Toward a World that Works for Everyone
The Predator at the Waterhole Dear Family and Friends, Twenty two years of writing this Letter From Zimbabwe, once a week for the first thirteen years and then once a fortnight for the next eight years is a very long time at the wheel. After my website was hacked again recently and lines of communication […]
Jewels in the dust Dear Family and Friends, While the youngsters were cleaning spanners and putting tools away the plumber and I stood chatting. We talked about the crisis situation with water in the town. An electricity power surge had apparently blown up the water pump that fills the reservoir which feeds the entire town. […]
Gold and the Godfather Syndrome in Zimbabwe Dear Family and Friends, Walking along the banks of the beautiful Gairezi River a few months ago the water was clear and cool, tumbling and swirling over pebbles, cascading down rocky outcrops. Sunbirds and waxbills were foraging in the scrubby banks and the only sound to be heard […]
Thousand dollar shopping in Zimbabwe Dear Family and Friends, On the shortest day of the year (21st of June) Zimbabwe gave us her very best: blue sky, sunshine and golden grass. It was gorgeous out there in the bush, aloes in flower, streams still trickling and mist nestling in the grass long after sunrise. For […]
Crisis? What crisis? Dear Family and Friends, Just before sunrise when the sky was yellow and apricot, a jackal ran out into the road, saw me, turned and ran back into the golden grass. It was a very cold winter morning and there was an icy wind with the temperature hovering around five degrees. The […]
Seizing maize and deja vu Dear Family and Friends, Winter snuck in the back door in an icy blast this week in my home town. It came after two months of bizarre weather: pounding, flooding rain when it should have been bone dry, then cold and misty, then hot again and now a biting wind, […]
The crocodiles will take the goats before the children Dear Family and Friends, Arriving at the wide blue river crossed with swathes of golden sand, there was a feeling of overwhelming timelessness. People passed by in carts pulled by donkeys or oxen, children wielding thin hide whips to steer the animals; young children in charge […]
The time is now to grow food, Zimbabwe Dear Family and Friends, It seems insensitive, almost offensive to write about anything else when bombs and missiles are falling, cities lie in rubble, thousands are being injured, maimed and killed, thousands more are trapped and unable to escape, millions are becoming refugees a world away. A […]
Don’t blame the police March 18, 2022 Dear Family and Friends, Tropical Cyclone Gombe hit Madagascar ten days ago and then moved across the channel into Mozambique and Malawi and the tail end rains are now in parts of Zimbabwe. The rains are desperately needed but the talk everywhere is of drought as we’ve watched […]
Zimbabwe’s Thuggery Methods Dear Family and Friends, I slowed down on the highway as a stream of school kids skipped and cavorted along the roadside at 9am in the morning. Two little boys were showing off, tugging at each other’s rucksacks, play fighting, tumbling in the grass. In the shade the dew was still thick […]
What is life really like in Zimbabwe? Dear Family and Friends, After 22 years of writing about events and life in Zimbabwe it would be remiss of me not to record recent events because, two weeks ago, after seventeen years of bickering, accusing and finger pointing, it’s possible that hope has been rekindled in our […]
Letter from Zimbabwe: Teachers in leg irons in a beautiful Zimbabwe Dear Family and Friends, On a rock on the path the trail marker is painted: a white circle with a green antelope footprint in the centre. Behind the rock is nature’s own trail marker: a low mound of hard anthill carpeted all around by […]
Guilty during land reform Dear Family and Friends, The rainy season in Zimbabwe has taken hold and everywhere is green and soggy under dark purple skies. It’s the time of year when lightning rips across the sky and thunder rattles windows in their frames. Pounding rain and hail storms are the order of the day […]
Too Hot to Walk Barefoot Dear Family and Friends, Greetings from under Zimbabwe’s beautiful blue sky on a scorching hot December day. All the windows and doors are open, it’s too hot to walk barefoot outside after ten in the morning and every day we search the sky for signs of rain. In the grasslands the […]
Dear Family and Friends, The rains have returned to Zimbabwe, breaking an unbearably hot couple of weeks which had left us melting the moment we stepped outside. Green is everywhere and with it has come the weird and wonderful, the absurd and the insulting and the downright shameful. First the weird and wonderful: the noise […]
