Diamonds are a chef’s best friend.

In reality, millions of carats of Marange diamonds have hit the market and these revenues are helping the Zimbabwean ZANU-PF party elite avoid real power sharing and democratic reform. Read more

To be honest I’m not sure why Zanu PF spies would want to expose scandalous stories of MDC politicians sexploits. In general Zimbabweans aren’t fazed by them. In fact it seems like the more small houses, Pajeros, shiny suits, shoes and foreign trips a politician goes on, the more Man they are.

I don’t know that the bath is the best place to think up a blog.

I am distracted by my body. Analogies involving words like “undulating” come to mind. And I would like to take a break and go to the beach next month. The two are linked for obvious reasons. Having slumbered through the winter with excessive amounts of sweetened caffeine and comfort food, disguised under shapeless sweaters and layers of warmth, less exfoliated and creamed and cared for, wrapped up in the dark of night, against any hopeful fumbling which might let in the fresh air, and studiously ignored in the nude – my body is much the worse for wear.

I go through this every year and emerge on the other side of winter hairy, dry, white and blinking against the sun. Like a mole. The thought of hitting the beach, even if it is isolated and I can push the kids in front of me like an excuse, is quite daunting. I shall go wobbling and waddling along the sand, bulging unseemingly in my old bikini, which, like my body, has seen better days, and squashing my frame into fatty folds as I bend to build sand castles. On the bright side, at least I can bend. And I have the comfort of being happily married. Or is that happily complacent?

Never mind. I have found a temporary cure to all ills of this nature – skipping. I am sure it uses up more calories than walking! With the added bonus of making me smile. I have been skipping from the office to the loo, some of which is also due to a sense of urgency – I will leave it to the last minute. It makes me smile to imagine what everyone is thinking in their offices as I skip past. By the time I am in my toilet cubicle I am giggling out loud. If other cubicles are occupied, I giggle even harder. It’s therapy for the soul and something my daughter taught me, having made me skip past all the other mothers at school, with considerably less grace than my daughter. It is humbling and enlightening at the same time.

So I shall skip to the beach, encouraging my boobs and bum to defy gravity, juddering and giggling as I go.

After decades of civil war, often based on ethnicity, religion, ideology and oil between the north and south, South Sudan finally gained its freedom and its now a Republic. South Sudan will become the 55th nation in Africa.

Saturday the 9th of July was indeed a day to celebrate in Juba the capital city of South Sudan when the flag of South Sudan was flown with the national anthem playing for the first time to mark its independence. The nation was born out a referendum in which the Southerners voted overwhelmingly to separate from the North. With its vast oil deposits and with a mainly Christian population, South Sudan hopes to start a new beginning after its hard-earned independence.

But despite having one of the biggest oil reserves in Africa, 90 percent of the people of South Sudan were living on less than half a dollar per day. One hopes that the new government of South Sudan will use its oil resources to enhance the living standards of its citizens and promote democracy and respect for human rights. Indeed God led the people of South Sudan to a well-deserved independence after a long struggle; let us all help the South Sudanese in singing their national anthem and celebrate their hard earned freedom.

South Sudan National Anthem

Oh God
We praise and glorify you
For your grace on South Sudan,
Land of great abundance
Uphold us united in peace and harmony.

Oh motherland
We rise raising flag with the guiding star
And sing songs of freedom with joy,
For justice, liberty and prosperity
Shall forever more reign.

Oh great patriots
Let us stand up in silence and respect,
Saluting our martyrs whose blood
Cemented our national foundation,
We vow to protect our nation

Oh God bless South Sudan.

“Good morning sir,” a man called out to me as I came into work this morning.

“Good morning,” I replied.

“Good morning sir,” he said again. His voice was frail, and an unkempt beard hid his dirty, wrinkled face in patches. His red jersey was dotted with holes and seemed little protection against the cold, crisp morning air.

“Good morning.”

“Oh. Good morning ma’am,” he corrected himself apologetically.

“That’s all right,” I smiled. “Good morning.”

He looked at me closely and brought his hand, shaking, close to my face. “Whatever you do,” he leaned in closely and I could see his yellow teeth between the gaps in his mouth. “Whatever you do, don’t give up. Stay strong. Stay strong. And don’t ever lose your pride.”

I thanked him, and he wandered off, taking his own advice as I heard him start up the same conversation with the next passerby.

Zimbabwean activist Grace Kwinjeh recently shared the following article with us.

And … as a matter of interest – you might well have missed it – in a recent Zimbabwe Republic Police (ZRP) statement published in The Sunday Mail the ZRP has already concluded that “MDC hooligans” murdered Inspector Mutedza in Glenview. Proclaimed guilty even before trial.

Cry Woman cry, cry beloved Zimbabwe!
By Grace Kwinjeh

“Another weekend in for my child, is that it??? Cynthia was picked up from her town residence, not in Glen View, and she was never in Glen View, why, why is this happening to my child and why to her little boy?? How do I tell a little boy that he can’t see his mother because she was arrested for no crime at all??” Anna Manjoro.

The above are the cries posted on the social networking site, Facebook, by Mrs Anna Manjoro, Cynthia’s mother. Cynthia is one of the 24 Glenview residents accused of killing a police officer, Petros Mutedza . Above is the shrill cry of anguish coming from a mother and grandmother for her daughter, Cynthia, who has left behind a son to whom she has to explain the ‘criminal’ enormity of his mother’s arrest.

Problem is there is no criminal enormity here! Only, perhaps, a coldly calculated ‘political enormity’. An eerie cloud of premeditated spitefulness that hovers ominously over Cynthia and three other women who have been transferred from the female section to the male one at Chikurubi Maximum prison– a holding centre for the most vile and dangerous criminals.

The psychological impact is unimaginable!

Just to prove where the real deception behind the arrests of the 24 lies is the fact that Cynthia herself, even the police admit, has not committed any offense, but her arrest is meant to ‘lure’ her boyfriend who, as they allege, is also behind the killing of the police officer in Glenview.

Anna’s cries are deep from Zimbabwe’s own belly, mourning for her beloved children.

Arbitrary arrests, torture, hate speech – you name it – characterize a relentless campaign by President Robert Mugabe’s acolytes in the top echelons of the army, police and intelligence to intimidate and instill fear in an otherwise restive population. This unfortunate group, it should be noted, is not the first since Zimbabwe’s independence to endure the brutality of similarly seeming mindless incarceration as a result of trumped up charges.

When political temperatures rise, women and children are the most vulnerable. But who cares?

Scars are still fresh from the violence of the 2008 Presidential election run -off. A woman from Manicaland Province states in a December, 2010 study commissioned by the Research Advocacy Unit (RAU) : “No place to hide. Politically motivated rape of Zimbabwean women”, “When I woke up the following morning on the 26th of June 2008, they had put a skirt on me and a ZANU PF t-shirt, I had blood all over my skirt and my thighs were swollen. My vagina was full of semen; I had wounds and cracks from being raped continuously. I could not walk because my legs were swollen.” The grisly forms of violence, endured by hundreds of women, through out the country during this dark period are well documented.

It may seem as if this is no longer the time to dwell on what some might feel to be petty struggles fought in high density suburbs like Glenview. It may, however, certainly be claimed, in some quarters, that the focus is no longer on the ability of the working class (or struggling women, on a more specific note) to mobilize and liberate themselves, and that now the focus has shifted onto the regional and African elites’ political will to offer leadership that will liberate Zimbabweans from a long time ally and friend of theirs.