Zimbabwe is now split between politicians who are either puppets of the West or East. Anyone who has been preaching the gospel of democracy and good governance is being labeled a puppet of the West. But still we have the new friends who are exploiting our brothers and sisters, our environment and breaking laws left, right and center while using illegal permits. Who is issuing these licenses? These are now the puppets of the East who sacrifice the country for self benefit.

If this election is going to be based on accountability then all Members of Parliament don’t deserve a second chance to represent the people. Interesting interview on Zi-Fm led to some cursing and shouting of obscenities on radio by the Honorable Tendai Biti when he was asked what he used his US$50 000 allocation of the Constituency Development Fund for. If this were a face-to-face interview someone would have lost some front teeth as the Minister went haywire on a live radio program.

The outrage was sparked by a survey, which was carried out by the Harare Residents Trust, a lobby group based in Harare. Honorable Tendai Biti the Harare East Member of Parliament and also the Minister of Finance claims he still has around US$23 000 as a ‘balance’ in the account and one wonders why he didn’t just use the money to develop his constituency before the end of his term in office. I mean Harare East is not spared from road potholes and I am sure there are clinics, which need some medicine, or he could have just bought some chairs and desks for schools in his area.

By trying to shoot the messenger and dismissing HRT’s report raises some interest in what he used the other half of the allocation for?

The Cde Minister may have handled the nation’s budget but has failed to allocate US$50 000 in his constituency.

The economic crunch experienced in 2008 left many young people jobless as industries closed and relocated to other regional countries. The situation today isn’t much changed. One town reeling under the effects is Chitungwiza, where young people have not been spared. Some have resorted to vending to earn a living, but even vending is now so crowded. Chitungwiza is a dormitory town and almost 80% of people who live in this town commute to Harare for work. Trading is now the major source of income for those who can’t commute to Harare. Most young people found here are college graduates, bricklayers or traders.  A few who still have the energy have resorted to stone crushing to earn a living. This type of work is labor intensive. They use manual labor to crush big rocks to produce ¾ stones, which can be used as concrete for buildings. A ready market for these stones is already there because of new houses being constructed in Chitungwiza.

The stone crushers work on a small open space which council had abandoned because of the huge rocks, which made it difficult to put structures there.

A day starts with the burning of the rocks till they start showing signs of cracking. Some heavy pounding with big hammers follows resulting in the rocks peeling off into small chunks easy to crush using hammers. This type of work is very dangerous and one can lose a limb or an eye from the flying rock chips from the hammers.

Some of the stone crushers are skilled first class artisans in carpentry and some are builders. They got retrenched when the economy went up side down. Left without an alternative, stone crushing is now their only source of income. To make up a load these young men have to crush an average of 60 wheelbarrows worth of rock valued at US$150.

Working a normal day shift from 8am to around 4pm these young men feel at home when they are doing their work. Like one of them said, “I am earning an honest living and will only leave the quarry site when all the rocks have been cleared.” Most of them are married and they can afford to pay rents and buy food for their families.

I tried my hand on a few rocks but it was like hitting steel with steel, they even laughed at me saying I was weak. I was told with time they got used to the pain and they can crush stones every day.

Back in the 1980s and 1990s the Zimbabwean government loved slogans so much it came to define the nature of the politics of deceit favoured by the rulers. “Health for All by Year 2000,” “Housing for All by Year 2000,” “Clean Water for All by Year 2000,” “Education for ALL by Year 2000″ all clogged the public sphere. This was before the UN’s global commitments of the MDGs which were only adopted  in 2000. Indeed Zimbabwe must have been way ahead by then! But it turns out it was all in the name of winning votes because many years later, things remain the same if not worse.

The following photo-essay documents Westlea, a “new” suburb that is yet another pointer of how far the country has lagged behind in providing “housing for all.”

Find water where you can

A child plays outside his ‘house’

A ‘gated’ residence

Safe water?

A country whose politics makes a tradition of tragic deaths through suspicious automobile accidents can only have very little to claim as an “open society.”

Zimbabwe’s roads after independence are littered with deaths of prominent individuals who everyone knows had become a pain in the ass of the oligarchs. These were individuals expressing their version of the truth as opposed to the “official” line peddled by spin doctors and apologists of the political establishment. The dead men’s crusades would be perfectly in order in any country that is not North Korea.

That this continues to happen long after independence where Africa’s liberation struggle was short-circuited and chaos-riddled by ideological wars defined by the U.S.S.R and the U.S.A and went on to claim anyone from Patrice Lumumba to Amílcar Cabral to Thomas Sankara, to Zimbabwe’s own revolution that ate its own children from Josiah Magama Tongogara to Sydney Malunga points to a political tradition that is inimical to the very ideals the “new democrats” purport to espouse.

In Zimbabwe no accident that claims a prominent politician is an accident at all. It is just one of those things we have come to accept.

What is disturbing is that despite this, it still remains the chosen modus operandi of eliminating perceived opponents.

This cannot be belaboured here, yet the impunity is troubling.

Small wonder that many people here await the day not of healing political wounds but a day of retribution where those fingered in these acts of political assassination will have their testicles squeezed in the people’s angry court.

That Zimbabweans have an “insider” tipping prominent individuals that they are targets of assassination only makes this more disturbing because apparently there is very little or nothing these people can do to avoid what is increasingly their inevitable demise.

It’s only recently that one “powerful” Zanu PF don said of Energy Mutodi’s claim that the don wanted Mutodi killed: “If I wanted him (Mutodi) killed do you think he would still be alive?”

Ever since the day I watched a documentary called Wasteland on how a photographer changed the lives of rubbish pickers in Brazil by empowering them to make art with the recyclable materials they pick from the dump site my mind now forever boggles on how best people can make of the circumstances and scenarios they are in. The Friendship Bench at Harare Hospital is one of the many ideas across the country of how communities are being empowered.

I recently visited the Friendship Bench at Harare Hospital. An organisation created by Dr Chibanda to assist low-income people suffering from depression and anxiety. Patients come to the wooden bench for counselling from trained health workers. After realising that most of the people receiving counselling at the Friendship Bench had no source of income, the idea of Zee Bags was born. These women crotchet old plastic bags into colourful shopping baskets and fun handbags.

Now the women have been so empowered to make their own living. If you attended HIFA this year, you probably saw their stand, which was big and eye-catching. Being at HIFA and exhibiting was a great achievement for them and now they look forward to doing the same at the Harare Agricultural Show.

Being around this group of women you can see how this community development project has helped them to deal with their challenges with common mental disorders, depression and anxiety. During the interviews I gathered most of the women eluded that before joining this project all they could think of were their worries leading to stress, but now making these bags keeps their minds busy. And it’s also giving them some income to take care of their families.