Letters from Zimbabwe

To all those who sent emails or donations, thank you very much. The following letters, as told by Dennis, give you an idea as to what we are doing in Bulawayo. Thank you Dennis.

Letter from Zimbabwe Part 1:
I arrived in Zimbabwe a week ago. It was pitch black outside; My wife who arrived here 6 weeks ago has been coping without electricity for as long as 10 hours a day. There are few cars are on the road because fuel is scarce and expensive – about $6 a gallon. The streets are filled with hundreds of people wearing dark clothes walking on the street day and night. The landscape is brown and dusty - no rain since March. Within two weeks of the first rain everything will turn green. The rainy season is about to begin.
Money is a big problem: getting it, changing it, spending it. The government only allows an individual to take the equivalent of $2 US in cash out of the bank each day. So people keep what cash they have and don’t put it into the banking system, which makes the shortage worse. In an effort to counter the 2 million per cent inflation vendors in the black market are charging huge amounts for the simplest of things. What costs a dollar this week may cost $5 next week. If you want to change money on the street you may get 25,000 Zim to one US dollar. If you give someone that same $1 and they deposit direct into your bank account from their bank account you get 18,000,000 to one. Yes 18 million to one! But you can only get it out at the rate of 50,000 per day. So you would have to stand in block long lines every day for hours for 360 days to get all the 18 million out in cash. No one takes personal checks except the government. All others require a bank check. To do that you go to the bank, wait in line, order the check, come back in an hour or two, stand in line again and pick it up. If you don’t get it the day you request it, the price of the item you want to buy could have doubled forcing you to go back to the lines at the bank. Fortunately, for some, the government has allowed a few stores to sell imported food in foreign currency. It’s very expensive but at least you can get what you might need. That doesn’t help the locals much though. They have to go to the black market.
After resolving some outstanding issues, sourcing fuel, printing out all the photos of you who bought a doll I managed to drive to Pumula North to see the children who won last year’s competition. My visit was unexpected as I could not call them – very few of them have a phone.
I drove through the deteriorating but tree lined suburbs where Europeans, many here for generations, used to live in grand style then passed through a downtown area that still looks somewhat prosperous on the outside. Inside the stores are empty, elevators don’t work, and floor tile is braking apart. At the traffic lights you have to stop because most don’t work and when they do the lights are so dim you have to squint to see them. Often the lights work in one direction but not the other. It’s a challenge! Miraculously there are few accidents. I passed downtown through the industrial area filled with derelict businesses that used to employ thousands. It’s Sunday so the streets begin to fill with hundreds of people walking to or from church. Some wearing flowing, toga-like white clothes (the Apostles) who pray in open fields, men in military uniforms (Army of God Church or Salvation Army church), and women in matching uniforms (any number of denominations have their own colors and designs). Most are clutching their version of the bible.
After 22 kilometers and a couple of roadblocks manned by hungry police demanding bribes I reached Pumula North, the high density township where the orphans who made last year’s winning dolls live. The smell of rivulets of raw sewage flowing out of broken pipes smacks you in the face. Houses are cement, small (3 or 4 rooms), packed closely together and many surrounded by protective walls or fences. Children as young as 18 months play alongside the potholed, tarred road, the edges eaten away by years of neglect.
As I pulled up at my destination I looked through the rickety metal gate and saw about 25 children sitting on the four foot wide strip of bare ground on the side of the house. They were busy making dolls for this year’s competition. Lots of hugs and smiles followed. All of them are skinnier, most suffer from stunted growth because of poor nutrition, and all of them told me how hard it is to find anything to eat. We visited for a few hours and made arrangements to notify the others to meet them next Saturday to give them their notes from America, write their thank you’s and distribute the first food baskets. Mike and Eddie told me I must come to their house because their cousin, Sithabile Dlamini was very sick. Sithibile was a first prize winner in the first competition three years ago. Mike, Eddie, Mthobisi, Sithabile, Nobuhle and Charity live with their 70-year-old gogo (grandmother). All of Gogo’s children have died leaving her caring for the grandchildren. I went and what I saw was horrifying. Sithabile was vibrant in May and now is extremely thin and covered in open sores. She has suffered without treatment for weeks. No doctors, no medicine, no money. The next day I took her to the only private pediatrician in town, a Serbian woman and got her medicine. She should recover.
I’ll spend this week sourcing the food that I hope to have for Saturday’s distribution. Prices have risen drastically so that the $25 I get for a doll will buy less than last year. But that just means I have to focus on the basics. Luxury items like soap and sugar will have to wait.

Letter from Zimbabwe Part 2: Is missing for now!

Letter from Zimbabwe Part 3:
Hello All,I was driving to Pumula North to deliver the bi-weekly food to my kids Saturday past the huge cemetery en route and saw five burials going on at the same time. In many parts of the township areas there is sewage running down the street. One spot inNketa has a river of sewage running blocks long sown the narrow 6 foot space between rows of houses. My friend and co-worker Philip Mudyo has to step over a stream of sewage that runs two feet from the side of his house, through the front yard and into the street. The water supply stops and starts so when it stops all the pipes get clogged and burst. To get the city to repair Philip has to come up with money (US or Rand –Zim Dollars worthless) to fuel the city vehicles.And the cholera outbreak that has made international news has only touched Bulawayo unlike the rest of the country where thousands are sickened. The rains are due to come this week and with them we all expect a huge upswing in cases here. Along with distributing food, my friends who work with the kids and I talk about how to protect against cholera. Even though you can’t get it from handshakes there’s the new way of greeting each other – clenched fists bumping against each other. Children who are trained to write and act in plays about fighting AIDS, abuse, and starvation are now writing plays about cholera. No Disneyland here. City water is brown and when you boil it for the requisite 7 minutes and let it cool a full half-inch of debris rests on the bottom of the pot. Getting the water out of the pot without mixing it with that toxic soup can be a challenge. We still go without electricity 6 to 15hours a day depending on the whims of the hidden man at the levers. Potholes so big and deep cars have been known to flip over are the bumper crop of this year’s rainy season. Of course,no tar to repair. And unless you have US or Rand food is a luxury. If you manage to get in line at the bank at 7 pm, sleep all night on the sidewalk, thwart all line jumpers and make it into the bank by 3 pm the next day and if the bank still has cash you are allowed to get the equivalent of two loaves of bread for the week. And you can’t return to the bank until the same day the following week. And if the government issues another new note as it did this week ($500 million note) the prices instantly triple. With the money from the dolls every two weeks I buy over a ton of maize meal, a pickup worth of vegetables cabbages, carrots, beets, tomatoes, onions, potatoes and butternut squash, cooking oil, salt, and sometimes have enough for a bar of soap and abit of sugar. With outright donations I have supplemented that with chicken sand some beef from reputable butchers once a month. Beef can be dicey so you want to make sure you know where the cattle comes from because of the anthrax found in some herds. So my kids and their caregivers are ok and incredibly thankful for all of you that assist when you buy the dolls or make outright donations. I don’t bother paying school fees anymore. There simply are no teachers. Though the children still go to school in fresh uniforms, sit all day and return home. They yearn to be educated. They soak it up when we have training sessions. American teachers would die to have students like these kids. It’s fast becoming a lost generation. Elli is working on her documentary about a group of disabled who have a band and will be traveling with them to the states the first of the year for a five-week tour. She’s managed to get a leg for Goodwill, electric wheelchairs for Marvelous, Prudence, Energy and Tapiwa,free health screenings at St Lukes in New York and Johns Hopkins as well as the promise of a record deal and an itunes contract. She’s amazing. Loving every minute of it. Of course the University where she is supposed to teach is closed down. Secretaries left last March and only the few senior people go to work there now. No money. But – how many times do I say this – people still smile, still laugh, still pray a lot.Churches of all denominations are filled. The ‘Apostles” still gather in their white robes in the middle of fields all around the city every day to pray for change kneeling at the feet of ‘prophets’ hoping to hear some good news of their future. Life goes on.The endurance and fortitude of the human spirit continues to amaze and inspire me. My best to you all and to those of you who have helped thanks from the bottom of my heart and it you listen really well you’ll hear the screams of happiness from my kids and the pride they feel that they are able to assist their families with their work on the dolls.

More to come.

Carpe Diem.