Zimbabwe dispatches: great expectations
Updated on 18 February 2009
All eyes are on the new Prime Minister, Morgan Tsvangirai, and expectations are very high, writes Helen from Zimbabwe.
"Happy New Year" was one of the greetings being used over the weekend, "Happy New Independence Day" was another.
Both greetings may seem absurdly out of place this February in Zimbabwe but they portrayed the positive feelings of hope that have come as a result of the swearing in of Morgan Tsvangirai and the inclusion of MDC ministers in the new cabinet.
This has been a very long time coming - in fact for many Zimbabweans seeing non Zanu PF Ministers in the cabinet is a first in their lifetime.
The irony of watching the loser of the March 2008 elections swearing in the winner and then the cabinet was not lost on anyone. But everyone is hoping that this is the foot in the door, the new start we so desperately need.
It is a very faltering start marked by over 30 activists still in prison and one deputy minister arrested before even being sworn in.
It is a very faltering start marked by over 30 activists still in prison and one deputy minister arrested before even being sworn in.
I sat chatting with a young friend who is in her third year at University after the swearing in of the new cabinet.
She was shocked at the realisation that some of the newly appointed Zanu PF cabinet members have been Ministers for almost three decades, 6 years before she was even born.
For her, as for most Zimbabweans, this new power sharing government has almost come too late. The semester at University just closed without exams being written after it was announced that fees were to be charged in US dollars. Students were unable to find the US$400 needed in order to sit the exams.
Tutorial fees for the April semester have been set at US$800 and my friend said she had absolutely no way of being able to get her hands on that much foreign money.
"It's impossible," she said. "Completely impossible. I may as well give in now. I have no hope at all of finishing the last year of my degree."
For people in rural villages the power sharing government may be a reality in Harare but the effects on everyday life is what everyone is desperate to see.
For people in rural villages the power sharing government may be a reality in Harare but the effects on everyday life is what everyone is desperate to see.
One man told me how he has been reduced to a complete pauper in the last few months. His maize crop is a complete failure as he had no fertilizer and he planted maize pips saved from a previous harvest instead of certified seed.
With no sign of food aid, he has had no choice but to sell off his livestock to the so called businessmen who come from Harare in order to keep his family alive.
Their trucks are filled with maize meal which they swap for livestock. One goat for a 10 kg bag of maize meal - not even enough to last a family of five for a week.
When the man tried to argue that the exchange was very unfair because to buy a goat costs US$50 and to buy a 10kg bag of maize meal costs US$6, the so called businessmen in their dark glasses and trendy clothes with car stereos blaring just laugh and say: take our offer or go hungry.
The man takes the offer, he has no US dollars and his children cry with hunger. He has two goats left to sell and wonders if the effects of the new government will have reached his village by the time his last two beasts have been sold for food.
All eyes are on the new Prime Minister and expectations are very high - from rural villagers with no goats left to University students, political prisoners and civil servants who have been promised their pay in foreign currency.
