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Message sending failed!
Cathy Buckle
August 11, 2007

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At the beginning of August the Interception of Communications Act was signed into law and the government of Zimbabwe can now legally intercept emails and faxes, listen to telephone conversations and open and read letters. At a time when there is no fuel to buy at petrol stations and almost no public transport on the roads, just getting to the local Post Office has become a major outing for most people. Sending a simple fax has become a joke and it often takes thirty or forty attempts to connect to a telephone number and even then success is not guaranteed. Sending SMS/text messages is a mission of major proportions and requires the patience of a Saint as scores of times in a row the words flick up:" Message sending failed" until eventually you give up in disgust. Then we get to the aspects of communications that require electricity and the joke of the Interception Act gets even funnier. This week the electricity cuts in my home town have been so bad that they've lasted for 18 hours a day, starting at 4 am in the morning and going on until 10 pm at night. And so, all things considered,you have to wonder just exactly what it is our government thinks we are saying to each other and how we are finding the time or means to say it.

Most people I've met this week are walking around like zombies. We are utterly exhausted as the simplest of daily chores require great ingenuity, considerable amounts of time and vast amounts of energy. People everywhere relate the absurd, upside down routine that has become life here. Cooking outside on open fires. Doing washing in the middle of the night if you're lucky enough to have both water and electricity on at the same time. Ironing clothes at midnight after frantically rushing around plugging in and recharging batteries, torches, cell phones, fridges and deep freezes and hoping the power stays on long enough to store energy for another 24 hours. In the rare times when the electricity is on people are doing things to physically survive and frankly communication is not one of them. Everyone knows this is a completely unsustainable situation that now prevails in the country with no food to buy, no fuel for transport, very little water and even less electricity and it has become a question of remaining alert and focused and trying to stay positive.

This week, tired as we are, the sheer beauty of spring in Zimbabwe, is reason enough to be positive. The Msasa trees have begun displaying their new leaves and the crowns of red and their promise of new life are a real delight. The Mahobohobo trees are crowded with golden fruits and the wild orange trees are weighted down with their great green cricket balls, soon to ripen and at least give food to people who have nothing. Conducting an errand by bicycle this week I came across five young children dragging tree branches across a dirt road back to their homes in a high density suburb. The kids paused from the heavy chore for a minute and stared open mouthed as I passed. "How are you?" I called out and as always this standard greeting led to a chorus of echoes from them and then great gleeful giggling. Later when I got home and was tending a pot of soup over a smoky fire I looked up and saw my latest distraction. A red headed weaver is building a nest on the telephone line against the wall of my house. I can't help but wonder what this will do to the intercepting of my communications and watched in amazement as the female weaver arrived. After just three days the skeleton of the nest is built and is obviously strong enough to hold her. The female weaver sat herself down in the sticks and leaf midribs as the red headed male spent the next hour going backwards and forwards busily constructing the house around her. Zimbabwe is a country so rich and yet so poor but surely soon we will turn the corner.

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