Zimbabwe blog: salvaging pips

The old woman went from door to door in a village just 10km out of town and at each house she held out a small, blue, chipped enamel bowl and asked if anyone could spare a little food.

On the third attempt she got a couple of tablespoons of cooked sadza (thick maize meal porridge) and she knelt on the ground and clapped with cupped hands, the traditional thanks.

A man in the village who witnessed the hungry woman asking for food said that he felt so ashamed for her suffering and for the state of the country.

There are four commercial farms in the vicinity of this village: one is literally a stone's throw across the road and the others are all less than 3km away.

All these farms which between them produced tobacco, maize, beef, lamb, milk, chickens and eggs, were seized by the government in the last seven years but all have now fallen into disrepair and neglect and no longer produce any food for sale.

One hungry woman begging for food from her neighbours is the tip of the iceberg in Zimbabwe's rural villages.

Three weeks after a power sharing agreement was signed there is still no sign of government assistance and so far only people with HIV and AIDS are receiving help from NGOs. Registered individuals this week each received a month's supply of anti-retrovirals, 20kg of unground maize, 5kg of dried beans and 2 litres of cooking oil.

While lists of names of families who need food aid have been compiled, so far nothing has arrived and people are surviving on wild fruits. At this time of year the fruits in season are wild oranges (locally called Mutamba) and small wild plums (known as Muhacha) but competition for the fruit is fierce and there is never enough to support hungry families.

Villagers who still have some food left from last year's harvest are sorting through the dwindling remnants and selecting pips that they can plant.

Two weeks before Zimbabwe's main planting season there is no seed maize or fertilizer to be found anywhere and village Headmen and Chiefs are calling meetings and advising people to reserve any maize pips that look good enough to plant.

The hunger is equally bad in urban areas where a cocktail of disastrous economic policies have virtually closed the country down.

Cheques are not accepted by any shops or businesses, electronic transfers have been stopped by the Reserve Bank, inter account transfers have been suspended and cash is almost non existent.

Banks have become totally swamped with thousands of people desperate to withdraw the maximum daily limit of twenty thousand dollars.

With your daily limit of cash, if you are lucky enough to get it, you cannot even buy one orange. A single 65 gram packet of two minute noodles is this week priced at 117 thousand dollars, requiring 6 days of queuing at the bank.

Most people have no choice but to queue at the banks where lines form as early as 2am. All day, every day the bank queues are being controlled by Police with dogs and scuffles are breaking out more and more frequently as tempers flare and desperation rises.

If you can get one, the new 20,000 note is cause for both concern and amusement. The note has no metal security thread and displays a peculiar Zimbabwe Bird which looks distinctly thin and misshapen and sits on the note at a skewed angle - a fitting symbol of the state we're in.

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