Conversation with a colleague last week left me feeling relieved and consoled just a tad. She still hadn’t found a job. Many will wonder why that is good news. Well, I am jobless too and so are most of my former classmates from University. The fact that so many of us cannot find employment makes one feel that it is not because of not enough effort, but that the jobs just aren’t there.

I will not plunge into “the day in a life of a job seeker” kind of narration, but I tell you, no one has it tougher. With the unemployment rate running riot at 80% and companies continuing to relocate and scale down, what hope is there?

Armed with your Degree, you no longer wait to scrounge for newspapers to seek out job adverts and apply. Instead, you visit any and every organization you can find, press your CV into their hands and bug them for a job. Any job, even voluntary because you just can’t bear the silent stares back home anymore.

Sometimes you are lucky to be offered a job as a shelf cleaner in a small downtown supermarket, and if your gods smile down on you, you might find yourself at the highly esteemed position of till operator. But then your conscience just won’t allow you to do this kind of work after four years of starvation and hard work at the University. You lose your job the same day because you just aren’t motivated enough.

A visit to another organization looks hopeful – for a while. Until the interviewer starts making apparent innuendoes about having sex with you before you get the job. You think to yourself, so that’s how so and so got their job . . .

On your unlucky day, you will probably meet Jack, rolling in a white BMW blaring loud gangster music. He was one of the dullest and most idiotic people in class back in college; got himself a repeat. But then again, his father is a prominent business man or Minister. And isn’t that Jill, wearing expensive clothes? She opened up her legs for the right people, as they used to say back at Uni.

Tired, hungry and disappointed, you make slow progress towards the expectant faces back home. You dread getting there, but it really is getting late and last time, your phone was snatched right off you in these streets, in broad day light too. Will you ever make a living innocently in this place? The idea of joining the rest of the bandwagon in South Africa is highly tempting. But all those stories of xenophobia and general abuse of Zimbabweans, keep me here.

Exhausted, freezing and hungry, yesterday evening I was in nothing but a mad rush to get myself home. That was around 5:30 but it was already getting dark since winter is really here.

I was on my way to my “combis” at Albion when I encountered a huge crowd on the corner of Jason Moyo and Cameron Street. This being a very busy place I thought there had been an accident. It did not take me long to realize I was wrong. This was an angry mob banging the glass walls of Iton Distributors, baying for someone’s blood. For the first time I wished I had a camera. Somehow I penetrated the crowd and found myself right in front of the locked entrance where all the action was. The glass exterior allowed me to see the shelves and all that was taking place inside. Now you know trying to get information from excited onlookers is usually a problem, so I had to contend with picking up bits and pieces of what had actually transpired.

Inside, an elderly woman maybe in her late 30s or early 40s lay unconscious on the floor a few meters from the locked entrance. Now and then, her hand or leg would twitch as uniformed bike police officers milled around her talking on their radio phones. The woman, identified as Mai Brenda by one of the vocal women, was drenched in water in an apparent effort to rouse her, and her legs and face were swollen.

Word had it she had stolen a plastic comb from the shop, got caught and received a thorough beating from the shop “manager” and two of his male subordinates. The hullabaloo was that the crowd wanted to mete out mob justice on the latter. I mean, even if she had stolen a television set, that was no excuse or right to beat her lifeless. As the swelling crowd got bigger and restive, the shrill alarm of a police vehicle suddenly pierced the air, and for a while, heads turned and voices quietened. Super cop “Silver” was cruising down Jason Moyo (which by the way is a one way street – indeed, I thought, some are more equal than others.) He was accompanied by a council ambulance.  I must admit, though I live in Zimbabwe, I had never before today, heard of this guy. I ventured to ask who he was and somebody whispered he was the super cop specially assigned to deal with carjackers. Supposedly a sharp shooter who is licensed to kill and drives an unmarked silver vehicle, hence the nickname. Never before had I witnessed the manifestation of power as the simple looking guy in his brown cap ordered everyone to vacate and for the ambulance people to get in and carry the woman to the ambulance. I’m sure he too, stern as he is said to be, felt the shop manager deserved to be disciplined. Although people backed off a bit, they were not willing to leave before the shop manager had been dealt with. Some shouted obscenities to the now frightened shop manager who was still domiciled in the building. Only the glass windows separated him from serious harm. I heard someone suggest they break down the glass exterior of the shop in order to beat up the occupants, if not to steal. Women chanted, “Murderer, murderer,” and some scolded the shop manager for “killing” a fellow black person over his Chinese boss’ comb. I doubt the shop workers made it home uninjured.

Of late Zimbabwe has been having what the international diamond experts have dubbed the biggest diamond rush in history. The discovery of diamonds, especially in the Manicaland province has provided opportunities for a section of our population struggling with unemployment and the effects of a ravaging inflation to make a quick fortune – that is before the police descended. Many diamond fields were then sealed off so that ‘proper channels of diamond trade’ could be observed. As a result, anyone found with suspicious looking stones faced serious prosecution unless they bribed the policemen! However it is common knowledge that mainly corrupt officials are the ones illegally profiting from plundering this precious natural resource.

In the middle of it all, early this month a diesel-like liquid was reported by the Herald to have been discovered oozing from a rock near Chinhoyi caves. Yet again, the site was sealed off by a group of club-wielding people supposedly led by a spirit medium who claimed to be the custodian of the place.

While it is in principle best to have a chosen central body mediate on behalf of the nation regarding how the national wealth is utilized and distributed, the current selfish and egotistic goings on of the elite make ordinary Zimbabweans want to benefit themselves whenever the opportunity arises. Why let the already wealthy and overweight plunder everything and not us, seems to be the thinking.

Then today I read about the latest divine discovery of hot water gushing out of a spring in Binga growth point where village women were photographed doing their washing and other business, and I wondered if the government is going to seal that off too?

Yesterday a colleague treated me to a Chicken Inn meal. Oh yes! Whilst for some it is an everyday lunch, for me it’s a once in awhile treat – what with two pieces of chicken and a few chips costing $48 000!

We made ourselves comfortable at one of the tables at Construction House, and I immediately dug into the chicken with great gusto. I was halfway through my meal when I got distracted by a scuffle at another table not so far from ours. Two street kids were begging food from a fat woman. The security guard immediately descended on them. They left only to hover just a few meters away. When the guard turned away, the street kids approached the woman again. From where I was sitting, the food in front of her seemed too much for one person. The woman scowled menacingly and drew her food closer to herself, shouting at the guard to “come and do your job!” Once again, the guard, who looked hungry himself, leapt into action and his baton swiftly descended on one of the urchin’s head.

For a moment things looked peaceful until the street kids suddenly returned accompanied by four others, this time bent on forcibly grabbing the food from the woman. The guard stood there helplessly as the vagrants swarmed all over the woman’s table. She stood up defensively, clutching chicken pieces to her bosom and shouted obscenities at the departing figures that had made off with most of her food. One of the urchins even had the nerve to spit on the remaining food on her plate.

Surprisingly the woman settled back in her chair, rearranged herself and the food she had managed to salvage, and picked out a piece of chicken to eat even though it had probably been spat on. She looked pissed off, yet adamant to finish her food. She continued to eat and ignored the guards suggestions to move to a safer table inside the fast food outlet.

Just then, a whole pack of street kids surrounded her, grabbing everything including the piece she was holding near her mouth and quickly made off.

Last week I boarded a “chicken bus” (you know; the ones with the not so comfortable seats, ugly, dirty looking and often associated with the poor, because they are cheap). I was in a mad rush to get to Gweru and back the same day.

There were all kinds of unpleasant smells in the bus ranging from unwashed bodies to boiled eggs. Along the way the bus made a point of stopping at every major rank, picking up all kinds of folk, some of whom were bare foot and dirty, carrying live chickens among other things. I started to feel out of place in my casual corduroy pants, sneakers and designer shirt.

The bus was getting overloaded with standing passengers as we made slow progress towards Gweru. I began to regret and curse my lack of hindsight. The bus was moving at a frigging 60km/hr! Fruit vendors and beggars jostled in and out of the bus whenever the bus stopped. I kept my nose pressed into my shirt and prayed for speed, glorious speed.

From the back of the bus a loud, desperate voice started singing something that sounded gospel. The voice belonged to a disheveled blind woman being led by a similar looking girl most certainly less than 10 years old. The two were struggling to make their way to the front of the bus, begging each passenger for money.

When the pair got to me, I heard the young girl whisper to her mother, “apa pane murungu, ndotaura sei?”- translated loosely – “here is a white person, how do I communicate with her?” I got offended not at being called white, but at her failure to realize I was just a light skinned person who is one of them. While I’m better dressed, the fact that I was also in this bus that’s cheap indicates that I’m also struggling, just like them.

Slowly I began to subconsciously direct my anger elsewhere: towards the forces that have reduced most of our people to dirty beggars; towards the egotistical few that have enriched themselves and destroyed our economy making sure everyone else lives below the poverty datum line. I looked around the bus and thought – these are the real Zimbabweans, and among them were the real freedom fighters who ought to be the ones crying out – “We fought for this country!” Yet they are the very ones who occupy the bottom rung of society. As I pushed my way off the bus at my destination, more traders and beggars jostled to sell their wares and beg and I wondered if it will ever be possible to take back from the selfish government ministers what rightfully belongs to everyone in this country.

Last week we had the pleasure of having a distant aunt (currently resident in Zambia) visit us in Zimbabwe. It was during my conversations with her about the situation in her country that I could not help but remark at the stark similarities between Zimbabwe and Zambia between the years 1964 to 1991 when Kaunda finally lost the presidential election to Chiluba.

Before I plunge into a few similarities, there are a few words this aunt of ours shared that I found not only scary but very touching. If we think Mugabe is a dictator, Kaunda was black Hitler. If we think basic commodities are expensive, we ought to know that during Kaunda’s reign – there were no commodities at all on the shelves, moreover the currency itself was scarce. But above and beyond all, Zambia survived it all, albeit after 27 years of iron fisted rule. When God decides it’s enough, it’s enough.

President Kaunda ruled for 27 years and did not allow any opposition, banning all ‘unlawful’ demonstrations. Sound familiar? Mugabe has similarly ruled for 27 straight years, and has made it difficult for opposition parties to form and operate.

In 1972 Kaunda officially outlawed all opposition parties. For a while, political rallies were banned in Zimbabwe which in essence was a clear signal that the so-called opposition was not allowed any freedom to communicate with their supporters.

In 1975 the world copper market collapsed, plunging Zambia’s economy into devastation. Chaos reigned supreme with the cost of living sky-rocketing. Violent protests resulted in a number of deaths, unprecedented price hikes that led to more rioting and finally a coup attempt against Kaunda. Kaunda was forced to move Zambia towards multi party democracy. Almost similarly, in Zimbabwe the ‘fast- track’ land reform programme put into place in the year 2000, is said to have fueled or hugely contributed to the beginning of the collapse of one of Africa’s most stable economies of all time. Currently, the parallel market is running riot, so are inflation, prices of commodities and practically everything including people. The once docile and peace-loving Zimbos have suddenly put on an unfamiliar coat of violence. Petrol bombings, outward dissent and the assault of once feared and well respected uniformed forces are occurring. We are yet to see the effects of this new behaviour.

Now it is often said that those who do not learn from history are bound to repeat it. Post colonial Africa has indeed followed a carefully crafted script. I came across a paragraph that highlighted this:

African nationalists, such as Julius Nyerere, Kenneth Kaunda, Hastings Banda and Robert Mugabe – who won independence for their countries from white colonial rule, were all applauded. They were hailed as heroes, swept into power with huge parliamentary majorities, and deified. Statues were built for them, monuments, stadia and streets named after them. Currencies bore their portraits. They heaped vainglorious epithets upon themselves, Osagyefo, the Guide, the Messiah, the Redeemer and the teacher. They brooked no criticism. Criticizing them was sacrilegious. Newspapers that did so were banned and their editors jailed. Next, they used their parliamentary majorities to subvert their constitutions, outlaw opposition parties and declare their countries “one party state” and themselves, presidents-for-life. Some even vowed to transform their countries into Marxist-Leninist states. Even a moron could see clearly that Marx and Lenin were not black Africans or bore no affinity with black African culture.

When I consider the president’s current “go- hang” policy, coupled with the frantic efforts our uniformed forces are making to thwart voices of dissent, it all smacks of panic. If Zambia could survive the worst, we can too. As a people, we are probably heading in the right direction if we continue to confront the issues affecting us head on.