Just recently a friend gave me a copy of the book, from ACT UP to the WTO (urban protest and community building in the era of globalisation). Here’s an excerpt which I’ve contextualised a bit for Zimbabwe, and which I think gives a lot of food for thought amidst the challenges we’re all facing. Now, more than ever, is the time for community building. Consider adding other suggestions, sharing them with friends, family and colleagues – and, of course, putting them into action.

Turn off your TV. Leave your house. Know your neighbours. Look up when you’re walking. Greet people. Plant flowers. Plant trees. Use your library. Buy from local vendors. Share what you have. Help a lost dog. Support your suburb’s schools. Fix it even if you didn’t break it. Pick up litter. Talk to the postman. Get to know the people who remove your rubbish. Listen to the birds. Help carry something heavy. Give lifts. Ask a question. Hire young people from your suburb for odd jobs. Ask for help when you need it. Look out for each other. Share your skills. Drive slowly and respectfully. Turn up the music. Turn down the music. Listen before you react to anger. Mediate a conflict. Seek to understand. Learn from new and uncomfortable angles. Know that no one is silent though many are unheard: work to change this.

Yesterday I was pushing my mostly empty trolley around a mostly empty supermarket in Greendale. The meat counters which are usually full of meat were full out, flat out of anything. Not even a pigs trotter. I laughed when I saw the big sign on the wall behind the refrigerators saying

Shoplifters will be prosecuted

I did manage to get an enormous cauliflower and some baked beans.

I haven’t seen bread in ages but at the TM bakery I spotted some odd rolled up loaf type things livened up with the odd raisin. The guy next to me said this sort of looks like bread so I’m buying it.

The day before I watched people swarming the supermarket aisles of Bon Marche in Borrowdale set on stealing as many price controlled items as possible. Nauseating to watch because it was mainly the rich of Zimbabwe buying up the bargains. The poor were grateful just to be able to purchase more than the few items that they can usually afford.

Robin Hood, where are you?

Lois Chingandu from SafAIDS recently wrote a very interesting paper entitled Multiple Concurrent Partnerships: The story of Zimbabwe – Are small houses a key driver? which we’ve just published on Kubatana. The phrase “small house” refers to a mistress.

Here’s an excerpt from the paper and we urge you to go and read the whole thing:

The high levels of AIDS-related deaths in Zimbabwe have forced men to acknowledge that AIDS is indeed a problem that they can no longer afford to ignore and demands that they find new ways of doing business. The message of abstinence, faithfulness and condom use (ABC) is well known to all. However the desire for multiple sexual partners has convinced men that small houses could be a safer way of continuing to enjoy sex with multiple partners, rather than choosing monogamy and faithfulness, which are widely viewed as western ideals not applicable to Africans.

According to most of the men in the focus group discussions, they are pushed by their wives to start small houses. Using their own words, “wives are nagging, there is no time to rest or have peace in your own home without the wife asking for money for this and that or complaining about what has not been done or paid by the husband.” “Once they are married women tend to relax and take so many things for granted, they stop pampering their husband and are always moody, complaining or shouting.” “Most wives use sex deprivation as a tool to punish the husband when they are not happy.” “Before small houses we would stay in the beer hall until late, have a bit of casual sex and get home when I know she will be asleep. But now with HIV/AIDS casual sex is now a no go area. In contrast the small house is a house of peace where I can rest mentally and physically while being treated as a king. My responsibility is to pay the rent and buy food. When I do buy the woman anything she is very grateful whereas my wife and children at the big house feel it is their right and might not see the need to appreciate what I do. Sexually I can do at the small house that which I do not necessarily do in my house (oral and anal sex) because my wife sees it as embarrassing and unacceptable. The small house is really my wife the only difference is that there is no legal certificate or rings.”

Conversation with a colleague last week left me feeling relieved and consoled just a tad. She still hadn’t found a job. Many will wonder why that is good news. Well, I am jobless too and so are most of my former classmates from University. The fact that so many of us cannot find employment makes one feel that it is not because of not enough effort, but that the jobs just aren’t there.

I will not plunge into “the day in a life of a job seeker” kind of narration, but I tell you, no one has it tougher. With the unemployment rate running riot at 80% and companies continuing to relocate and scale down, what hope is there?

Armed with your Degree, you no longer wait to scrounge for newspapers to seek out job adverts and apply. Instead, you visit any and every organization you can find, press your CV into their hands and bug them for a job. Any job, even voluntary because you just can’t bear the silent stares back home anymore.

Sometimes you are lucky to be offered a job as a shelf cleaner in a small downtown supermarket, and if your gods smile down on you, you might find yourself at the highly esteemed position of till operator. But then your conscience just won’t allow you to do this kind of work after four years of starvation and hard work at the University. You lose your job the same day because you just aren’t motivated enough.

A visit to another organization looks hopeful – for a while. Until the interviewer starts making apparent innuendoes about having sex with you before you get the job. You think to yourself, so that’s how so and so got their job . . .

On your unlucky day, you will probably meet Jack, rolling in a white BMW blaring loud gangster music. He was one of the dullest and most idiotic people in class back in college; got himself a repeat. But then again, his father is a prominent business man or Minister. And isn’t that Jill, wearing expensive clothes? She opened up her legs for the right people, as they used to say back at Uni.

Tired, hungry and disappointed, you make slow progress towards the expectant faces back home. You dread getting there, but it really is getting late and last time, your phone was snatched right off you in these streets, in broad day light too. Will you ever make a living innocently in this place? The idea of joining the rest of the bandwagon in South Africa is highly tempting. But all those stories of xenophobia and general abuse of Zimbabweans, keep me here.

One of the recurring trends I encounter as a pedestrian, runner and cyclist in Harare is the whistling, heckling, and unwanted comments from men. The other day, I’d Finally Had Enough. The “Hey baby” shouted at me as I cycled through the shopping centre car park was the last straw. I took several deep breaths to fight back the urgent desire to turn my bike around and plough directly into the man who’d just called after me. And decided instead to turn to dialogue, in lieu of violence.

Back in the office, I made these small flyers, which I’ve been handing out to men whose behaviour warrants it.

The act of turning to the man who’s calling after me, handing them a flyer, and then carrying on along my way seems to completely disarm them.

On making them, I had braced myself for the unwelcome emails and text messages I thought I might receive. Interestingly, I’ve had not one reply. But if any of you blog readers in cyberspace have some thoughts, feel free to share them.

For the past two weeks there has been a conference on the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES) in The Hague. Whenever CITES meets, the issue of ivory trade grabs the headlines.

Francis Nhema, Zimbabwe’s Minister of Environment and Tourism has been attending the two week conference. He is calling on CITES to allow Zimbabwe permission to sell it’s ivory from stock piles. Botswana, Namibia and South Africa are in support with Zimbabwe on this one!

However, the Dutch-based NGO ZimbabweWatch feels otherwise. ZimbabweWatch staged a demonstration this week drawing Nhema’s attention to the many endagered species in Zimbabwe. Pascal Richard, ZimbabweWatch co-ordinator said in a statement,

“How can Nhema talk of protecting elephants when he fails to protect or even acknowledge the basic rights of his fellow human beings? Endangered species in present-day Zimbabwe are  journalists, trade unionists, members of the opposition, human rights activists, student leaders, lawyers and clergymen, to name but a few.”

Have a look at the Endangered Species in Zimbabwe poster produced by ZimbabweWatch here.

While CITES can protect animals as endagered species, who is going to protect Zimbabwe’s endangered human species?