After two meetings with the Confederation of Zimbabwean Industries, the Ministry of Transport has agreed to postpone the effective date for implementation of SI 154 from 1 December 2010 to July 2011. The Road Traffic Regulations, amongst other things, require motorists to carry fire extinguishers and reflective triangles approved by the Standards Association of Zimbabwe.

According to The Herald, Transport, Communication and Infrastructural Development Secretary Partson Mbiriri said the regulations had been developed “after wide consultation with all stakeholders,” and that originally they had been intended to give road users 12 months notice before they took effect. But due to delays in the gazetting process, that notice period was greatly reduced – hence the postponement in the effective date.

As of yet, no one in Zimbabwe is authorised to sell SAZ approved products (one of the requirements of the regulations), and some concerns have been raised as to how fire extinguishers will fare sitting in parked vehicles in the sun, where temperatures can get to over 50 degress in the car.

More importantly, whether the regulations come into effect in December or in July next year, the larger questions remain the same – how do we trust the police, notorious for their bribe-seeking behaviour, to not simply view this as one more reason to harass drivers? In the context of Zimbabwe’s much larger problems, how relevant is an attempt to impose detailed requirements as to what I must carry in my vehicle and what specifications these items adhere to? Where does governmental involvement end and individual responsibility end – particularly in a context of authoritarian governance? Is it government’s job to require me to have a spare tyre, or is it my job as a motorist to ensure that I am looking after my vehicle – and respecting the safety of other road users?

Quite a few of us living in Harare “leak” (that is, give a massive sigh) when we’re asked to pick someone up from Harare International Airport off the South African Airways flight at 9pm. It’s not that we’re unhelpful or unfriendly, its more to do with running the gauntlet of weirdly positioned (that is, in the dark, with no signage) police roadblocks, non-working traffic lights, potholes and the Zimbabwe Mafia.

The Zimbabwe Mafia is a group of 4 men who rob and assault people returning from the airport. Most recently my family went to welcome home a sibling returning for Christmas. They parked their car in the airport car park but little did they know that whilst they were inside, a member of the Zimbabwe Mafia slashed one of their tyres. When they left the airport they got as far as the Independence arch when the tyre became flat. Pretty soon they were rounded on by 4 men who were violent (one of them hit the 74 year old driver across the face with a wheel spanner) and they were intent on stealing what they could. When they left, they told their victims that they had met the Zimbabwe Mafia.

Welcome to Zimbabwe.

There is no doubt that if the Zimbabwean authorities had an ounce of proactivity and concern they would do something to improve the security situation for people travelling to and from the airport.

1. The airport car park is dimly lit at the best of times. When the airport wants to save on power, there are actually no lights on at all in the car park. Of course this gives the bad guys all the room in the world to manoeuvre.
2. The airport car park does not have a single guard looking after the cars parked there. Why?
3. Whilst construction of a fancy new road to the airport has been underway for over 2 years, the current one does not have streetlights in certain sections, like before the Independence arch. Why has this not been addressed? Yes, it’s fine for some who speed around our city in motorcades but what about the rest of us.
4. Members of the Hatfield Police Station are incredibly energetic when it comes to positioning themselves on the airport road at strategic times to catch motorists speeding to catch a flight. However, it is clearly known to them by now that local Zimbabweans and visitors are being assaulted at night. Why are they not increasing their presence on the airport road at these vulnerable times? Too much like hard work? I think so.

In real terms, the authorities could make this strategic area of our city much safer fairly easily. But they won’t. And in the meantime government officials cite Zimbabwe as a safe destination.

Come to Zimbabwe and get robbed before you reach your hotel.

You’ll love it here.

1. Put on your turning indicator light and keep going straight when you reach the turn. Better yet, when you are actually going to turn ahead, do NOT indicate, just turn suddenly.
2. When you reach the red traffic lights at an intersection, stop briefly but keep inching the omnibus nose forward. Somehow this makes the lights turn green faster.
3. There is always an extra lane. And don’t buy that crap that you can’t overtake on the left. Zvinokushayisa shura.
4. Play the music extra loud and maintain a constancy of between 100 – 120kph. You will need this for your own peace of mind and to drown the voices of annoying passengers (who often ask for needless change too). They lack business sense and appreciation for adrenalin.
5. Any vehicle moving slower than yours should not be on the road at all. You can make sure this doesn’t happen by closely tailgating the car in front of you. But just be careful with the Mercs, you’d spend a lifetime paying for a dent.
6. Keep loose small change on you at all times. Makes it easier with the cops. Always remember to call them ‘Chef’ and ‘Baas’ whenever you speak to them.
7. You can stop and pick/drop a passenger anywhere and don’t even bother about the hazards. What do you mean ‘what if there is no stop sign?’
8. When you pick up a passenger, the moment they lift a foot to get in, step on the gas. And remember, the benches are all designed to fit four passengers each, whatever their size. In extremely tight situations, you may situate one passenger paKadoma.
9. Remember, the best public transport drivers are ones that learned on the job. Don’t bother about driving school, just start off as a Hwindi and occasionally hob nob with seasoned transporters especially those based on Harare, Chinhoyi and Kaguvi streets. If you can drive in that jungle, you can drive anywhere in the world.
10. In the extremely rare and unlikely event that you get involved in an accident, jump out and RUN!

If you think you cant do all the above, get another day job, you are a loser.

What is this energy out there?
Alongside all this oppression and aggression?
This strange voluntary friendliness that helps us greet each other?
What is it makes the driver of the army truck alongside beam and wave?
And the newspaper vendor smile whilst he tells me that there is still no good news?

I started laying the spiral in the clean white sand in the early morning
Flat, damp, rust-coloured, woody  pods
from the Miombo woodland floor
‘Mmmm, so Munondo pods are flat and Musasa pods curl’
(deduction)
When I returned at mid morning, something had happened that I had never understood before
(after many, many  years of thinking I was watching)
the pods had all curled back to their well-know, spiral-shape in the drying sun
(of course)

Sonia didn’t sleep that night
at 5 the next morning she went out in the first slanting rays of dawn
to lay the spiral
collecting flat, damp, rust-coloured, woody pods
from the newly wet Miombo woodland floor

someone else came by later
and laid a circle of small Munondo seeds in the centre
Future Trees of Life

Jane passed by at mid morning
and paused in astonishment
there, in the centre of the circle of seeds
in the centre of the spiral of pods
was a small chongololo
curled in a perfect spiral.
She calls us all to come and look,
and as we arrive,
another chongololo trundles up

‘is he attacking her?’ Jane asks worriedly
‘no – they are mating’

at least they think there is a future to take care of!

‘the pods have curled’ noted Sonia

later that day we sit around the spiral
12 ordinary people
and speak of our vision for the future

Qalani walks to the centre
and he lays Nyamaropa seeds
around the Munondo seeds
marking the agreements that hold us together

‘this is the yolk’ he says pointing to the middle
‘the yellow stuff at the centre of an egg
It is held in place by the agreements
respect, love, truth speaking, deep listening…
the albumen which feeds the yolk
and around it is the shell
us
guardians, protecting the birthing of this new life

but one day soon
this egg will hatch
for it is time for the bird to fly’

silently, we walk the spiral
placing our vision in the  centre

12 ordinary people
who have the audacity to hope

In late November, the Tree of Life (the healing and empowerment ones!) met for two and a half days to look back on the last year.

It has been a challenge – both with resources, and with difficulties on the ground – but we have done it!

Amazing, courageous work with expanding circles touching and healing peoples’ lives.

It was time to look at ourselves:
What impact has this had on us?
where have we lost our own power?
lost our courage?
felt the stress of responsibility?
where we were up to, and where we were going?

for we have come to a new reality
when there is no one left to blame
no one in charge who we can rely on to look after our rights
and we are drawn by invisible threads into the same circle
nurturing this seed of healing, at the centre, into being

there is a point when we can choose to change and grow
when we move from hierarchy and patriarchy and matriarchy and the fear of authority
and the passive, disempowering comfort of being looked after

and we stand at the edge of the circle
learning to be our true selves.

there is talk of the great turning
of holonic shift
when the force of our intention moves from one that is against something
to a new sense of working together
when we have nothing to trust but a communal truth
and the agreements at the centre of the circle
binding us together
to birth a new vision

there is a point when we choose to change and grow
rather than stay and nurture the old ways that no longer serve

for connected into the circle of our common intention
we each have a path to follow
different responsibilities to carry
different dreams to dream