Just now as I wandered through Newlands Shopping Centre in search of cash a vendor tried to sell me an automatic Italian umbrella, whatever that is.

I’d like to be able to flush the toilet at work except I can’t because we haven’t had water for the whole of this week. I’m starting to drink less, all the tenants in the building are starting to drink less, but its Not Working. The toilets are foul and our collective tempers are explosive. But back to the cash – imagine not being able to withdraw your money from the bank – admittedly there’s not a helluva lot you can buy with it, but still, it’s Mine.

What else? When it rains here our already demented drivers, drive even more poorly. Zimbabweans reckon that the best way to approach non-working traffic lights is to put their foot down on the accelerator, turn their hazards on, and go like the blazes. This might be a worthwhile tactic if you’re being pursued by a naked Oppah Muchinguri but its not helpful to other motorists who are trying to negotiate some right of way.

OK. So you can tell I’m stressed. In an effort to engage in some self-help I read a Time Magazine article on stress management last night. It said one should avoid TV and junk food if you’re feeling a bit edgy. Just before I read this I’d been watching So You Think You Can Dance while eating 4 liquorice strips.

Harare’s many non-functioning traffic robots provide frequent opportunities for contemplating human nature. As a friend of mine was saying the other day as we tried to turn right at a busy, robot-down, intersection, why do so many of us move with a sense of rushed-ness and our own importance that somehow gets in the way of our own decency.

Of course, it’s never as simple as that. Through all the murk a few moments always stand out. The girl walking home from school who runs alongside me for a bit of a chat. The cyclist who smiles an apology when his bell gives me such a fright I jump clear into the bushes.

But some days those gems feel more the exception than the rule. Watching the traffic at another intersection on my run the other night, I thought to myself, “it’s survival of the biggest.” The pushiest, largest, flashiest 4x4s muscle their way into the intersection however they so choose. And the rest of the traffic just has to comply.

It reminded me of what someone had been telling me earlier that day. She works as a nurse and does the rounds of Harare’s government hospitals. Zimbabwe’s health sector has drastically deteriorated in recent years, and it is not uncommon for clinics and hospitals to lack even the most basic of medications and supplies.

According to this nurse, however, this isn’t because the hospitals lack the foreign currency to import these items, or because of a lack of donations from well-intentioned foreigners. Zimbabwe’s government hospital doctors are severely underpaid. Many also maintain a private practise where they can see patients separately from the hospital, and charge more for these visits. The nurse I met claims that these doctors take the supplies from the hospital shelves and sell them to the patients they see in their own practise.

It’s a serious allegation which needs to be further substantiated. The hospitals’ empty shelves may well be a combination of fewer goods in the first place, since the hospitals can’t afford the foreign currency to import what they have to. And those doctors who can get away with it might well be skimming off medications to resell and top up their meager income. If that it is the case, it’s the traffic robot scenario all over again – if you’re wealthy enough to afford private health care, chances are you’re wealthy enough to pay for marked up medication as well. And if you’re not? You’re left to sit in the car park outside the hospital untreated. The chefs get smugger. But what’s the outcome for the rest of the population?

The Solidarity Peace Trust recently released a new DVD. Hero to zero: A brief history of the Zimbabwe dollar, tells the story of the nosedive of our precious Zimbabwe Kwacha, from Independence in 1980 – when 1 Zimbabwe dollar would return you 2 US dollars, to today, when 1 billion (old) Zimbabwe dollars isn’t enough to exchange for 1 US dollar.

Get the DVD! We’ve already had a massive clamour in response to our SMS invitation to receive the DVD. But not to worry. We have some copies reserved for our loyal Kubatanablog readers. Be among the first 20 people to write to info [at] kubatana [dot] org [dot] zw to request this DVD, and we’ll post it to you. Please make sure to let us know that you’re writing in response to this blog, and include your postal address in your email. Regret – this offer is only available for addresses within Zimbabwe.

It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to understand the Zimbabwe dollar’s dismal trajectory, and economist Rob Davies, one of the main interview subjects in the video, charts it beautifully. Countries that really want to control inflation, he says, get concerned when money supply rises more than 5% in a year. In Zimbabwe money supply increased by 120% in May of this year alone. Granted, money supply is the immediate cause, but it’s not the sole culprit causing inflation – why does the government print so much money so rapidly? To protect the incomes of the people who support it.

Davies comments that the national cake has shrunk drastically. And when the cake shrinks, someone has to eat less. The politicians, he says, have used their influence over instruments of the state to make sure it’s not them or their supporters.
The DVD also touches on the rise of the informal sector – despite the government’s best attempts to choke it, through actions such as Operation Murambatsvina. As one school teacher points out, if you’re a teacher struggling to make ends meet, at what point do you decide if it’s more worth your while to sell airtime on the streets, knowing that as a vendor you can make eight times more than you can as a teacher.

Finally, Davies asks, why are Zimbabweans so patient with something that is messing up their lives? If this economic decline was happening elsewhere, would it not have sparked some kind of popular uprising or resistance? Davies describes Zimbabweans as tolerant, and says this tolerance is a mixed blessing. On the one hand, it makes the country more open to difference, more relaxed and integrated than it might otherwise be. On the other hand, perhaps it means we’re stuck with these injustices longer than others might be.

So why aren’t people here organising into a more effective resistance movement? It’s a question well worth asking. But the answer, I suspect, lies in a range of factors including intimidation, repression, leadership, logistics and vision. Change is daunting for anyone. We are either pressured into it when we realise we have no other option, or when we’re presented with an alternative so compelling it motivates us into positive action.

As Davies points out, the people who are really suffering from inflation and the shortages aren’t going to be the leaders of change – they’re more concerned with day-to-day survival. Sadly, our political leaders haven’t been able to paint that vision of the new Zimbabwe in colours vibrant enough for people to believe in it and risk everything for it.