BACK THEN

I was going through some of my old Shona poetry and I came across a line I wrote in 1995: "Makakomborerwa zvenyu imi munofumokwekweta mazheke eti-i." [Blessed are you who can afford to drink tea in the mornings]. Very poor translation, of course, but the point comes across. The poem goes on to talk about how this one family wakes up and just sits, facing a cold fireplace, nothing to cook, no tea to look forward to. The poetry I wrote then focused on the economic changes that the SAP in Zimbabwe had brought, back when IMF was seeking to assist the country in such issues as trade liberalization and educational reform ("Stop providing free education!"). I remember that the temper of the day was to distrust the SAP, to look at it suspiciously. Then there was another approach that was suspicious of the government conceding to the demands of IMF and other international interests, but regardless of how we looked at the matter, we, as university students, knew that whatever the government and IMF were doing would affect the ordinary people negatively.

My Shona poems of the early 90s seem to be addressing the Zimbabwe of today, but I was no prophet and I don't want to believe I was having visions about the future of Zimbabwe: these were problems I saw in the high density areas, long lines for bread, meat, and other basic commodities.

The only difference is that , back then, the products were still widely available in the country somewhere; they were just being delayed by some economic policy hatching its young. The issue today seems to be that of the scarcity of the goods and the extremely high prices when the goods suddenly appear. In short, the issue today is: You really have no clear picture if you are hunched in front of a computer overseas, sipping Irish tea, and blogging away...