Thanks for getting involved in Kubatana’s fix this.please campaign. Your postcards are flying into our post box and we’re really proud by how proactive and engaged Zimbabweans are in wanting to make where they live better.

Here are some responses:

I have put my stickers at:
1) A non working tower light at Kaguvi because people are being robbed in that area
2) The broken sewage pipe at Umvovo because people can easily be attacked by diseases e.g. cholera
3) A stop sign which was crushed by a motor vehicle some time ago in town. I had to put the sticker because there was an accident which took place at  that area

I put the stickers on:
1) A borehole (not functioning) causing shortage of water in Chegutu
2) Manhole Inspection Chamber because of odour from sewage/refuse and sewage burst pipes in Chegutu

Masticker angu ndaka sticker parobot repanjani ravanenguva risinga shandi. Panova pakamboita tsaona yebhazi ne goods train pakafa vanhu makore mashoma apfuura. Pakaita tsaona yelorry yemumwe mugari wemuchegutu. (I placed my stickers on a non-functioning robot at a railway crossing. In the past there was an accident involving a goods train and a bus which killed people. Also a lorry owned by a Chegutu local had an accident at the same spot.)

I have placed stickers on:
1) A tower light between Majange shops and Urombo Primary School. The tower light stopped working long back thereby putting people’s live at risk during the night
2) A railway crossing warning sign a stones throw distance from Chevron Hotel. This is a crossing on the road to Beitbridge
3) Sewer pipes across Shakashe River between Rujeko and Eastvale. Raw sewage form these burst pipes is contaminating water that feeds a dam which is the main water source for Masvingo residents.

I placed my sticker on the robots near Canaan Terminus. It’s been a long time since these robots stopped working. We need them to work.

In Masvingo a lot of broken pipes, no street lights and no traffic lights.

The news from Senegal – elections were held against the incumbent. He lost. And he has left office.

Try as he might to stay, the people want him gone, and he is gone.

He changed the Constitution to say no third term, and then stood for a third term. Which he was legally entitled to. His first term in office, when he changed the Constitution, did not count against the two term limit. So said his court. So he was quite correct, he could stand.

Understand; correct is a legal term. It means legal or illegal under the law. Things are correct or incorrect, according to what is written in the statutes. Right and wrong though, are moral terms. Some things are right, and some things are wrong. We know these things if we look inside ourselves. Things like murder, theft, adultery. They are wrong. We ‘know’ that. They are also against the law, which makes them incorrect, but we know they are wrong.

So, the sitting President of Senegal ran for election, which he was correct to do. However, he was wrong. And the people told him that. They had the ability, and they had the power, to say “no”. And they did. And he left. That is democracy.

Next door, in Mali, there is a coup. The army supplanted the elected government, in order to give themselves the power and resources to fight the Tuareg rebels (fellow Malians). However, it seems from reports that while the army was looting in Bamako, the capital, the rebels took some towns in the north! So you have to wonder, why did they really stage a coup? This army captain and his buddies. While they do not have the strength to fight the Tuareg, they also do not have the brains to keep themselves from stealing.

Either way it seems democracy is the best answer. While it certainly is not perfect, it certainly has it’s short-comings and faults, democracy is the best course. Even if it is only ‘least worst’. Even if the only reason is you cannot blame yourself for what went wrong. Under democracy you make the decisions, you make them work, and you live with the consequences. Under democracy, you cannot blame or find scapegoats amongst the political elite, the captains of industry, the securocrats, foreign capital, etc. It is you. You run your country.

Kristen Tedder, or Tutu as she is known to friends, was never going to react to breast cancer in a conventional way. This is the performance artist whose Doris Day meets Courtney Love routine had the Gallagher brothers whooping for more at a London club in the late 1990s.

Her latest project is Punk Cancer: a visceral, disrespectful and decidedly un-pink approach to fighting breast cancer. “All the pink, fluffy breast cancer imagery didn’t do it for me, so I went down a different road,” Tutu explains. “I learned to love breast cancer because it’s part of my body and it taught me a lot about my life. But I also wanted to kick its ass.”

When we meet, Tutu, 45, is wearing a T-shirt, created with London label Earl of Bedlam. It features a stencil of herself, boldly one-breasted, and, in Never Mind the Bollocks lettering, the phrase: “Cancer Sucks: Fight it, Love it, Live it, Survive it.”

More from the Guardian here

During my kombi days I often heard whindi’s and drivers complaining about how police officers refused to pay kombi fare, but at roadblocks the same officers would ask them for bribes, or when they were arrested would beat them badly. Personally, I’ve never really trusted the police, and given a choice I’d pick a soldier over a policeman. Outside of the repeated harassment at roadblocks, I’ve found members of the police to be undisciplined, bureaucratically inefficient and at times just plain unwilling to do their job.  So given an opportunity where I am not compelled by law to cooperate with the police, I won’t.

Recently I had occasion to add ‘entitled’ to my list of grievances against the police. On Friday afternoon, as I was leaving the British Embassy a police officer approached my car and attempted to get in. Finding both passenger doors closed, he looked perplexed, then finally asked me which way I was going, although it didn’t quite sound like a request:

Policeman: Murikuenda nekuextension handiti? (You’re going through second street extension right?)
Me: Aiwa, handisi. (No, I’m not)

I started my car and left.

There had been two other cars besides mine leaving the embassy at the same time, one with an old British couple, and another with a man by himself. The policeman hadn’t approached either of these. Did he really think it more likely that he would get a ride from a woman driving on her own?

What made me angry was the presumption on his part that he had any right at all to attempt to get into the car without asking my permission first. It was still my car.

I’m still not sure how I feel about this, and perhaps I am making mountains out of molehills. Should I be angry that a policeman in uniform tried to get into my car without asking me first? Is it because he is a policeman and thought himself entitled to a free ride like other officers do with kombis? Or is it because he’s a policeman and, being I woman I appeared weaker and couldn’t say no?

This just in – the Macdonald Park Pool (Avondale’s city/public pool) has changed it’s opening times. It will be closed Sunday, and only open 0800 to 1200 Saturday. It will also be shut at 1600 everyday, not the 1800 it used to shut. But it will be available to hire for functions on those days. No reason has been given. This is city wide, directive from above.

I ‘understand’ things, since I have been involved in getting the Mac Park Pool rehabilitated and opened.

The first thing I know is that it was rented for functions at $300 a time. Weddings usually. And the area residents complained non-stop about the noise involved.

The second thing I know, on a warm weekend day, the pool would take in over $300 in gate proceeds. In a day! And, or course, the residents generally work on the weekdays, so can only swim on the weekends.

Conclusion. The City of Harare has decided to stop getting up to $500 (two and a half days’ income) and instead rent it out for $300. The City of Harare is trying to NOT make money. The City of Harare is trying to keep the citizens of Harare out of their pool.

Another thing known – The City of Harare takes all the gate takings. Banked straight to them. And rental of the place as a venue means the money goes to the pool, which then takes what it needs for chemicals and upkeep, and banks the remainder to the City of Harare. The City of Harare, however, never gives or pays for any chemicals or pool maintenance. So, the only way to keep the pool running is to shut it to the public, rent it to a private function, and use that money to keep it running for the public.

Is this not short-term policy to long-term disaster?

Please can we have the City of Harare run the pool for the Harare Public and make money?

Blocked drains in Glenview; Zimbabweans get involved in Kubatana’s Fix this.please campaign.

Thanks to Priviledge from Glenview.