Yesterday I had to get some cash out of the bank to pay for an urgent electricity bill because I had been left in the lurch by a friend who had promised to repay his debt to me.

He told me he was suffering from January disease – this is street language for people who do not have a cent in their pockets because it’s all been spent during the festive season.

But even though I had about Z$8 000 in my account the ATM wouldn’t give me my money. I felt robbed. Here I am with cash in my bank but the ATM tells me I cannot get to my cash supposedly because I have too little cash.

However it’s their problem, not mine . . . the ATM could only cough out Z$10 000 notes even though Z$500 and Z$1000 notes should be available.

So instead of getting stranded again I think I’ll do what many people are doing and just keep my cash under my bed!

This morning I heard a woman shout

I’ve broken a nail, can I come in?

Luckily she wasn’t hollering through our window because I wouldn’t have known what to do with her except offer her a strong cup of tea maybe. Her panicked shriek was directed at Cleopatra’s Beauty Parlour next door to us which hadn’t yet opened so the emergency nail repair had to wait. Cleaopatra’s offer the Rage of the U.S.A. – wafer thin nails but extra strong. Clearly not strong enough.

On the subject of beauty parlours – during the Christmas break I went up to Chimanimani to see some friends. In the village I took this snap and no, I didn’t go in to have my nails done.

There are two kinds of frogs in Zimbabwe. One is the mark – time – by – the – puddle – till – someone – kicks – me – frog. The other is the adjust – to – the – rising – temperature – of – the – water- till- I – boil frog.

The first type of frog has grand ideas and is full of energy. It cringes and remains stagnant at the face of crisis, however. Forward is never for this frog, unless of course, when someone comes from behind and gives it a hard kick.

Yet life for these frogs could never have been worse. They are mellowed into silence by a regime touting growth and development yet practicing the reverse. Prices of goods rise at the batting of an eye; their sons and daughters sing foreign anthems and estrange their children with foreign lore; the very dignity of individual labour is sacrificed each day to appease temporal needs that grow by the day.

These are the problems they face every day; the puddles of quagmire they dare not traverse. Left to themselves, they would wait till the puddle dries, then, tired and weak, they will pass through arid lands to safety. Others will be lucky to get sharp kicks at the back, which make them leap over the puddle to safety. The unfortunate ones, the ones that find themselves smack on Harare’s potholed roads meet bitter fates. You often find bits of them stuck under the wheels of the latest mercedes s100′s, or is it the E-V12 Brabus tuned mercs?

The second frog is the tolerant type. It means no one harm, and when harm does come its way, there’s always a solution. They make do with perilous trips down south, where they get mountain-sized groceries and trudge back home to feed near starving children whose future is bleak. They see Zimbabwe’s suffering as the poor person’s burden. Yet they will not cry. No, they never will. You’ll probably be the one who will cry at their wake one day, celebrating a life crushed by a system so obscene it breaks the backs of its own children.

Pockets of expression continue to dwindle by the day. Government seizes property and destroys homes. It ignores efforts at effective economic engagement. It dehumanises her people.

The fruits of Zimbabwe’s toil shall not be found at the bottom of each individual’s pockets, but in the smiles of the contented many. Moved by common need, we all shall become relevant if we collectively agittate for action.

The clarion call to rebellion against the self and its inclination towards greed and self-gratification resonates in the air.

Get your mind a jogging this Monday and you will be surprised at how good it will make you feel. The great minds that decide to face the challenge head on will be the great minds that will be remembered in time.

In 2006, I watched a play at Harare’s Theatre in the park called “All systems out of order”. It was a satirical play about how things were falling apart in an unamed African country.

In one of the scenes, a cleaner at a public toilet decides its time to make a quick buck in the toilets. He decides to charge people who are keen to ‘hire’ the toilet for their private operations.

In no time at all, the toilet is full of business; sex workers now bring their clients for a jolly good time in the dingy loos and thieves use the same place as a warehouse for stolen goods.

While this might sound like a noble idea for the underpaid cleaner to raise a few bucks, it is the ordinary people that suffered. They were often told that the toilet was out of order . . . unless they could pay a minimum charge to use it.

I was reminded about this play last week when I struggled to send an e-mail in the city.

There I was sitting in the Internet cafe along First Street not very far from a commercial bank that boasts about being fluent in finance. After 10 minutes, I was still trying to log into my e-mail account.

Having some knowledge on how the Internet works I realised the server was down while other people constantly sat helplessly waiting in vain to go on-line and without a word from the people manning the cafe.

I then approached the assistant at the till and told her their link was down but she was quick to say they do not refund cash. “But, your link is down and you want to charge me for a service I did not use”, I protested. She then said the only way she could help me was with a voucher which you are supposed to use within one week. I took the voucher which is still in my wallet and set off to look for another cafe.

I moved to more than five Internet cafes and they were all down. It was now after mid-day. I immediately knew something was wrong and the chances of sending my important e-mail before 1pm was fading. I then decided to SMS the recipient and tell them that the cafes are down and I could not send the e-mail on time. They just had to be patient.

This is how life has become in Harare. Things are falling apart, the systems are gradually going out of order.

After enquiries with an attendant at a cafe I was told that the fibre link was down because the workers at the state company that connects the link had gone on strike.

Strikes . . . strikes . . . strikes . . . have rung in 2007 in Zimbabwe. As I write the junior doctors are on strike and reports are coming in that the senior doctors are joining them soon. The doctors are demanding a pay increment. They currently earn Z$56 000 about $224 and have requested Z$5 million or they are not going back to work.

Meanwhile, Zimbabweans who cannot afford to go to private hospitals have been suffering during this crisis. In the article, “Zimbabwe’s health sector faces collapse“, a doctor from Parirenyatwa hospital is quoted as saying, “The system has literally collapsed and we are losing lives unnecessarily”.

In the same article, 3 year old Dexter Chipunza is reported to have been sent home with one of his eyes protruding and a lump that had blocked his nostrils. He died three weeks later from cancer.

There are many people like Dexter who will continue to die if the systems do not work.

Early this week, the Central Statistical Office announced that inflation had hit a new record of 1 281,1% – a clear indication that the systems are out of order.

I wonder how we are going to survive in 2007!

I don’t think anyone can say that Zimbabwe is awash in any kind of Christmas joviality.

Shop owners in our local shopping center – Newlands, in Harare – have made only the smallest effort at marking the festive season. Alberto, the shopping center’s resident hairdresser has had some sign writing done on his windows. There’s a caricature of him with a happy, smiling, and very round face. But in reality he’s more of a scowl these days. Truth be told everyone is pretty scratchy with each other on account of the levels of stress people are enduring related to hyper inflation, the mind numbing prices of basic commodities (as well as the mind numbing stupidity of various politicians) and the pathetic salaries that people are earning. Can you imagine junior army officers earning Z$27 000 a month? That’s about 9 packets of cat food to give you some perspective.

Meanwhile to make a small buck the vendors either hawk a variety of Christmas fruit like watermelons, mangoes and litchis or dubious looking boxes of Christmas lights.

Lately I’ve been mulling what a heterosexist world we live in. I had a small confidence crisis the other day after I realised that a book that I lent a young guy who I’ve just met has a high content of gay sex in it. But then I thought well just about everything I read is resoundingly heterosexual and I’m not (generally) offended. So what’s the Big Deal?

After my encounter with the National Endowment of Democracy and experiencing discrimination regarding the lack of support for partners of same-sex couples I decided to write to Yale University to make sure that their support of “families” for their World Fellows Programme is inclusive of relationships that don’t fit the heterosexist model. Believe it or not, they couldn’t immediately answer my question – and we look to the so-called first world as being “progressive”! Meanwhile South Africa has put many countries to shame by making sure that gay and lesbian people’s rights are protected when it comes to marriage and civil unions.

What else?

I’ve been reading so much good stuff lately. For example, Night Draws Near: Iraq’s People in the Shadow of America’s War by Anthony Shadid. In one section he discusses how fabulous Baghdad was in the 1970′s with a bustling libertine nightlife. Back then apparently “Cairo wrote, Beirut published and Baghdad read”. I wonder what’s left for Iraqis to read these days apart from American propaganda?

I’ve got this friend in the US who keeps me supplied with lots and lots of different things to read, including torn out pages from newspapers. On one of these pages I happened to see a small article on “ladies blog for activism”. Why the use of the word “lady” I’m not too sure but anyway . . . apparently in Blogging Feminism:(Web)sites of Resistance, top bloggers Jessica Valenti (of feminist.com), Michelle Riblett and Lauren Spees (of Hollaback, Boston and New York’s website against street harassment), and Liza Sabater (of the politically charged Culture Kitchen) got together for an evening discussion on how feminists are using the Internet.

By the way, I love Hollaback’s slogan

If you can’t slap ‘em, snap ‘em!

I’m thinking of setting up a similar web site which will feature photographs of Zimbabwean men who whip their willies out to take a piss no matter where they are. Some even have the gall to make conversation with you, dick in hand, as you pass by.

And then I’ve relished The NewStatesmen from front to back, and back again. In fact the back page features a column by comedian Shazia Mirza who recounts a bit of this and that of life in London. Her opening paragraph on one of England’s hottest topics of the moment – burqas – gets my vote as one of the funniest of 2006:

A Muslim woman knocked on my door last night. I didn’t open the door – I just talked through the letter box to see how she likes it

“Passport office closes“, screamed the Financial Gazette newspaper billboards along Samora Machel Avenue as I made my way to work. It’s just another day in Harare where we get to hear more news about what’s in short supply. We have had fuel shortages, forex shortages and now – passports! One wonders what’s next? I was thinking aloud what would happen if there was a shortage of condoms.

My passport issued in 1998 expires in February 2008 and I began using it in 2004. All along it was just one of those documents that you had to have because you never know when you are going to use it. A colleague has just told me to start applying for a new passport because you never know how long it will take to get a new passport issued! I can clearly state that one of my resolutions for 2007 is to apply for a new passport and make sure that it is issued by December.

Early this year one of my friends, whom I will call Jabulani got fed up with Zimbabwe and migrated to South Africa. Even though he had a passport, he left it behind. On asking him why he would not carry his passport he said; “If I overstay in South Africa, the South African government will look for me”. He went on to say; “If I just cross to South Africa with no passport, I’m not known to the authorities”.

Jabulani is one of the hundreds of people that every week risk life and limb to cross the crocodile infested Limpopo river into South Africa. For those that have money, you can travel on the cross border taxis and enter South Africa through the border even if you have no passport. It’s your money that speaks and gets things going.