into his dark bag of tricks
Invited Blaz to join him at his stall
A rickety cardboard box called ‘The Sweet Juice Up Mall’
Blaz’s customers came hour after hour
But soon the deal became sickeningly sour
Mdhara kept eighty percent of all profits made
Decided the prices, made sure Blaz’s pay was delayed
Soon Blaz ran out of credit
The people couldn’t top up and they couldn’t get his messages
They sent him a please call me back hoping he hadn’t become a traitor
He replies “Your dreams are currently unavailable. Please try again later”
Finally Mdhara got him arrested for hawking hope without a licence
The police pounced and kicked him for his kindness
As Blaz is dragged away he screams “Mdhara, one thing. Where’s your name from?”
Mdhara replies “The people long ago asked me for change.  I gave them chocolates and chewing gum”

From Flavorwire:

Australia-based artist Ghostpatrol is turning the tables on the drawing process by transforming the pencil from tool to canvas in playful art that combines sculpture with illustration.

From allAfrica.com:

News: South Africa: Know Your HIV Status
6 September 2011

JOHANNESBURG – With nearly 15-million South Africans having voluntarily tested for HIV since the launch of the government’s HIV Counselling and Testing campaign, the call has gone out for people to test regularly, and for those not yet tested – especially men to join the drive for HIV awareness and self-responsibility.

14.7-million tested

Addressing journalists in Cape Town last week, Social Development Minister Bathabile Dlamini said that, by the end of June, the HIV Counselling and Testing campaign had reached over 14.7-million South Africans.

This is only just short of the government’s initial 15-million target, and represents a sixfold increase in the number of people testing for HIV compared to the previous year.

This was the first time, Dlamini said, that South Africa had created a “unified, coherent and effective” public awareness drive on HIV/Aids, adding that empirical evidence indicated that HIV transmission rates had “significantly declined” from 8 percent to 3.5 percent nationally.

“The significant achievement this campaign has attained in one year is indicative that we are slowly restoring public confidence in public health.”

Men lagging behind

However, the figures show men lagging women, with between 30 and 35 percent of those who had taken the test being male.

“We have a problem with males when it comes to testing, and we call on them to join the women and test – the 30 percentage point difference is too much,” Health Minister Aaron Motsoaledi said at the launch of a major testing drive by Absa Bank in Johannesburg in July.

Testing ‘not a once-off thing’

Motsoaledi added that testing should not be a once-off thing, but that people needed to do it at least once or twice each year. “I’ll be doing my fourth test today and I encourage you to test,” he said.

HIV activist Lucky Mazibuko, speaking at the same event, stressed that it is possible to live with HIV and be productive and successful, adding that testing had become second nature in his life and that he would continue testing. He urged people to change the acronym for Aids to “Another Interesting Day Still”.

“After 20 years of living openly with the disease, my viral load remains undetectable with a 593 CD4 count, and I’m far healthier than most people in this place,” Mazibuko said.

“With more practical knowledge about HIV, the more it becomes disempowered and leads to effect sexual behavioural change. It becomes easier to prevent HIV than flu. I enjoy safer sex more since I know my status,” Mazibuko added.

‘Return to start treatment if HIV-positive’

Of those tested so far, around two-million people were found to be HIV-positive and referred for further care.

Deputy President Kgalema Motlanthe, chairing a meeting of the South African National Aids Council (Sanac) in August, urged all South Africans who tested positive to go back to their local clinics to receive care.

The government has massively increased its capacity to care for people living with HIV and requiring antiretroviral treatment (ART).

The number of public facilities now providing comprehensive ART has increased from 490 to 2001. More than 1750 nurses have also been trained on Nurse Initiated and Managed ART, making it possible for professional nurses to put people onto treatment.

Online at: http://allafrica.com/stories/201109051917.html

Pouring your heart out at an embassy or with embassy officials is not politics, its merely a demonstration of subservience. Whether they expected the American government to solve our problems we might never know, but the fact that they indeed went out of their way to brief them betrays a simplistic understanding of state politics and power.  Proximity to the American government is not necessarily proximity to the people of Zimbabwe. All the briefings that Zanu Pf and MDC politicians gave the diplomats, in their lucidity, have never been given to the people of Zimbabwe. Instead we have had media blackouts on what is transpiring in the inclusive government or in the parties that comprise it. When we are lucky we get half baked briefings in the run up to some  SADC summit while diplomats are spoilt for choice regularly. It would therefore be expected that from now on, our political leaders will begin to explain themselves more to us, the citizens of Zimbabwe as much if not more than they generally prostrated themselves before diplomats. Read more from Takura Zhangazha