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Victoria Falls, the epitome of tyranny
Mthulisi Mathuthu, newzimbabwe.com
July 01, 2004

http://www.newzimbabwe.com

In winter the mighty Victoria Falls are most spectacular with rising columns of spray covering a considerable distance from the bedrock and the cataracts into the mainland.

The spectacle -- an array of crisscrossing rainbows and a delicate spread of falling water resembling a long unfolding white sheet -- is enough to draw tourists from any part of the world.

Thanks to the acts of the ruling elite who are malevolently bleeding our country, this god-send resembles a boycotted flea market. Nobody goes there these days.

Victoria Falls now resembles a Ghost Town and it doesn't matter that its winter when the falls are more spectacular and attractive to draw tourists from all the corners of the world.

For us the evidence was there from the beginning. We had arrived at the Harare International Airport on time to allow us smooth checking-in only to be greeted by sad faces on the departure lounge. The plane was going to delay by about an hour because it was the same aircraft which we could see through glasswork being worked on soon after off-loading passengers from Bulawayo.

Moreover it was due to get to the Victoria Falls via Bulawayo. Never mind that your ticket promises a direct flight to Mosiatunya. At the Joshua Mqabuko International Airport the plane off-loads nearly all the passengers except me and my colleagues. In come three people to join us to Victoria Falls.

The aircraft was very nearly empty and one could have easily slept across the entire row of seats or rest their feet anywhere without ado.

Hotels are generally suffocating, experiencing unimaginable losses owing to inactivity. The staff at our hotel were frank enough to tell us that they had been forced to reduce charges by more than 50% to attract customers but still there only four occupied rooms and were going to push the number to seven.

So how happy they were to receive us.

Once the numbers are that low, food says it all. Staffers go around asking what food you want to eat during lunch and dinner totally limiting choice usually associated with our hotels in that part of the country.

You order sitshwala and that's it, no room to add anything. The hotels have to be economical because they can't prepare food to throw away when they have long forgotten what profit is. Place an order for a glass of water and you get two bottles of mineral water because they must make utmost profit from a customer. Once you order Brandy, just to keep yourself warm, you get doubles without questions and warnings. Only one kind of soup is served throughout the entire week.

The entertaining traditional groups perform before five or so people and when I asked one of the young performers what it meant he said they were already used to playing before few people. At times, he said, they play before a couple. I was sorry when he told me that one day they entertained a less friendly man from China who didn't seem to care about what they did for him as he kept eating and sipping without smiling at all.

The situation got more pathetic on the last day. We were just about to begin our breakfast when suddenly a baboon appeared from behind the swimming pool. A waitress dismissed it with a flick of the hand but it charged forward to loot confectionery. It soon disappeared behind our rooms into the thick forest. The guards gave chase as it disappeared at a run. But the baboon turned back making fools out of them as they threw stones and everything at it. The manager came out to lament the loss of new stock which had just been delivered.

It was all drama and I saw what it meant for them to have lost their stock under such difficult times. No sooner had they left for their work that a monkey came through to pounce on a big lob of buttercup. The story went around that there had been looting at the hotel. We soon got the story that the hotel staff had been unpaid for three weeks and the reason was that the accountant was dead!

On the Zambian side a different story obtains. Hotels serve all kinds of food from pasta to our local traditional meals at one go. The choice is yours.

During a sunset cruise along the Zambezi we were only four in the boat while boats from the Zambian side were full with some tourists standing.

I saw crowds of tourists from that side viewing game from the river bank and it was evident that things were working the other side of the river while they were stagnant in Zimbabwe. I thought of Herbert Nkala telling the nation that our tourism industry was booming as the pathetic Rainbow Tourism Group vessel cruised back to the mainland with only four passengers.

This is the evidence that tyranny can really push the nation down. Choice is expensive for despotism. Just as there is no choice in the hotels, there is no political choice in Zimbabwe. It's the same old story of political intolerance and same bankrupt politicians with frozen minds. The television and the radio serve the same ultra-nationalist diet. No other views are allowed.

We have let the baboons and monkeys run away with our national patrimony before our eyes. As if all the accountants are dead, nobody is paid on time these days and let alone sufficiently. Literally everything needs mending like that old Air Zimbabwe aircraft. - thuthuma@yahoo.com

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