Just 28 minutes
Dear Family and Friends,
On the same day that many thousands of people sat, stood and crowded the pavements outside the banks waiting to try and withdraw a few dollars of their own money, President Mugabe gave his annual State of the Nation Address.
It was a hot afternoon in Parliament where MP’s were squashed in like dried kapenta fish in a tight plastic bag. There was a titter of laughter when President Mugabe invited everyone to sit down and a scramble for positions ensued because there aren’t enough seats to accommodate members of Zimbabwe’s bloated parliament. Shoulders touching, bottoms squashed, many MP’s had to sit forward on the benches, perch on the edge or sit sideways. They waited in anticipation, but of what?
Perhaps Mr Mugabe was going to talk about the collapsed economy, the chronic shortage of US dollars in the country and the recent introduction of Bond notes, a surrogate currency forced upon us by Presidential decree. Perhaps he would say something about a year filled with demonstrations and protests which were squashed by horrific police beatings, the images captured on mobile phones for the
world to see. Perhaps he’d say something about 90% unemployment or continued company closures, about 80 % of our food still being imported 16 years after farm takeovers, or about our crippled health
care system or rampant corruption in government departments. So much to talk about; this was surely going to be a very long speech.
While we waited to hear just exactly what Mr Mugabe was going to say about the state of Zimbabwe in 2016 it was also a hot afternoon out there on the pavements where people had been queuing outside banks since 2 or 3 am in the morning. The vendors, Zimbabwe’s saviours, were there too, cruising the queues: selling air time, bananas, cold drinks, apples, boiled eggs and more. No one was holding out any hope of salvation or reprieve from the State of the Nation address but acknowledgement and a clear path ahead would be a good start.