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Zimbabwe: hard life, high risk
Laura Lynch, CBC News (Canada)
January 03, 2008

http://www.cbc.ca/news/reportsfromabroad/lynch/20080103.html

Zimbabwe does not welcome foreign journalists. Over the past few years, those caught working inside the country have been arrested, jailed and then expelled. The strict laws have their purpose: no international coverage means no international attention or high-profile pressure on the leadership of the nation to change course.

So our assignment had to be carried out undercover. Cameraman Richard Devey and I flew to Zimbabwe's second city, Bulawayo, from Johannesburg, South Africa. We posed as tourists going on safari in Zimbabwe's stunning national parks. That would explain the presence of the video camera if we needed to do any explaining.

The flight in revealed the results of the rainy season: the landscape was a lush green and we could see heavy showers pouring down in the distance. But the sight was deceptive. Most farmers' fields have fallen fallow since the government expelled white farmers and gave the land to Zimbabwe's black population.

We were betting the crude infrastructure at the small airport would make it easier for us to pass through immigration checks. There were no computers in sight at the arrivals hall ? well, not really a hall. It is an airport hangar converted to use as a terminal. The officials seemed genuinely welcoming, smiling and making jokes.

"I see you are a lawyer, we'll have be careful around you," one man laughed. I am, in fact, a non-practising lawyer. I had decided if they were curious about all the stamps in my passport for places like Pakistan, Afghanistan and Syria, I would tell them I advised humanitarian organizations. Richard listed his profession as musician, which also has the virtue of being true. Never mind that he has not performed on stage for some time. "We'll have to watch you closely," said the same official to Richard, who suddenly looked nervous. "You'll try to take away work from our musicians."

No scissors to be had

Visas and passports in hand, we went through a baggage check. We watched as they searched everyone's luggage and again were unnerved. We really did not want to explain the camera or the tripod and least of all, the microphone. For some reason, they let me pass.

But Richard's duffle bag was a strange shape, distended by the tripod inside. We had wrapped the bags in plastic sheeting at the suggestion of travel agents in Johannesburg who told us theft from luggage was a huge problem.

The woman searching the bags definitely wanted a look inside. Richard tried and tried to rip away the plastic, but it was sealed tight. She also leaned in, tearing off bits and pieces. Finally, she decided only scissors would work.

But this is Zimbabwe and this was a tiny airport in Bulawayo and there were not any scissors to be had. She waved Richard through. We met our driver in the parking lot and got an immediate sense of just how difficult life has become.

He was driving a pickup truck. He had filled the back with jerry cans full of gasoline, the only way to ensure we would have enough fuel to make the four-hour drive to the capital, Harare.

A million isn't what it used to be

Within 10 minutes, we were stopped at a police roadblock. Speeding, apparently. But $10 US became an on-the-spot "fine" and we were let go. Over the next hour or so, we saw four more checkpoints.

Our guide told us that because it was Friday, the police officers needed money for the weekend. Hence the large number of checkpoints. We were waved through, apparently because we are white.

But we saw dozens of black Zimbabweans pulled over, presumably being forced to offer up a few million dollars or some food to secure their passage.

A few million? It takes some getting used to inside Zimbabwe. Inflation has become so bad it takes millions and millions of Zimbabwean dollars to purchase anything. The government economist won't even guess what the inflation rate is.

I was sitting with a group of Zimbabweans one day talking, as usual, about the shortages of just about everything. I asked them to give me all the money they had and then tell me what it would buy.

Because cash itself is hard to come by, all they could come up with was $50 million. It was a stack of bills about eight centimetres high. As I held it with both hands, they told me it would buy two litres of juice, a loaf of bread and maybe some toilet paper. If you could find any of those items in the store.

A nation of scavengers

On the day we set off to interview Dr. Douglas Gwatidzo, we had to be patient. All our interviews had to be conducted in secret. We agreed to meet him at his home and to do the interview behind the walls of his compound where no informers might spot us and tell the government's intelligence agents.

When we arrived, Gwatidzo was not there. His house was dark and two dogs roamed the yard. But his maid let us through the gate and we waited. He arrived half an hour later with his son and proceeded to pull a box of cereal, some fruit and a small handful of wood from the back of his truck. The doctor apologized, explaining that he had gone out to look for breakfast food. Later he would take the afternoon to find something for supper. And the wood? Gwatidzo ? a doctor in private practice ? hadn't had power in his home for four weeks. He cooked his meals and heated water outside, using an open fire and a barbecue grill.

Gwatidzo is doing better than most people. Driving through Harare on Saturday morning, the only thing that didn't seem to be in short supply was lineups. Outside banks, bread shops and gas stations, people lined up by the hundreds. They gathered whenever they heard that there might be cash or food or fuel. And where they gathered, the police showed up, too. They were supposed to be there to keep order.

But one man told me he'd gone to a shop because he heard a shipment of sugar had come in. When he arrived, he witnessed the police fighting each other to carry away the sacks that were on offer.

The streets are also filled with vendors. Officially it is illegal. But they take the risk, selling just about anything: fruit, vegetables, toilet paper. Trees are losing their branches at a rapid rate in Zimbabwe. Desperate people are cutting them down and selling them as bundles of firewood. We saw people verywhere hoisting bundles of sticks onto their shoulders.

The sick and the dead

There's an enormous graveyard on the outskirts of the city. I would guess it is about the size of nine football fields, maybe more. The gravediggers are always busy.

Doctors Without Borders estimates that 3,500 people die each week from illnesses related to AIDS. Less than one quarter of the people who need antiretroviral drugs to combat the syndrome are receiving the treatment. Life expectancy in Zimbabwe used to be among the best in Africa. Now it is 34 for women, 37 for men.

We entered two hospitals posing as volunteers from a foreign mission. Inside one, where we weren't able to use our camera, we saw about 50 children. Nurses said almost all of them were suffering from malnutrition or diarrhea. There was only one doctor available to treat all of them. She had started her day at 8 a.m. She would not finish until 8 p.m.

She almost certainly would not be able to see all the children who waited with their worried mothers. Trained medical staff are leaving the country in huge numbers.

At the other hospital, nurses told us they had recently received shipments of some common drugs.

And just that day, they had also managed to get rubber gloves. Medical workers had been treating patients without using gloves for several days. The hospital, surprisingly, was far from full. We were told it is because many of the sick cannot afford to travel for treatment that may not be available anyway.

Risk and defiance

Throughout our time in Zimbabwe, we stayed at a series of residential homes - away from hotels, which are full of government informers. In those private places, we had time to sit and talk to those who are living through this.

Every person we spoke to is preoccupied with ways of finding food. At one home, we were served roast beef. The family hadn't eaten beef in six months but had managed to get some shipped in from South Africa.

For those who have the money to shop, the next food challenge is the store shelves: the ones we saw were very nearly bare.

The day we left, one food wholesaler allowed us into his warehouse to let us freely shoot pictures of the vast, empty shelves. It was certainly a risk for him, but he wanted the world to see what is happening.

That was true of all the people we met, interviewed and recorded. We may have taken risks to go inside, but their risk is greater in speaking out and staying put.

Nowhere was that more true than in one small village where 50 families tried to survive in some of the worst conditions I have ever seen. Local government officials destroyed their homes, claiming they were living on the land illegally. Some had been there more than 40 years. They believe it was an act of political intimidation ? payback for supporting the opposition.

The day we arrived, the rains had turned the ground into a soup of mud and muck. These people now try to survive in lean-tos. The shacks are tiny ? perhaps the size of a large closet ? and whole families crowd inside them. Many people, children included, had no shoes. They dressed in rags.

One 76-year-old woman told me how she was trying to raise five grandchildren. The parents had died, probably of AIDS. She was stick-thin and solemn. She was tired, she told me, and her legs ached.

A single tear fell down her cheek as we stood in the ruins of what used to be her home, flies buzzing around the dirty dishes at her feet. She did not want to hide her face. She wanted the world to see her misery, she said. And her defiance.

As we left, he villagers gathered together and began clapping. We were told they the applause was for us, a traditional show of respect from a people struggling to live, but still living with dignity in a country with a government and a leader that has taken so much away from them.

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