So, where are US$ coins actually accepted for retail in Zimbabwe? I find it interesting that having adopted a multi-currency system as a country – some retailers neither recognise nor accept US$ coins.  Picture this; you want to purchase a product that costs $3, 25. You hand over three US$1 notes to the teller and when you give them a quarter, they look at it, frown and say they don’t accept that but R2 (two Rand) would do instead. I mean what the bollocks?

Ever since I returned from the States, I have been carrying around a wallet full of what I realise now are essentially useless coins here. I just don’t get it. Yesterday evening while making a few purchases at the Bridge Spar, I tried my luck again with the coins. The till attendant looked at me squarely and said it was after 6pm therefore she could no longer accept US$ coins. I demanded an explanation as to what it being after 6pm had anything to do with what choice of coins was acceptable. The till attendant mumbled something along the lines of the shop being unable to give them to other customers as change or ‘cash’ them, whatever that means. I drew surprised stares when I thought aloud that that was one of the stupidest things I had heard all week.

It is bad enough we are not using our own currency, but to have selective use of the foreign currency that we do use is an unnecessary inconvenience. I think it is high time for whoever’s job it is to start working towards a more sustainable currency solution. I mean for how long can a country live under all sorts of speculation. The Short Term Emergency Recovery Programme (STERP) stipulates that the temporary use of multiple currencies terminates in 2012. Then what next? In last week’s Standard, the IMF was quoted in an article as having cautioned the Zimbabwean government against re-introducing the Zim-dollar. They said the country should rather extend the life span of the multi-currency system and also continue using the US dollar till 2014. The IMF Article IV report on Zimbabwe stipulates that the inclusive government has failed to put in place adequate conditions for the re-introduction of the Zim-dollar.

Last year there were speculations that the government attempted to join the Rand Monetary Union (currently consisting of Namibia, Swaziland, Lesotho and South Africa). Big wonder what happened to that idea. The media reported that Cabinet for the most part feared rejection. Now I hear old Zimbabwean coins are being purchased for long cash and selling like hot cakes on the streets. I wonder if like in 2008 the RBZ governor might just once again resuscitate old currency. I sure am holding on to whatever original Zimbabwean notes and coins I still have, all together with my currently useless US$ coins.

The First Lady of the United States of America is currently on a six-day tour of southern Africa. She is accompanied by her family. On her trip to South Africa, she talked about women’s development and youth development. On June 22, 2011 Mrs Obama made a keynote speech at a conference of the Young African Women Leaders’ Forum, which brought together 75 women aged 16 to 30 who have leadership roles across the continent.

As part of her speech at Young African Women Leaders Forum, Mrs Obama also paid tribute to those who sacrificed their lives during apartheid era. In her remarks she said:

“You can be the generation that holds your leaders accountable for open, honest government at every level, government that stamps out corruption and protects the rights of every citizen to speak freely, to worship openly, to love whomever they choose.

You can be the generation to ensure that women are no longer second-class citizens, that girls take their rightful places in our schools.

You can be the generation that stands up and says that violence against women in any form, in any place – including the home – especially the home – that isn’t just a women’s rights violation. It’s a human rights violation. And it has no place in any society”.

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An assessment of the range of political parties we have to choose from shows that whichever way one looks at it, Zimbabweans are screwed!  It’s mediocre politicians all around, positing ludicrous policies whilst they happily take part in scandalous shenanigans.  So come next trip to the ballot box, we’ll just have to elect the lesser devil into power.  Question is, whose political thrust will be easiest to endure?

Missionaries

They’ve courted our vote for years, promising new and exciting things if we give them a chance.  They’ve positioned themselves as the party for the ordinary Joe, preaching right, opposing wrong and taking up the people’s cause.  To their credit, they’ve managed to gather a large following, many of them eager youths. Unfortunately, they have also shown signs that they will give us more of the same.  We have seen them in government and they haven’t proved themselves very different.  In fact, it’s quite predictable how things will turn out should they have complete rule.  I foresee that after they have been in office for a few years, they’ll have us lying on our backs once more, as we go through the motions of the same old same old.

Who’s On Top?

This party is small but feisty and able to play ball with the big boys.  Despite their size, they have many tricks up their sleeve and the ability to turn the heat up on events.  They are well known for rousing the political scene. The downside is that leadership issues remain unresolved.  As things stand, it appears to be a party of wrangling cowboys.  So one wonders, at election time, will we be voting for a party with a guy on top or maybe a reverse cowgirl?

Standing Up and Shaking

The little parties of Zimbabwe politics are unstable.  However, they make sure that everybody gets some and this keeps things entertaining.  Usually, as elections are coming, these groups remind us of their existence by becoming rather vocal.  Occasionally, they will make the news, either for infighting or swinging, that is exchanging (political) partners they get into bed with. For this reason, nobody truly knows what (and whom) they actually stand for.  Most people are therefore, uncomfortable about engaging with this bunch.  After all, can you really vote easy when there isn’t something solid to lean against, and you’re balancing on one leg with the other leg dangling precariously somewhere else?

Violated in Every Way

The lover who turns on you is the best way to describe this party.  Things began beautifully and we were happy bedfellows.  Today it is dramatically different and the good times are but a distant memory. It’s a case of no matter what position you choose for yourself, you will never be satisfied.  In fact, you will suffer abuse.  The party of selfish lovers have years of experience in bondage and sadomasochism.   They’ve made us perform demeaning acts, brainwashed and drugged us senseless, used and used us some more. Still, in spite of this, the results of the vote will have them firmly back in power, and power is what rape is all about.

With such a political landscape, it is understandable that Zimbabweans feel disillusionment, indifference and fatigue when it comes to voting.  Thus, when the outcome of the elections are known, by far the largest population of voters, as always, will be those who have opted not to pick a favourite position for being screwed over.

Only a few day ago, ZBC News was being berated for showing the charred remains of victims of the Sunningdale fuel tanker “inferno,” and on 22 June during the 1730hrs Shona news bulletin these same people had the gall to show the body of a man hanging by the neck from a tree “in an apparent suicide,” the broadcaster reported. To “mitigate” viewer shock, the body still hanging from a tree was covered over the face with a white sheet! However, in the Nbebele bulletin that followed, someone must have come to their senses as the “hanging man” was not shown, and so it was for the 2000hrs main news.

Where the heck are these hacks trained?

I’ve had a hard time the last few weeks, what with one thing and another.

At my age you’d think pimples were a dim adolescent memory or at least something that I couldn’t care less about. But the wisdom that comes with wrinkles is shot down by the volcano on my chin.  And I’m young enough to see it in the rear view mirror!  So with wrinkles, fatigue and everything else mapping my path through life on my face, I took this solitary, defiant blemish as a grievous insult, added to already extensive injury.

I have done my best to keep to the office, the car and home, avoiding as much contact with strangers as possible.  As fate would have it, many of our computers had to go in for cleaning, thrusting me unwittingly and repeatedly into an almost exclusively male environment. It was a conspiracy I tell you!  I found everyone talking to my chin, never mind the boobs. I swear I could’ve been stark naked and it wouldn’t have made the slightest difference! Not that the boobs are anything to write home about – but I think we’ve discussed my surgical, or financial, limitations already.

Self-conscious disguise was inevitable really.

The disguises over the last few days have included an impossibly raised collar (John Travolta style – with my fleece jacket, sexy!). A finger raised to my chin (in contemplative manner albeit sometimes in the most unlikely circumstances – who walks through a shopping mall with their finger on their chin and their elbow hovering in mid-air? Once a till slip clenched between my teeth (as if my hands were full) and sometimes walking as though I had developed a serious neck injury – with my chin stubbornly stuck to my shoulder.  My children had to fend for themselves crossing the street. What with me glaring at the ground, finger affixed to my chin, gagging on till slips, it was each man for himself!

Before they come to take the kids away, let me just point out the slight exaggeration; I left them in the car, they were embarrassed to be seen with me!

I am pleased to report that The Pimple has since died of natural causes (murder having been narrowly averted by Rescue Remedy) and subsided to more humble proportions, hence the courage to write this. As soon as my colleagues and friends read this I imagine them streaming into the corridors to see my chin for themselves, and I will mumble something about stones and glasshouses and a hex on you all, as I push my way through the crowd ….

Frankly, I think security measures at certain international airports have reached ridiculous if not sometimes embarrassing proportions. Though not a very ‘frequent flyer’, I must say things have changed dramatically since the last time I travelled long distance. Recently I travelled to Washington DC via the dreaded Dakar route. The usual put-your-hand-luggage-through-the-scan-device-and-take-out-your-laptop was in order. So was the business of removing jewellery, belts and metal buckled shoes, and more. I stood in a long snaking ‘women only’ line at OR Tambo wondering what the hold-up was until I was about 10 people away from going past the scan myself.  There was a variety of interesting new security measures. People were not only taking off shoes, belts and jewellery – they were also taking off jackets in that biting cold, then handing themselves over to a burly female guard who would then conduct a pat-down similar to what I’ve seen ‘cops’ do in the movies. All out in the open. I mechanically went through the process, trying not to flinch at the thought of being groped and patted by those yellow-gloved hands. Next, a full body scan where you had to look directly ahead, legs apart and hands above your head. In about 5 seconds, the Rapid Scan 1000 device – informally known as the ‘backscatter’ – would then screen you for any hidden metallic and other potentially dangerous objects. Those in the know say this is the in-thing for all US bound travellers nowadays.

Then there were the smug police and other security personnel that seemed to intently observe travellers; some a little more than others – as they walked up and down the long queues. I heard they are called ‘behaviour detection officers’. Their open stares were peeled to pick out anything in the least suspicious-looking – like someone sweating with the aircon on perhaps.

The brief stopover in Dakar was also colourful. Security men and women methodically searched over and under, probed and almost tore apart all the seats that had been vacated by passengers whose final destination was Senegal. A little later, everyone was asked to take possession of their hand luggage. This would enable them to quickly spot any unattended bag and remove it in case it was a bomb or something. For a moment there was an unclaimed bag in one of the overhead lockers, which of course caused a bit of a flurry including the calling in of what looked like a stand-by bomb squad. It later emerged that the bag belonged to an elderly Russian who neither spoke nor understood English, and therefore had not understood the instruction to take possession of his bag.

Many hours later, we touched down at Dulles Airport. As I waited for the baggage to arrive, an announcement was repeated at almost 10 minute intervals warning travellers never to leave their bags unattended as they risked being ‘removed’ by the security detail with a great chance of them getting damaged in the process. I later discovered that bomb threats are a common, almost every day thing in Washington. On one of the days our host was very late for a conference because she had had to go back to her house and fetch her car after there had been a bomb threat at one of the subway stations.

On my way back to Zimbabwe this week, I went through the now familiar processes. As we stood in the long queues, I could see all the frustrated and annoyed looks of travellers, some of whom really risked missing connecting flights. Security seemed to be taking a lot longer than usual.

Later I reflected to myself, what kind of life is this when it is punctuated by so much fear?

Understandably, security is meant to protect us innocent civilians, but for a country to be constantly looking over its shoulder for fear of being attacked is indeed a sad way of life. They say in Shona kuvhunduka chati kwatara hunge uine katurikwa, loosely translated to mean that he who is uncharacteristically always jumpy knows what he is guilty of.

I have friends who firmly believe the Americans brought this upon themselves, bullying and sticking their nose into other people’s business; attempting to run the world. So many have a bone to chew with them including Iraqis, Afgans, Pakistanis, Somali’s and now Libyans. But more attacks certainly can be anticipated now that Bin Laden has been neutralised. I cannot help but recall the words of one Somali in Mark Bowden’s Black Hawk Down, a harrowing and somewhat fictionalised account of the happenings of October 3rd, 1993 in Mogadishu when a US Delta Force military raid went terribly wrong resulting in the gruesome deaths of 18 soldiers. He said: “Didn’t the Americans realise that for every leader they arrested, there were dozens of brothers, cousins, sons and nephews to take his place? … They were trying to take down a clan, the most ancient and efficient social organization known to man.”

The question is; how long can a country keep this up? Obviously whomever it is they are afraid of, would attack when least expected and wouldn’t be so stupid as to attempt passing through all that security strapped with bombs?

But I guess nothing can be left to chance.