I went into the Starbrook Bar/Cafe in the departure lounge of the Harare International Airport to while away the time when the plane to Joburg was delayed. I have to tell you that the Starbrook doesn’t have much going for it apart from the amusing fact that a presidential portrait is sandwiched between a framed photo of Coke on one side and Fanta on the other. As some people may know I’m dead against presidential portraits of any description whether its here, or in the land of Big Ears. But it seems real odd to me that in Zimbabwe, if you take the time to notice, you’ll see Mugabe’s portrait, often in a state of disrepair (yellow and old – a bit like my teeth) hanging squonk in all sorts of strange places. Vacuum repair shops for example, or large supermarket chains, or, choke, some restaurants. Seeing as presidential portraits are supposedly meant to reinforce the position and power of the Leader, I’ve always been surprised that the president’s foot soldiers don’t move around demanding that those who have hung the face, hang him with dignity.

But of course I like the fact that we get a laugh out of it.

If you spot Bob in strange or unusual places, why not send a Tweet to @kubatana

Harare used to have public toilets situated at many suburban shopping centers. But these days the toilets are often locked. I guess the City of Harare doesn’t want people sleeping in them. The City also can’t supply water to them. So rather keep the toilets shut than have them stinking up the place. Of course this makes some sense but people passing through shopping centers or people vending in many of the vending communities that coexist next to shopping centers, shit and pee in the bush.

I’m convinced that the Mayor of Harare and the other head honchos don’t ever walk the streets of Harare. If they did they’d very promptly “vomit their gulls” as Tendai (below) suggests because the stench and dirt in our City has reached unacceptable levels.

Tendai makes a good suggestion when he asks private companies to put up refuse bins and fix the public toilets. But one has to ask why should private companies do this, and in so doing, let the City of Harare off the hook? If private companies have to step in time and time again to provide services that the City of Harare should provide, why do we have an expensive Mayor and his entourage?

It’s about time that a certified auditing firm audit revenue received by the City of Harare together with their expenditure. For example the City of Harare is going mad allowing a gross number of advertising billboards to be erected in Harare. But where does the rental money for these billboards go? These rentals can be used specifically to resuscitate public toilets.

Here’s Tendai getting things off his chest:

Toilets and refuse bins

It is high time City of Hare make a stand in 2011 to change the status of our city and bring sanity to the environment. Where are the refuse bins? Down town you hardly see one. Imagine, as our population increases I would think that in the City of Harare’s plans, toilets would increase according to the increased number of people. And with the few toilets we have can everyone afford 50 cents?

One is bound to vomit one’s gull. There is a strong stench of human waste especially when it is raining.

Please if there are companies or organizations reading this letter I appeal to you that you make your toilets available to the public and work on a program, or even build toilets to make all Zimbabwean cities better places. Even if each Zimbabwean organization can provide a litter drum painted with keep our city clean.

The Tunisian protests that saw President Zine el-Abidine Ben Ali flee the country on Friday after 23 years in power began when a young man set himself on fire after police had confiscated merchandise he was selling on the streets. The demonstrations that followed – and their success in forcing Ben Ali out of power – have sparked similar incidents of self-immolation in Egypt, Algeria and Mauritania.

The Zimbabwean government might well be tempted to ban the use of matches here – to prevent similar protests. But with so many power cuts, how would people light their candles and cooking fires? Hmmm. That might make things worse.

You see those fliers always strewn all over the place by pro-democracy activists be it about the constitution, elections or whatever? They could be dangerous to your health after all, and this not because they are environmentally unfriendly or anything of that sort.

I picked up one the other day under a tree where a friend was having his hair trimmed by those outdoor barbers who have become ubiquitous in Bulawayo. Also there chatting with the barber was a cop I am acquainted with. The guy helpfully says to me, be careful about just picking up these papers in the street and reading them. I give a knowing laugh that he is warning me that someone might have used it as toilet paper, but the guy says, no dude I’m serious. Then he explains, and it is not about hygiene considerations:

A man obviously minding his own business picked up one of these pro-democracy fliers just in front of the Western Commonage courts in Bulawayo – there is also a notorious police station here.  As he was busy going through the flier, two men approached and asked him to tell them what Tsvangirai was saying. The man was bamboozled. “Isn’t you have read this piece of paper, now tell us what it is saying.” The poor man was like “who the fuck are you people?” the two men were like, “we are asking you politely and you are saying such rude things.”

Turns out the two were plain clothes cops, and the cop under the tree tells me, these two wanted to take this poor man in and give him a thorough beating, but they “realised” the person they were dealing with was clueless about what they were talking about – and the gravity of the offence, I might add. So they let him off with a stern warning: don’t go about reading these papers put on the streets by unknown people or else you will die for things you don’t know [that’s a direct translation from the vernacular they spoke].

And to me the cop says, “When you see these papers and want to read one, just pick it up, put it your pocket and read it in the privacy of your home”! Why? But I answered it myself – to avoid being picked up by the spooks for reading “subversive” material. I thanked the cop for the invaluable “tip” but in my mind yelled, “Idiot!” I suspected he was one of the said cops as the chap is already known in the locality as a super patriot and moron.

There you have it folks, careful what you read, you may not exactly die of a misprint, but political zealots may just not like what you read and you may die of that dislike from people with apparent dyslexia!  The mind control could be working overdrive ahead of elections, after all, haven’t some people been beaten up in the not-so-distant past for reading the Daily News and other newspapers critical of Zanu PF? Certainly the Zimbabwe we do not want.

Everyday – and I mean everyday – I read about rape cases and am eerily reminded of South Africa being touted over the years as the “rape capital of the world.” Our courts are no doubt kept busy by this violation, but there is one particular case that got me questioning the wisdom of the courts that perhaps evoked emotions and images of Sharia-like dispensation of justice as some know and prefer it.

In a story headlined “Teacher to do community service for statutory rape” [Chronicle, 11 January 2010], it was reported that a 39-year old Mberengwa teacher “was in a relationship” with a 14-year old Form Two pupil and had sex with her on several occasions. The teacher was sentenced to 105 hours of community service.

Here is how “the relationship” began: The teacher proposed love to the 14-year old, and forced the minor – the court admits this is minor despite the sentence handed out – after he confiscated her blouse while she was doing her laundry at a local borehole. To make mattes worse, the school head discovered “the affair” but took no action against the paedophile!

The teacher pleaded for leniency with the court saying he wanted to continue serving as a teacher and was his family’s breadwinner. Believe it or not, this worked with the magistrate – female for that matter!!  I’m still trying to understand why as this does not hold for mitigation for a crime that serious. Who can challenge the postulation that here is serial schoolgirl rapist in the making? Send him back to class and he is your typical recidivist, what with his daily interactions with the 14-year olds and also knowing from experience that he get nothing but a slap on the wrist for his roving eye? The law is an ass, and it is people like this magistrate who assify it!

The only “consolation” I guess is that the State has appealed against the sentence at the High Court, but it does show there are many things wrong with the application and interpretation of the law in Zimbabwe in dealing not only with rape cases but certainly across the whole criminal justice gamut.

No activists with sandwich boards demonstrating against such sentences? Who will protect these young girls from these randy savages whom they look up to in loco parentis? And obviously one has to ask the position or policy of the Ministry of Education on teachers who rape their students and tell the courts they “deserve the court’s leniency” because they love serving the country as teachers. It stands to reason that it’s not the teaching they love!

The International Herald Tribune reports:

On May 5 2010, just after sunup, 750 militants surrounded Dr. Hawa Abdi’s hospital. Mama Hawa, as she is known, heard gunshots, looked out the window and saw she was vastly outnumbered.

“Why are you running this hospital?” the gunmen demanded. “You are old. And you are a woman!”

They did not seem to care that Mama Hawa, 63, was one of the only trained doctors for miles around, and that the clinic, school and feeding program she built on her land supported nearly 100,000 people, most of them desperate refugees from the fighting and poverty that has afflicted this nation.

Dr. Hawa Abdi might only have been a woman, but despite being threatened and held under house arrest for five days, she prevailed. Not only that; inspired by her defiance, hundreds of women in the refugee camp serviced by the hospital dared to protest. Their voices and those of Somalis abroad were heard, forcing the militants to back down, and, upon Dr. Abdi’s insistence, even apologize in writing.

I think we forget that courage is not the absence of fear; it is the ability to do what is right despite that fear. The news is full of stories of despair and injustice and people wailing that there is nothing they can do to change their world. But that isn’t true, one person, even an old woman, can make a difference.