The Union for Sustainable Democracy recently released this statement:

Prime Minister Tsvangirai must order Chombo’s investigation

The Union for Sustainable Democracy urges Zimbabwean Prime Minister Tsvangirai to act decisively by ordering a swift probe into minister Chombo’s alleged corruption and misconduct.

Yesterday the MDC issued a Press Release calling upon ‘… the inclusive government to urgently investigate Local Government, Rural and Urban Development minister, Ignatius Chombo.’

While USD shares the view that Chombo has become nothing short of a menace to local governance as he continually disrupts the free flow of competent services, we bemoan the fact that, despite being the majority party in the unity government, all the MDC does is call upon the unity government to investigate Chombo.

Of course Chombo should be arrested, tried and, if convicted, sacked. However, if the MDC itself does not move to implement the investigation of Chombo, who the hell will? Why Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai does not simply go ahead and order an investigation is baffling to everyone who has put their trust in the MDC.

It is this kind of timidity and stunning lack of clout that enables ZANU PF – supposedly the junior partner in the inclusive government – to trample on the MDC with arrogance and impunity. Progress has stalled on many fronts because of this seemingly political ineptitude on the part of the MDC.

It is a facile to suggest that the MDC as a party and the MDC as a partner in the inclusive government are two separate entities. Of course they are one and the same.

If instituting a mere investigation is too daunting a task, how much more frightening must it be for the MDC to approach President Mugabe on more fundamental political reforms? And what is the prospect of doing so successfully?

USD calls on the MDC to rethink its approach to dealing with issues in the so-called inclusive government.

Issued by the Information & Publicity Department Union for Sustainable Democracy www.usd.org.zw

Has anyone else noticed the cars on our Zimbabwean roads that are serving as mobile discos?

If you travel at all at night, I am sure you know what I mean.

You too have probably seen those SUVs and Mercedes Benz with those loud and garish neon lights that their drivers justify as headlights.

I prefer to call them disco lights because they are bright, busy and blinding!

If you are a night driver and have to deal with the blue and green flashing lights of an oncoming vehicle, I believe you too will understand the health hazard that this senseless showmanship poses.

It’s bad enough that some drivers are too selfish to dip their lights for oncoming traffic – but having to dry to demarcate your side of the lane with Circus Nightclub parading ahead of you makes things even worse.

I have been blinded enough times to know. And it is always so scary to be in a position where you can’t really get your bearings right and have to trust that you aren’t veering off the road, or worse still, veering into something.

And so, I need to ask these question: Are there traffic regulations on the levels of brightness that a car’s headlights can reach? Are there also regulations on the number of different colours that these lights can come in – one on vehicle?!

Driving at night has enough hazards without people having to navigate the party lights on showy cars.

Let’s give this due thought before someone has to die to prove the point.

. . . with thanks to Ginny and Kate

The earth has warmed – bare feet on warm soil
aaahhhhhh
the air is filled with the perfume of jasmine and syringa
and the canopy of new flushed Masasa
glows gold in the setting sun

People usually consider walking on water or thin air a miracle.
But I think the real miracle is…
to walk on the earth.
Every day we are engaged in a miracle which we don’t even recognize:
a blue sky,
white clouds,
green leaves,
the black curious eyes of a child,
our own two eyes.
all is a miracle
-Tich Nhat Hanh

Ginny was the first to be owl-ed
sitting on her veranda in July
shelling peas
her hair lightly brushed
as if in a blessing
touched by talons
in silent flight

the Spotted Eagle Owl was an old friend by now
she first arrived in April
calling from the trees
silhouetted at dusk on the chimney

one night when Gin came home in May
she spent 24 hours in the kitchen
watching her cook
they set up a rapport
eye to eye

When Gin left again, and the owl moved across to Daniels’
speaking to him at night
perching over his door

Gin and Pete came home in June,
and she moved into the nest high up in the rafters, under the thatch on the veranda
appearing outside their bedroom window at early dawn
calling gently
with a mouse dangling from her beak
as if an offering

In the last month all the families came home
Andrew and Jess and Nathaniel from US, Rory, Rebecca and Kieran and Fiona and Tiggy from UK, Shan and James and Bev and John from Capetown

and us locals – Daniel, Kate, Gin, Pete, Mel, Tony and me

we have all been owl-ed
walking the paths between our houses at night

out of the silence of the trees
a gentle ruffling on our heads
and then she lands
on a branch ahead
and then watches us through owl-eyes

All is a miracle

This is what happens to our votes in Zimbabwe.

The artist, Owen Maseko, is currently challenging Mugabe’s ban on his exhibition depicting Gukurahundi, the 1980s Matabeleland massacres.

South Africa has been putting pressure on Zimbabwe to adopt a democratic approach to running the country. One of the fundamental aspects of  a democracy is the freedom of press. Without this essential element a country cannot claim to be democratic and fair if its people’s ability to express their views is oppressed. South Africa is being somewhat hypocritical in their conduct, as government backs proposals for a new law aimed at muzzling the press. “If the protection of Information Bill becomes law South Africa will have crossed a dangerous threshold towards a corrupt, dysfunctional and impoverished autocracy.”

I met a distraught woman this week and my went heart to pieces. This is a fifty something year-old Zimbabwean grandmother who I see each day and pass the usual greetings and that’s where it ends – no personal stories, just the mutual goodwill that comes with African ubuntu. She went on and on about how she had made two long trips to the city’s largest referral hospital on foot and wasn’t looking forward to making another two trips the next day. Who are you visiting there and what are the doctors saying is the problem? I ask. No, the person died last week and the people at the hospital have been giving us all sorts of stories about why they have not been able to perform a post-mortem so that we may be able to begin funeral arrangements, the poor woman says. All this has taken seven days, I exclaim in disbelief. Ah, other people who came after us have had their post-mortem papers and left to bury their relatives and I think the hospital staff wants us to give them money for the post-mortem to be done and the body released to us. There she said it! Let’s be grim and morbid a bit: Imagine a relative rotting in what we know are malfunctioning morgues just because some poorly paid government person wants a bribe? Is that what the hardships here have turned us into? They say all this evil began at the top, but I refuse to be turned into that group of Africans for whom African-ness long departed from their consciousness and conscience. I wish I could go on about the poor woman’s grief but I’m so damn pissed off.