The Leftovers
Dear Family and Friends,
October in Zimbabwe is the purple month: purple skies as rain clouds gather and purple flowering Jacaranda trees shimmering in the hazy heat of summer.
Streets lined with Jacaranda trees in towns and cities everywhere are a sight to behold, their flowers drifting silently down to lie in thick, soft, purple carpets on the ground below.
Every day the temperatures rise as we wait for the first rain in six months, so hot that even the smallest exertion is exhausting. Our summer days start at five in the morning when it’s cool and fresh and if you sit quietly, you may see owls going home to roost before the sun breaches the horizon.
The Ghost bird’s haunting, mournful whistle fills the dawn and is soon joined by the bubbling descending notes of the Coucals calling to each other from the high trees. Some mornings the Grey Go-away birds join in the dawn chorus, their loud and scolding ‘g-way’ calls reprimanding intruders and warning other birds.
With the sights and sounds of the start of another October day fresh in my mind, I waited to turn out onto the main highway at 8.00 in the morning.
Something very strange was going on under the beautiful purple Jacaranda trees that line the road. A policeman was standing in the middle of the road and had traffic from all directions stopped. An ambulance with flashing red lights was on the other side of the road and a group of police wearing green reflective vests were gathered.
Parked diagonally across the road was a white car with the word ‘outreach’ printed across its length. With traffic backed up in long lines in both directions the first thought was that there had been an accident but then I saw a handful of women wearing frilly, pleated yellow and green dresses dancing on the side of the road.
This was the first day of the annual Zanu PF ‘National Peoples Party Conference’ which was starting in Mutare and the dancing girls were obviously the advance political publicity campaign for a meeting taking place 200 kilometres away.
A couple of days before, the Zanu PF National Chairperson, Oppah Muchinguri-Kashiri said that US$4 million had been ‘mobilized’ for the hosting of the Conference in Mutare and we weren’t surprised at all after the news that had been buzzing in the media for the past fortnight.
The Manicaland Provincial Affairs minister had written to miners saying a resolution had been passed at a recent Zanu PF fundraising meeting requiring all miners to contribute a minimum of US$3,000 towards the fundraising efforts for the conference. “This contribution is mandatory and aims to support the success of the conference,” the letter read. (Newsday)
Miners in Penhalonga were furious and said “This is outrageous. We are barely scraping by and now they are demanding US$3,000 from each of us. How are we supposed to survive, let alone contribute to a political conference? We are already paying taxes and fees; now they want us to fund their conference? It is unfair and unreasonable.”
Just before the conference started Mrs Muchinguri said everything was ‘100% ready.’ She said that after feeding the 5,000 Zanu PF conference delegates ‘the leftovers’ would be “donated to hospitals, orphanages and other institutions that required assistance.”
The conference got underway and the burning question on all our lips wasn’t about dancing girls, leftover food or miners and mandatory donations, it was about the 2028 elections. President Mnangagwa is constitutionally required to leave office in 2028 after serving two five-year terms but faction fights within the party have left one side wanting the constitution amended to enable the President to stay in power until 2030 and the other side wanting to pave the way for Vice President Chiwenga.
At the end of the Mutare conference it was a sad day for Zimbabwe when hundreds of delegates erupted in cheering when a resolution was passed for legislation to be drawn up to extend President Mnangagwa’s term in office.
The fanfare of a conference of the already rich and powerful elite was almost inconsequential to ordinary Zimbabweans struggling to get through one day at a time. Despite being repeatedly chased by taxmen, policemen and officials, street vendors are all back in our towns and cities and a friend and I visited a local informal market.
“How much are your shirts?” I asked the lady who sat on the ground amid huge piles of second-hand clothes. “A dollar for two,” she replied, her little girl playing at her side in the mountains of old clothes, the leftovers from the lives of others.
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Until next time, thanks for reading this Letter From Zimbabwe now in its 25th year, and my books about life in Zimbabwe, a country in waiting.
Ndini shamwari yenyu (I am your friend)
Love Cathy 24th October 2025. Copyright © Cathy Buckle https://cathybuckle.co.zw/
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