This is what happens to our votes in Zimbabwe.

The artist, Owen Maseko, is currently challenging Mugabe’s ban on his exhibition depicting Gukurahundi, the 1980s Matabeleland massacres.

I met a distraught woman this week and my went heart to pieces. This is a fifty something year-old Zimbabwean grandmother who I see each day and pass the usual greetings and that’s where it ends – no personal stories, just the mutual goodwill that comes with African ubuntu. She went on and on about how she had made two long trips to the city’s largest referral hospital on foot and wasn’t looking forward to making another two trips the next day. Who are you visiting there and what are the doctors saying is the problem? I ask. No, the person died last week and the people at the hospital have been giving us all sorts of stories about why they have not been able to perform a post-mortem so that we may be able to begin funeral arrangements, the poor woman says. All this has taken seven days, I exclaim in disbelief. Ah, other people who came after us have had their post-mortem papers and left to bury their relatives and I think the hospital staff wants us to give them money for the post-mortem to be done and the body released to us. There she said it! Let’s be grim and morbid a bit: Imagine a relative rotting in what we know are malfunctioning morgues just because some poorly paid government person wants a bribe? Is that what the hardships here have turned us into? They say all this evil began at the top, but I refuse to be turned into that group of Africans for whom African-ness long departed from their consciousness and conscience. I wish I could go on about the poor woman’s grief but I’m so damn pissed off.

We’ve received this post from poet and broadcaster Soneni Gwizi about the rights of disabled women:

Zimbabwe is caught up in the transition of writing a new constitution that “will” or should cater for all, particularly now in this inclusive government we are in. I am disturbed with the lack of effort from stakeholders particularly the government. They are not seriously including persons with disabilities at  decisions levels.

It is very sad that the visual and hearing impaired ( blind and deaf ) persons are sidelined due to communication barriers, they use a different communication medium due to the nature ot their disability, the braille and sign language which is not used in public meetings. I am aware that there is a lot of talk and suggestions that they must include all persons but let the truth be told, there is very little action taken on that statement.

Let us consider persons with disability with respect, dignity and allow their own voices to heard so that they can also live and be accepted in our communities.

They may not chant slogans and throw teargas at your buildings ( which they are capable of ) but they have a Right Too!

My voice, my right

They say lets unite and write a constitution with one voice
A voice that declares my rights
Unity means agreement, harmony, and union
It must represent the voices, needs interest and the rights of women, men,
and children of all types of back ground.
Is my right and voice being heard?
Are my needs considered?
For my needs and rights are different from yours society!
Do you not know?
I have struggles and challenges beyound mother nature!
Do you not understand that a constitution is one of the highest laws of a Country?
For years and years i have been trying to tell you Zimbawe,
That my rights and your are different,
You have always made me small in your eyes!
You have silenced my voice,
In your agender i appear like a cloud!
Here today and gone tomorrow.
Why do you ignore my voice and my rights?
Why do you undermine my intelligence, my gender, my disability, my right
Why?
I am just a disabled woman you voice!
Hey i am not just a woman,
I am intelligent, brilliant citizen of this nation.
My voice has to be heard and chronicled in the laws of this nation.
The journey has been too long my sister, my brother,
Hold my hand and lets walk together,
After all we are fighting and voicing for one thing which is,
FREEDOM, FREEDOM, FREEDOM!
The right of a woman!

Just come back from two trips to Eastern Highlands. Tolls both times, both ways. Now, I’ve seen a newspaper that says, “$15 million has been collected. Toll booths built. Roads paved.”

The only pavement I have seen laid is the rumble strips at the approach to these toll booths.

No potholes have been filled, edges maintained. I haven’t seen a new sign, or even new road markings painted.

Strikes me the whole scheme is job creation. New employees, or old employees now able to sit outside. And new places for the Zimbabwe Republic Police (ZRP) to sit and do nothing (which they do so well).

And I see ‘new’ things (who sold them those?). E.g. caravans, road cones, porta loos, solar panels.

Can someone show me, (not tell me), the point of this exercise? Not verbage – aims, objectives, uses, plans – but actual things? What has been done aside from collecting $15 million?

A couple of months ago Amanda Atwood blogged about a faith healing leaflet she found pushed under her door. Apparently the astrologer, herbalist and healer Dr Nkhaima can, amongst other things, help you if your privates are either too big, or too small.

Herbalists of fine talents abound!

A classified advert in the most recent Mail & Guardian publicises the work of Dr Allen, who can solve all your problems. His list includes:

- Bring back lost lover (R200)
- Magic stick to bring your money (R550)
- Magic wallet for double change (R200)

Apparently unfinished jobs are welcome . . .

Once more we travel the spiral.

Once more, it is the dry season
beige grasses laid to waste on pink soils
dust and gold leaves drifting in gusts of wind

Tree of Life members from the communities and organizations meet at Kufunda to reflect on our journey
It has been a long hard walk
‘where have we been?’
‘where are we going?’

Slender resources  have begun to take their toll
faces in the circle are drawn with the hardships they have endured
they spoke of the difficulties of healing in the continuance of adversity
and of the debilitating effects of lack of funding
and of the first tremors of violence that begin to be felt in their communities as talk of the ‘constitution’ and elections fill the air

and we see  how this paucity allows us to loose our trust
and feel,
once again,
our isolation.

It is the dry season

but the days grow longer
and warmer
and life begins to stir
old familiar patterns….

Small explosions punctuate time
as Masasa pods split
flinging flat round seeds to the winds

The promise of the future forest

In the dry branches, feathers are displayed, nesting material  collected, territories  claimed
and birds of prey sit in the tree tops – waiting

As if touched by magic
the faded bush is lit with crimson flashes of flowering Erythrinas
and Masasas begin pumping underground water into new leaves of red and gold

waiting for the rains

Sitting under the thatch, remembering who we are,
the roots that hold us in this ground
Remembering the moments of inspiration
the magic of what has been done
and been forgiven
and how far we have come
and the faces lightened

Remembering the agreements which hold us together
the connections between us
and the web of people out there in the world who have held us in their hearts

remembering our resources

And at the centre of the circle there is the deep knowing that this is the work we have chosen to do,
the work of nourishing this growing forest
for it is only in healing that we can resist our old fears

Outside the thatched rondavel
the granite rocks echo our laughter
and small insects fill the air with a throbbing hum

life continues

Out there, in the confines of our tiny solar system,
Venus and Mars and Saturn and Mercury
slip past each other at sunset
and move to the other side
of our modest sized star

The rat in the A-frame has discovered a way of levering the fitted lid off the bird seed tin
does he stand on the top and bounce?

everything is everything