manulite delite

I consider Simon as my friend. We sort of hang out together each time we bump into each other in town. He's much shorter than me, which of course is explained by the fact that he's much much younger than me. We both live in Zimbabwe so that gives us a lot in common. But Simon practically survives on the streets. Though he doesn't necessarily sleep on the street at night, his life is a life lived on the pavements of Harare's central business district. The last time I met him, which is now a while ago, he wanted some money to buy a school trousers. Simon and I go back together a number of years. He was not yet of school going age when we met. Now he's grade 3 or 4. So hows life for Simon like? Each time I think about it, I cannot even start to image how it must be for him. He once narrated (still with all the childhood innocence) to me how he got arrested during the days of the clean-up operation. He told me how he had to sneak out and run when he got a chance. That...

Several times when someone discovers I'm from Zimbabwe, I immediately get questions like, “So, how are you surviving?”, “So, how's Zimbabwe these days?”. How's Zimbabwe? If you are hopeful, your answer to that question, ranges between, “Not so good.” and “Don't ask.”. The price of bread is up again from about $60,000 to at least $88,000, which is not news anymore. I remember a time long ago when bread was 75c, our parents were already not too happy about that price. I remember the discussions in the streets, people reminiscing on the old days, telling us how so cheap bread was back then. Then bread went up to 99c, I remember the boycotts, the complaints people saying we can't get only 1c as change from a dollar after buying bread. I remember it going up again to $1,50. Those were the days I learnt about strikes, demonstrations and all that people do to let it known that they are not happy about the way things are. Where's this country going, people would ask. Th...