Waiting...

I am wondering what the possibilities are that the elections in Zim will, even remotely, allay the misery of the people who live in the most splendid of places, where the spray from the falls wets your face, and the verdant bush tickles your calves. I wonder whether there is a hope for Zimbo's, in and outside of Zim. And I wonder whether there is any reason left, anyTHING left, for Mugabe to continue on as President. Perhaps he is ready to leave office and let some other sorry bugger pick up the pieces of the lives of the 12 million people who are broke, starving, under or unemployed, who suffer from malaria and AIDS and TB and dysentery. There is so little left, and yet what there is, is HOPE. There are roads that men trod every single day, rain, heat, and chill, looking for a job, some job, a stray bill in a gutter, a chance for a life outside the misery. There are suburban houses that women approach, wary and hungry and just a bit delirious, looking for a job washing clothes or cooking or scrubbing toilets. There are back alleys where children pick through the cans, looking for a scrap to eat, a wearable sweater, shoes with laces. Is there a possiblility? Of COURSE there is! Of COURSE there is a real and vibrant chance for recovery, for generosity of spirit, for jobs and production and new crops to bring the country to a place of reasonable peace and prosperity - not full of HDTV's or cell phone towers, but a place where there is less death, less hardship and wretchedness. Where children go to school with shoes and books, and daddy's come home on the bus with a packet of milk for dinner and mama has been stirring the mealie meal sadza and the aroma of boiled meat and carrots mixes with squash... where the mountain mist lifts and the greens, dark and deep and light, take away your breath. And the tea you sip is grown on the farm next door, and the tobacco floors are loud and smelly and full of slapping and clapping. Where the line for the mill is longer than the line for food handouts. Where the village chiefs are more worried about equipment and stray goats than about how to keep their people alive another day, another week. I believe in the beautiful people, the strong lean Matabele, the solid, cerebral Shona, the incredibly resourceful, dogged,and steadfast muzungu who have lived and farmed, fled to and fled from this most marvelous of landscapes. I believe that they can do things for themselves, that they can learn and grow and build and pullulate prosperity, sing abundance, and find gratification in their world. And I know somehow, some day, I will see a happier time there. God bless, and may the results be those you want, shamwari yangu.




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