Via this isn’t happiness

Zimbabwe has been a source of fascination for many from scholars to pseudo-intellectuals to lay analysts who turn kombis into their offices as they pontificate about what went wrong, what should be done and only succeed in making fools of themselves. Some writers have gone as far as “analyzing” presidential candidates of the coming polls, gazing into their own crystal balls (there I said it, balls) profiling them and attempting to provide insights into the strengths and weaknesses of these men for whom politics is a career. Bollocks, I say. Here is my own take on some candidates. Those who don’t appear here have been deliberately left out!

Robert Mugabe: Bob ain’t your uncle
Morgan Tsvangirai: Idiot
Welshma Ncube: Cretin
Simba Makoni: Clown
Job Sikhala: Anarchist
Paul Siwela: Walter Mitty

Share some love; donate a pack of pads

With Love Foundation are conducting an ongoing Sanitary Pad Drive

With Love Foundation has acknowledged that it is a widespread but unacknowledged problem that girls in Zimbabwe are missing school and staying at home because of menstruation. They are also substituting pads or tampons for unhygienic and unsafe materials such as old pieces of cloth or newspaper.

We are appealing to our community to donate a packet of pads.

To donate or to find out more please contact Chenaimoyo on 0736-971414 or chenaimoyo [at] withlove [dot] co [dot] zw

Please also consider volunteering as a collection point.

It’s our war, a women’s war! And we are going to win!

These are messages for the currently ongoing protest. Stripping is now an official means of protest even in Zimbabwe. Like the recent stripping in a WOZA protest in Harare and that done by another woman in Mutare during American ambassador’s visit to the town. A group of radical feminists declared the 4 April as International Topless Jihad Day and they urged women to take the topless protest to any Tunisian embassy in their country.  Parading topless with protest messages scribbled all over their bodies these women are touching on issues to do with governance, human rights and religious and in some countries they have persecutions and arrests.

The trend of poor service delivery by the local authorities and public institutions in Zimbabwe has reached alarming levels such that it has become a normal situation to get things like tap water from council after weekly intervals. It is now an acceptable trend to have excessive electricity load shedding every day and receive high bills at the end of the month. Boreholes and wells are now common features in every household and the sound of a generator is no longer a nuisance but music to people’s ears. When it rains be prepared to get an extra charge on commuter fares from the commuter omnibus operators. To get medical treatment for your loved one from the few doctors left in local hospitals a token of appreciation does the trick otherwise you will have to deal with long queues in the crowded corridors of short staffed hospitals. Customer care no longer exists in many shops as the non-refundable and no exchange disclaimer reminds you that what you are buying is inferior. But to many people to be shortchanged is not a normal situation.

Just a few weeks after Professor Lovemore Madhuku showed some interest to form a political party criticism came in different forms across the Zimbabwe. Some people accused him of trying to dilute votes in the next election and some went further claiming that the Professor is trying seek attention from his former allies in the MDC party. The three parties in the government of national unity know that Madhuku could be a force to reckon with regardless of a poor showing in the just ended constitutional referendum. Small threats like these led to the dilution of votes in the harmonized elections of 2008 when the Mavambo/Kusile party was launched.