If we all stand back from things that are broken, that need fixing and say that we can’t do any thing, and that the government is responsible and they need to fix it. And if the government says that it doesn’t have the money to fix it then does that mean that there is no solution? Does that mean students will forever go without schools and books and teachers? And sick people will go without hospitals doctors and nurses? If we all agree that we don’t want handouts from rich countries and that we want to dictate the terms of their aid, and yet we still expect them to come and bail us out, do we really believe that they will take us seriously? If we let our politicians get away with corruption and we don’t hold the MPs that we voted into position accountable for their actions, who really is to blame for a bad situation turning into an untenable one?

And so 40 more people have died on the Harare-Masvingo-Beitbridge road. Before that it was 30, and before that? Many more.

As a nation we seem to have lost our sense of outrage. We have become inured to death and loss. It seems as if over the past ten years, we have lost so many people we have become desensitised to death. Whether it is 1 of fifty people dead doesn’t seem to matter.  Just earlier this year we were losing hundreds of people to cholera by the week.  Mothers, fathers and children, gone.

Now this bus crash has claimed so many lives. Mothers, fathers, children. We will not hold our breath that something will be done soon. When Susan Tsvangirai lost her life on the same stretch of road, noises were made. Months later, those noises had died down. Until this. Now I suspect there will be a resumed frenzied cacophony of them. But after all the noise has died down, after the State has bought coffins, doled out bags of maize and provided transport for the dead, life will go back to normal. We will be stuck once more with a State which helps people when they die, but does not help them live.  Then officialdom like circling vultures will wait. Wait for the next crash (it cannot be an accident when we can pretty much predetermine the cause). Wait for the next batch of people to die. Wait to declare a state of disaster and buy more coffins, dole out more maize and provide more transport for the dead. Shedding crocodile tears while leaving the road unfixed.

The question I dread most is, ‘what do you do?’ I unfortunately have to say I am a writer or an ‘artist’, depending on who I am talking to. The response is always the same; people always wonder why I do not get a proper job and stop wasting my life away on useless pursuits. And for those who know that I have a teaching qualification, the lecture goes on and on until I say yes, I am going to go back to teaching, even though I do not intend doing so. I recently told a friend that I intend keeping some dreadlocks, in that way people will conclude that I am an artist before they ask. They will conclude that I am a little crazy and therefore should be left alone. I have resolved to carry around some of my pay slips from prestigious publications to show to some of the skeptics. Why should I be at pains to explain my profession, I wonder? I don’t see people telling nurses to become teachers on top of being nurses. So why should an artist be something other than an artist?

Don’t you just love this?

TIME: How real is the transition?

Tsvangirai: This transitional inclusive government can already record some significant progress, in critical areas like education, health, water and sanitation and food.

I reckon Tsvangirai needs to take some time out and visit the many waterless and powerless suburbs in Harare. And whilst he’s at it, he should take his US$100 a month salary (yeah right) and see how far it gets him in Zimbabwe – one of the most expensive countries in the world.

Hmmm. Education? Right. Well here’s an excerpt from a recent Zimbabwe National Students Union (ZINASU) statement:

Students were given the platform to air out problems they are facing at their different institutions. The meeting was briefly disturbed by ZANU Pf youths who were purporting to be students, but it managed to proceed after 30mins of delay. The ZINASU Vice President, Briliant Dube chaired the meeting and briefed the participants on the activities ZINASU is carrying out. The students raised the following issues:

- Unaffordability of education.

- Poor sanitation facilities.

- Under qualified teaching personnel.

- Electricity and water problems.

- Outdated library materials.

- Shortage of computers.

- The ratio is 200 students per 1 computer.

- Students are not allowed to attend lectures without proof of paying fees.

- No Students Representative Council (SRC) at Solusi University.

I’ve just read a statement that’s come in from a Zimbabwean NGO called Zimbabwe Coalition on Debt and Development. The statement calls for an audit of “Zimbabwe’s unpayable and odious loans” and asserts, “Zimbabwe’s debt – much of which has resulted from the post colonial burden, failed IFI structural reform programs in the nineties, and the lack of access to debt reduction programmes that other countries have benefited from.”

Whilst there is an urgent need for this kind of audit there is also an urgent need for organisations like ZIMCODD and Transparency International-Zimbabwe to charter that scary and unpopular course of demanding that public servants like Mugabe have his wealth investigated and audited.

According to the statement “Debt relief from both multilateral and bilateral creditors is imperative if Zimbabwe is to be able to meet the basic needs of its people”. It is also true to say that Zimbabweans need debt relief from the avarice of Zanu PF.

I think someone would do quite well if they produced a map that showed where the Zimbabwe Republic Police (ZRP) hang out (aka road blocks) waiting to harass or cajole bribes out of Zimbabweans. So we can work out routes around them. The thing is the ZRP are really quite lazy so they tend to stay in the same spot rather than engaging any kind of element of surprise. For example, a group of ZRP camp out just past the last lights in Hatfield on the way to the airport. Their trick is to accuse motorists of jumping an orange light (like Natasha described recently). Knowing that you’re on your way to the airport the ZRP figure that you’ll just hand over a quick bribe because you want to fly, or meet a plane on time.

Truth be told the economy hasn’t revived and it’s hard making ends meet so our recent proliferation of road blocks isn’t anything to do with law and order, or keeping our roads safe, it’s about the ZRP supplementing their meagre wages. Of course there are also issues of control and aggression. A Zimbabwean recently emailed us his experience of being stopped at a road block on the way to Masvingo . . .

I just wonder what these roadblocks are serving; are they to safeguard Zimbabwe’s wealth or the Nation its self from thugs, robbers and killers?  I was driving to my rural home; we were three of us and we approached one of the roadblocks sited on the highway that goes to Masvingo. There was this vehicle, an Army vehicle that was parked right in the middle of the road. Those in the car were talking to this soldier who was at the roadblock laughing. In short the vehicle was blocking other road users. When I got there I stopped behind this Army vehicle and no one attended to me until I decided to use the other side that was not blocked to proceed with my journey. When I was about to go the Police Officer and three other Police Reserves, who were there, stopped me and I stopped.   They started accusing me of running away. I then asked them when I stopped (did you attend to me?). This soldier came shouting together with the Police Reserves saying (you wanted me not to talk to my boss and rush to attend to you?). I said we are both road users therefore I think if you had other issues to discuss you were supposed to park your vehicle outside the road to allow other road users to be attended to and proceed with their journey. The three of us were harassed and shouted at and the other solder was asked to bring the gun. I asked this soldier who he was ordering the gun for, were we civilians armed? What crime had we committed? These questions were not answered.  We then said that we understand is that all of the soldiers and policemen are there to protect civilians from thugs, robbers and to protect the country not to harass civilians. All I want the Nation to know is that a lot of harassment is going on at the roadblocks and why, nobody knows.