Zimbabwe's divided society of Have All and Have Nothing

I was in Zimbabwe a few weeks ago. I sat down and talked to Kodobo and met Mrs Chaya and her daughter; I had but a glimpse of their lives in Zimbabwe today.

Kodobo is probably in his late seventies, but looks much, much older. He can hardly see. He should have had the operation to clear his eyes. In the 1980s this was a minor operation that he would have done at his local rural hospital, Ndanga Hospital. In the 1990s when he should have had the operation it was a then considered a major operation; today could not even have it done in the country’s biggest hospital, Parerenyatwa Hospital.

The country’s health service is in really bad state due to years of poor funding and neglect. Parerenyatwa Hospital cannot even provide something as basic as a drip; patients are expected to buy the kit themselves. An eye operation is clearly something far beyond the capability of the hospital.

So Kodobo’s world has been slowly but surely turning darker and darker. His twilight zone is a few inches deep, beyond that it is pitch black. As he shook my hand, he drew me up close. I saw, smelt and felt his destitute existence up close.

He did not have much beyond the dirty rages he was wearing. He lived alone in a grass thatched hut. He has a married daughter but there is little she could do to help him. She too lives in abject poverty. A kind local villager has been bring Kodobo his merger BACOSSI rations – 2.5 kg of sugar, 2.5 kg of rice, 500 ml cooking oil, bar of soap and, yes, a tube of tooth paste once every two or three months. The last five years he had rely on food from a international organisation but the Zanu PF government chased the organisation away. Kodobo was skin and bone.

I wished I had brought some clothes and food to give Kodobo. Giving him a bundle of Z$ was not going to help him much; he would keep the money for a rainy day only to find it was worthless, given Zimbabwe’s hype inflation rate.

Kodobo in at the very bottom of the Zimbabwe’s ever growing multitude of destitute living on US$1.00 or less a day! There are other Zimbabweans like Mrs Chaya who doing very well, thank you!

Mrs Chaya has a daughter at private college in Harare. The day I met them, the two were a busy shopping trip. That evening the daughter was going to a Beginning of Term dinner-dance at Meikles Hotel in Harare.

The daughter had recently returned from a holiday trip abroad. She had probably bought the dress, shoes, etc. she would be wearing to dinner-dance whilst abroad. There was no shop amongst there still remaining shops in Zimbabwe that would carter for her expensive tastes, anyway. The two were probably shopping for the odd accessories.

Mrs Chaya is the wife of a high ranking Zanu PF leader- a member of the ruling elite. No doubt the Chayas lived in a big house. No doubt, both the husband and wife drove expensive cars and owned one or two large farms, etc.

A single glass of wine at Meikles Hotel would cost a pretty penny; but money was not an issue to the Chayas, at least not on such occasions. They are used to spending lavishly on themselves and their family. On this occasion; it is a badge of honour, a tangible proof of their superior standing in society. The Chayas would probably pay, grudgingly too, their domestic and farm workers the equivalent of one glass of wine a month.

The Chayas are edgy; like the rest of the new-rich in Zimbabwe whose prosperity is totally dependent on the patronage of Robert Mugabe and the ruling party, they constantly worry about falling out of favour with their political masters. They know only too well just how freckle political patronage of a dictator can be. They also know that the sorry state Mugabe has reduced the country into can only mean their own days are numbered- political change is certainly coming, the present setup in which the few are living in total luxury at the expense of Kodobo and millions other is simply unsustainable!

I went to Zimbabwe to visit my mother who was ill. I found her on her death bed. There was no bank of equipment to monitor her heart, breathing, kidney function, etc. The only hospital assistance she had was a drip. She was in private hospital.

In this day and age when the rest of mankind have successful sent man to the moon and back and are conducting experiments to replicate the event that gave birth to this universe itself, why should a hospital servicing millions not have something as basic as a heart monitor. With the most basic medical support, my mother would probably be alive today. Millions of Zimbabweans are suffering for lack of medicines worth a few pennies and every day hundreds die unnecessary.

The money that should be used to buy equipment so that Kodobo would see and to buy medicines saving hundreds of thousands of life is squandered on cars and other luxuries by the Chayas and the rest of the ruling elite. That is not right and should not be allowed to continue for one day longer!

How ironic that the Government of National Unity (GNU), formed to address the country’s totally unjust social system should have spent months squabbling about the power sharing deal, are now spending weeks squabbling about who should run what ministry. No doubt they will be no such disagreement when it comes to spending millions of US$ on new ministerial cars!
Kodobo and the multitude of Zimbabweans living and dying in despair deserve to be treated as humans; whose totally unnecessary suffering and wasted lives must be acknowledged and addressed. This GNU, like the Mugabe regime before it, is not doing that!