I recently traveled to Tsholotsho, after about a two year absence. I once stayed in Tsholotsho for about four years. I was a teacher there until I decided writing poetry, drama and raising a few opinions about what Mugabe and company are doing wrong once in a while was more fun than breaking chalk.

For years now I have been getting the same warning from family and friends.

“Wazakubulala wena.” Meaning they will kill you, like they have killed countless others who dared be in opposition with them.

I recently visited Tsholotsho and as expected Mbamba sub-station is manned by police officers who all come from other provinces other than Matabeleland. They can hardly speak the Ndebele language and how the ‘government’ expects them to be effective boggles the mind. The fact that Shona police officers have been imposed on us did not surprise me really – that has been the case since Gukurahundi.

What really shocked me was that the Shona boys who are police office officers at Mbamba sub-station think it is within their rights to beat up citizens. They have even convinced the villagers that the law allows them to beat up villagers. The time I was there the boys beat up three married women old enough to be their mothers and had the audacity to summon the headman of the village and ‘punish’ him for not teaching his people the law.

And we dare say Zimbabwe is a democracy?

Most of us when we were growing up fell for a boy or a girl and thought this person was so special that he or she could not be replaced.

A lot of teenagers have committed suicide for refusing to accept that the person that they have fallen for is no longer interested in them, or the parents have decreed that the affair must stop.

It is only after much learning and the process of growing up that one discovers that which had been taken for the truth is not exactly true, love on its own should never be reason to contemplate ghastly things. You learn that love is respect not infatuation. Respect for the one you have chosen as partner and a feeling you don’t want to cause them unnecessary suffering, embarrassment, but happiness.

You discover also that human beings are not exactly infallible, but are prone to mistakes. It is this experience, more than anything that teaches us nothing is better than everything else. But strangely, this is not known by our Prime Minister Morgan Richard Tsvangirai. In his view, his President Robert Mugabe, is irreplaceable. He has supported this belief on more than one occasion to hundreds of our youth who are curious and likely to take his sentiments for the truth.

The dominating view is that Mugabe has presided over the worst period in our history. There is nothing that the all-inclusive government can do, to change this. Tsvangirai would be best advised he represents the hopes of millions of both opposition, apathetic voters, including disgruntled former ruling ZANU-PF supporters who want the best for their country.

Tsvangirai must stop behaving like a pugilist who comes close to deliver an important knockout punch to his opponent, but crumbles, ceding advantage to the adversary.

He must seek to please, but truthfully. As Zimbabweans we are prepared for the pain that will make our country well again, forever.

For me winter has momentarily provided a welcome distraction from blogging about politics and all ruminations about the bad and the ugly of the usual suspects who have made vows that they will not preside over a bountiful Zimbabwe.

I am not a fashionista and will not claim any aptitude or taste in choosing appropriate wardrobe for anybody including myself no matter the season. But the coming of winter always seems to bring the worst in folks who stick to that dictum that they dress because they MUST not because they WANT to.

In any case, not many here can afford the luxury of picking the kind of clothes they would want or desire had they been afforded the opportunity by their economic circumstances to stash the cash for that cold day.

I saw the other day a woman obviously trying to beat the cold and I could not but wonder rather aloud what other females would have to say about it if at all they would have bothered considering they also would have been busy trying to keep the cold at bay – minding of course their sense of humour.

She wore a heavy sweater and beneath the sweater protruded what would have been a dress, then beneath that dress protruded what looked like a petticoat, beneath the petticoat came a long to cover her legs up to the ankles.

Forgive me but this was my first time since ages ago that I saw a petticoat extending under a dress for all to see. And I thought to myself “isn’t female underwear (any underwear) supposed to remain unseen?”

No contest about men, they could be just as fashion “unsavvy” but one has to ask if winter is an excuse to parade fashion tastes that would put one in front of the dress taste firing squad, but then of course Zimbabweans have long been reduced in the past 20-something years to live lives they previously looked down upon with utmost disdain.

I figure it only gives ammunition to the tourists and pressmen and women who visit this part of the world from outerspace about how bad it has become for us so much that we cannot afford to decently cover our butts!

But then it is this winter which for those with a sharp eye has exposed how bad stretched incomes here have become so one has to ask if food, CLOTHES and shelter are still up there as taught in kindergarten as Man and Woman’s basic needs.

The First All-Stakeholders’ Conference for Zimbabwe’s new Constitution is set to begin later this week. Zanu PF has been asking that the conference be delayed, but the Parliamentary Select Committee insists it will go on as planned.

A lot of the debate about the new Constitution has revolved around the controversial Kariba Draft, and the question of how participatory the Constitution-making process will be. The National Constitutional Assembly has withdrawn from the process, insisting that the creation of a new Constitution needs to be people-driven, not Parliament-driven. They have also prepared a document highlighting the shortcomings of the Kariba Draft Constitution.

Less publicised has been the efforts of Zimbabwe’s marginalised communities to make sure their concerns are addressed and their human rights guaranteed in the country’s new Constitution. For example, a document by the Gays and Lesbians of Zimbabwe (GALZ) outlines the reasons why sexual orientation should be included among the freedoms guaranteed in Zimbabwe’s new Constitution.

This document does not only argue for greater Constitutional protection for the rights of gays and lesbians. It also makes important points about a democracy’s need to protect the inalienable and inherent rights of all minorities, including the right to privacy and equality.

Fundamental human rights, existing by virtue of the holder’s very humanity, cannot be bought or negotiated, and cannot be reduced to a mere privilege dependant on State beneficence. As they derive from attributes of the human personality they exist perpetually and universally for all people and for all nations regardless of historical, cultural, ideological, economic or other differences.

I believe the more inclusive, participatory, and people-driven Zimbabwe’s Constitution-making process is, the stronger the document which comes out of it will be. This means not only including representation of a range of minorities at the All-Stakeholders’ Conference, but also protecting their rights in the document which is developed – regardless of the majority opinion about the “worth” of a community or the “morality” of their behaviour.

I’ve just finished reading Chenjerai Hove’s opinion piece in this week’s Mail & Guardian: A Zimbabwean arrogantocracy.

Hove describes the Global Political Agreement between Zanu PF and the two MDC formations as an experiment with three scientists, one of whom “is discovered to have poured sand and dust into the test tubes.” He then proceeds to starkly outline the variety of ways in which Zanu PF cannot be judged to have entered this power sharing agreement in good faith, and why it should not be trusted. He cites the financial and power interests of Mugabe’s inner circle, and explains why they would never willingly hand over real control of the country to the MDC.

The allocation of ministries tells it all: Soft and troublesome ministries to the MDC and powerful ones to Mugabe’s team. As an election strategy, Mugabe made the MDC run ministries in which it is likely to antagonise its support base: labour unions, women’s groups, human rights activists and lawyers, medical unions, students and teachers.

And indeed, the allocation of ministries does sum things up very clearly. It is a manifestation of the MDC’s challenge of “responsibility without authority,” and already one can see the cracks showing: Teachers threatening to strike for higher wages, the MDC scrambling to find more money to pay them better, tensions between civil society and government over the Constitutional reform process,  MDC MPs who continue to face harassment, arrest and trial over spurious allegations, increasing frustration from high density residents who are still without power and water in their homes and suburbs.

And yet, for all the flaws he outlines, Hove seems to think the current deal is the country’s best hope. He concludes:

One hundred days in the office of solitude, not years, and the jittery Zimbabweans hope the experiment will not fail and lead to the catastrophic break-up of the state.

One of our SMS subscribers recently sent us a message that puts things much more plainly. “GNU is not working for real. MDC must pull out.”

The High Court in Bulawayo on Friday 29 May 2009 stopped Tel-One from disconnecting its customers as a way of forcing them to pay their bills.

That the bills are unreasonably priced is obvious but it is no secret that the company is broke; having made billions of trillions of worthless Zimbabwean dollars that remain stashed in the banks and cannot be useful to anyone any more, particularly not to Tel-One.

The court’s decision while popular is certainly not a solution. A sound communications facility will be vital in the country’s economic turnaround.

The issue of the company’s capitalization is of national strategic importance. Tel-One must devise strategies for fundraising to get it much needed working capital.

And because its customers knowingly enjoyed a ‘free’ service for a long period when the economy collapsed sometime during the last half of 2008 a compromise has to be reached.

The customers have to pay something to get the company back on its feet. Tel-One might be forced to consider ‘switching of’ its clients and charging a reasonable ‘reconnection fee’ before it can be able to start billing its normal rates.

The arguments raised by its clients might appear factual, but are not honest. The parastatal found it broke, even if everyone claims to have paid their dues.

I hope our collective wish is that we get Tel-One and all the other companies, ZESA, ZBC working again so that information, I mean vital information, that will get this country back on its feet again reaches those who need it most.