We’ve walked the whole day and we’re not even in Mutare. The Inn on the Vumba hasn’t had power since 6am. I feel a bit like we’re doing a black out to black out national tour.

By 9pm Bev is lights out. Not that I can blame her. These days are long and hot and tiring.

This journey is hugely challenging. Taxing on the mind as well as the body. You have to think about something other than what you’re doing as you go. If you actually felt what your body was really feeling? You’d just stop dead.  But at the same time, I’m loving it. I find myself saying “I couldn’t be happier,” several times a day. And each time, I mean it.

Read the birthday adventure walk diary here

View the photostream here

From a Guardian article comes an interesting suggestion that “The MDC possibly acts as a sponge, soaking up revolutionary fervour that would otherwise find expression on the streets.”

Read Letter from Harare: why Mugabe is unlikely to share Gaddafi’s grisly fate … The ageing dictator’s greatest enemy is not an army of rebels but failing health.

11.40am
the thermometer on the verandah reads 32.7 (humidity too low to measure)
we still have to get to 2.30pm before it will stop rising…

Last week I paid a visit to Tel-One (our land line provider)
I parked in the shade and watched a few bemused and disbelieving people
stumble down the old steps clutching a large yellow book

Inside there were no queues
or bustle
just the guy entering and re-entering your ID number slowly into the computer
in 10 minutes I too was floating down the worn PO steps
I too was clutching a 2011 Telephone Directory
(last one was issued 2006 – all hope of a new one was lost years ago.)
with  yellow pages:
that reassures that all the electricians, plumbers, panel beaters etc. who disappeared off the map
have indeed re-emerged
(it is a comfort to find Mediocre Business Merchants still listed in Kaguvi Street)

even more………

I also held a paid up receipt for US$65 confirming that within a week
a ‘splitter’ would come and split my land line
and we would be connected to the internet via a fiber optic cable
for a small monthly fee of 30$
imagine
– a gateway into the 1st world – wherever it is – and no-one else seems to know!!!!

(this is an added comfort as the satellite broadcasting BBC and NPR seems to have dropped out of the sky lately and radio addicts like Mel and me feel as if we have lost a good friend.)

Internet – in the house!

no longer will I saunter off next door, computer under-arm
through the coffee trees and the vegetable garden
to perch on a rock under the masasa trees to down load my email

A friend or ours arrived here a few years ago with all her goodies packed in zip-lock bags
as she saw us pounce on them with whoops of joy she said in the nicest way
‘you Zimbabweans are so easy to please’

Since we moved into American currency so much has changed:
we now get zip-lock bags and Thai green curry paste and South African crackers
even if there is no change under a 1dollar note

We cross the edge in small steps
first the outdoor fire under the fig tree
then a gas ring
then a spare water tank (for when the power is out and the borehole stops working – municipal water failed years ago)
later came an inverter – so we can watch a video / listen to music
then a reading light in the lounge

Mel took us our latest step over the edge
by fitting lights above our gas plate and kitchen sink
(low power – connected through the inverter to a battery)
No longer is there the same rush to get all the candles lit when the power goes out whilst cooking supper

And I wonder
will we lose our ability to flow, to make a plan, to ride the waves?
our need to connect to one another to know what is going on
our creative spirit born of living on the edge?

It’s all so much more convenient…
having a telephone directory that works

Inspired by her parents, this very special woman began Amuya Sara Nursery School, out of her rural home, to look after children of working mothers. The school is situated at Mahusekwa Growth Point in Chihota district. Ms Mkondo sought to relieve their burden, as many of the mothers worked long days in the fields, with their small children on their backs. The children were guaranteed at least one good meal a day whilst under her care, and with her nursing background, she tackled malnutrition among these children and also educated the mothers on the importance of immunization.

Older children were soon drawn in as well, (initially by the food), and Ms Mkondo started a story telling session, led by her late father, to entertain and educate them. After getting a diploma in Library Studies, she managed to get sponsorship to buy books at the book fair and started a library. The Sekuru Sara Children’s Library now has 500 books and is enjoyed by those who can read in the community.

The project soon expanded to include mothers. The women began the Amuya Sara Women’s Group, where they got emotional support and embarked on economically empowering activities.  Making use of another one of her diplomas, in interior décor, she taught the women how to sew goods for sale. This group has proven to be an invaluable resource and ideas base for the women, as they get an opportunity to put their heads together, and improve each other’s lives and skills by teaching each other all manner of things from cooking, to gardening to budgeting and so on.

Ms Mkondo was also interested in including school-leavers and dropouts in the project in order to keep them gainfully and productively occupied. She trained young women to be pre-school teachers and also how to sew, while her brothers trained young men in carpentry and welding.

These projects have had their ups and downs, due to drought, and limited funding, with the nursery school even closing down for a few years. I’m glad to say that the nursery school is operational again and the project has received further support from the chief of the area in the form of land to grow food for the children as he had seen the benefits his community received from this initiative.

Ms Mkondo has had to leave the project in the hands of her brothers and other women she has trained, as she currently works in Harare as a nurse aid. She hopes one day to be able to return to her projects on a full-time basis. In the meantime, she is working on future plans for the expansion of their current library. This small library has become a de facto information gateway in this area. There is therefore the need for a larger building, furniture, more books and a computer in order to sustain and expand the reach of the service.

Even though she has already done so much, one gets the sense that she has only skimmed the surface, and that there are greater things to come from this inspiring woman. What a wonderful place our country would be with more women like Tabeth Mkondo.

Last week several Zimbabwean media sources reported the storming of a police station in Gweru by a crowd demanding to beat up three women suspects. The women allegedly had been sexually abusing men, and were arrested when they arrived at an accident scene asking to retrieve an estimated 30 condoms from a car that was involved. Reportedly, there is no legal basis for their arrest. Zimbabwean law does not recognise the rape of a man by a woman, and possession of used condoms is not illegal. In fact their continued detention based on suspicion of raping men is a violation of their constitutional rights. The women have only admitted to being sex workers.

Media outlets have been no less prejudiced on this matter than the police. Reportage of the case cannot be called unbiased, and could be termed salacious. One online publication even trawled Facebook, and published images of one of the suspects.

Comments on the Herald’s article pages include:

Ngavapiwe life sentence with hard labor, Izvezvi tichanzwa kuti they are out on bail and then they have gone into hiding! Please protect us and our children from such vampires
No bails just kills them

Speaking at the police station in Gweru one man is quoted as saying: ‘We are shocked with what is happening in our society where men are now being sexually-abused by women. But how can they make a living through such acts?’

And that’s exactly the point of the outrage. It is not that one human being sexually violated and exploited another human being. It is that women did this to men. Of the countless rape cases reported in the media, none, not even ones involving infants have sparked such an emotional reaction.

There is still a stiffer penalty for stock theft than for rape. Judges still hand down ten-year sentences to rapists and then suspend half of it for good behaviour. Never mind that in some cases the rape is premeditated, and accompanied by aggravated assault and threats. Sometimes the women and girls who are raped are married to their attacker. Yet there is no outrage. There are no elders protesting that this is not our culture and pleading for a return to sanity and traditional values. No outraged mothers and fathers baying for the blood of those who would rob their children of their innocence.  No men demanding the safety of their wives, sisters or daughters.  No mothers declaring ‘Not my child: enough is enough!’. No women’s groups and NGOs demanding that lawmakers stop deliberating on the importation of left hand vehicles and turn their attention to this more pressing issue.

Shame.