Dear Family and Friends,
At 9.30 in the morning an Air Force helicopter flew low overhead, its green and brown camouflage stark against the bright blue winter sky. We didn’t need the clattering of the helicopter to remind us that this was rally day, the day the President was coming to town. For a week before the Presidential visit the town had been filled with dust and the roaring of road repair vehicles.
Our local town council had embarked on the great deception, creating the illusion that everything was fine, clean and well maintained in our dirty, run down, pot-holed town. A veritable army of maintenance workers appeared from nowhere and were suddenly, frantically, clearing verges, picking up litter and even fixing blocked, overflowing sewage pipes. The question on everyone’s lips was: where have they been all this time while the town fell to rack to ruin.
With the newly laid tar still wet on the ground, rally day had arrived. Only a handful of the main feeder roads in the town had been repaired and verges cleaned but that obviously didn’t matter: out of sight was obviously out of mind. Along the main highway leading to the newly scraped patch of open ground where the rally was to be held, plastic bunting had been stuck to lamp posts and a banner hung across the main road with a picture of President Mugabe proclaiming: “Presidential Youth Outreach,” and “Vote Zanu PF.”
Everywhere the wealth of the visiting dignitaries was on display: open topped sports cars, double cab SUV’s, tinted windows, a sparkling white Humvee with Mr Mugabe’s name on the back window; his and hers luxury vehicles parked side by side near the Zanu PF office, one with a huge picture of Mrs Mugabe, the other with Mr Mugabe’s image.