Monday : 2 April

I occasionally help a friend by collecting her daughter from school. I wait a little way from the gates, and chat to "Sally", a woman who has a roadside shop selling items that she hopes parents fetching their children at the school might buy at the last minute.

Her stall is nothing more than a cardboard box turned upside down. Her shop stock changes from day to day. On Friday, she had a small bottle of cooking oil, a bar of soap, and about four or five bright red tomatoes neatly piled in a pyramid.

Sally told me that the oil was bought from a "cross border trader" who travels to Botswana regularly to buy groceries for re-sale back in Zimbabwe.

Cross border trading is a new Zimbabwean occupation, one that attracts more and more people as fast as our economy collapses. These traders play an important role in keeping our economy afloat; they function as wholesalers to informal retailers like the lovely Sally, and source required scarce goods for bigger businesses.
For example, the office where I work buys all our ink cartridges from a crossborder trader.

The crossborder trader has to buy her Botswana currency (Pula) on the black-market, because there is no foreign currency available through normal channels. The trader catches a bus through to Francistown in Botswana - sometimes queuing for hours and hours at the border post - and buys as many groceries as her duty free allowance will allow her to bring back into Zimbabwe.

Cooking oil sells well, and so does soap and sugar. Toilet paper is a good seller too: the traders buy no-name brands in bulk, to be sold on Zimbabwe’s streets a single roll at a time.

Once back in Zimbabwe, the crossborder trader faces the big challenge of working out how much to ask people like Sally to pay for the precious groceries. She has to be sure that she charges enough Zimbabwe dollars to be able to trade the dollars back into Pula at black-market rates - very difficult to judge because the black-market rates change so quickly and unpredictably. At 1,800% inflation, even the best economist would struggle to calculate how much a Pula would cost in a week's time!

I asked Sally why she did not become a crossborder trader instead of sitting with a small box every day. She explained that it was a very difficult life.

Every now and then the brutal Zimbabwean police will embark on a foreign currency crackdown on our local market places, and arrest traders they think might have foreign currency.

The police demand proof from the traders that they bought their currency ‘legally’. No one can produce proof like this, so the police seize and keep all the foreign currency they find, and all the items already bought by the traders, saying they were illegally bought.

For many traders, a crackdown like this is the end of any means of earning an income.

But the thing that scared her the most was the risk that the Botswana police might think she was an illegal refugee, someone sneaking across the border from Zimbabwe to seek illegal employment in Botswana.

So many Zimbabwean people are driven by desperation to defy border patrols and creep across into next-door countries.

Sally told me used to have larger stall in a market where she had mostly sold vegetables. She lost everything during Operation Murambatsvina (Mugabe’s ‘Operation Clear out Trash’) two years ago.

The police, who attacked the stallholders with batons, trashed her market stall and everything she was selling. She was terrified by the experience.

She prefers her small box; she says that now, if she thinks the police are coming, she simply turns the box upside down, packs everything inside it and then puts it on her head and walks away.

I hear stories like these and I am so grateful for my job. I struggle to live in this country, but I don’t struggle as much as Sally and the people she was telling me about.

Sally’s story made it very clear to me that the ZCTU stayaway planned for this week is not only about better conditions for employed people - less than 20% of the people in our country are employed.

This stayaway is about giving the other 80% of Zimbabweans a chance for a stable way to earn a living and for our crossborder traders to have a chance at a less dangerous way to earn a living.

It doesn’t matter if we are rich or poor, formally employed or not; we really are all in this together.

* Sally is not her real name

Hope, a Sokwanele activist
Blogging for Sokwanele at ‘This is Zimbabwe’
www.sokwanele.com/thisiszimbabwe

Comments

[Chilumba Francis Ngosa 4 Apr 2007 00:13:09]

RGM must retire honourably if he has to be remembered as founding father . Staying on wont change anything , he has outlived his usefulness, he is just inviting more hate than anything and a hostile takeover wont be a pleasant thing to imagine.We have enjoyed piece in the region and we want this peace preserved .
RGM you are human like any other human being, subject to fatigue.You are tired please in God's name take a rest.

[josephine,leek 3 Apr 2007 16:35:23]

I remember protesting outside the South African embassy 20 years ago,writing letters,signing petitions,asking people in supermarkets not to buy their goods,all to end a hedious and sickening regime.It worked,it took along time,but it worked.We didn't give up,or do alot of hand wringing or say "there's nothing you can do,leave them to sort it out themselves"If you like what's happening in Zim,do nothing.If not,write to the government,you MEP bombard your MP.with letters,emails,ask your friends to do the same,let the people of Zim know they have not been abandand,that we will not tolerate the rape,murder and torture of people.The government of a democracy belongs to the people,it's up to us.

[kiki Snr London UK 3 Apr 2007 14:17:28]

Mugabe has lost the plot and the only way is to kill his own people. we have Britain and the United States who can go into any counrty but Zimbabwe,why not what is so difficult with him waht are the UN and other organisations afraid of? what has Mugabe has done is pure murder and he is getting away with it. he calls Zimbabwe his it no longer belongs to the millons of people who are sufferring. he does not care whart happens to anyone else as long as he has food and medication for him. the low paid zimbabwean can not even afford to strike because of fear of losing there job. there is no-more freedom of speech in Zimbabwe. i am a Zimbabwean who can not even go back because of fear of death . what more a person who is on the ground and being beaten by Mugabe. it is he who sends these cowards of men to beat innocent women and children. what does zimbabweans have to do to get the attention of Tony,George and the rest of the common wealth Countries

[LK, UK (SAfrican) 3 Apr 2007 12:03:33]

Agreement with Bob - UK and US will only be interested in helping if it was white against black AND crude oil suddenly started seeping up to the surface

[Bob UK 3 Apr 2007 04:23:29]

Britain and American Leaders would have us be proud of them that they have freed the poor Iraqis of an Evil dictator. Well, if this is what the war in Iraq is all about, what about ZIMBABWE? What are they proposing to do here? - especially since it was Britain who was largely instrumental in bringing Mugabe to power in the first place...

[mary.london 2 Apr 2007 20:55:16]

I am very disappointed with Nelson Mandela for standing-by and not condeming Mugabe.

[Mike H Bromsgrove UK 2 Apr 2007 17:20:05]

Are we surprised by what happened at the recent SADCC meeting...NO!!! They are all, from Cape Town to Cairo, tarred with the same brush.

[mkrice spain 2 Apr 2007 16:58:52]

I know first hand how being hopeless one can be. My brother like many in Zim is a qualified teacher and now he has had to resort to selling fish to make ends meet. I will be thinking of all my fellow country men irrespective of colour as you hopefully succeed in the Stay Away. Alfred am sorry we never chose this way, Mugabe chose that way, as a 10yr old I remenber being told by the Freedom fighters that we were fighting for a better future. I did not know how bad my my life was then and by the time I was 13 my friends where taken from their school into Mozambique to train as fighters and we are that generation that has lost everything now that Mugabe is there. Don't give us on us we just want to live like everybody else

[Samantha 2 Apr 2007 15:47:58]

I continue to read this incredible blog and thank God I live in Britain.

This country should do much more to help the victims of Mugabe.

[Alfred England 2 Apr 2007 15:05:25]

Zim chose this way 27 years ago all those that follow the gun to gain power will end the same way. Look at History, Look around you, in South America somebody is doing the same in the name of the people and changing to laws of the land to stay in power. Please don't complain to the rest off us we already know you may your bed sleep in it or wake up.

[Martha Chizuma,London.[Malawian] 2 Apr 2007 14:53:00]

i feel for you my brothers. i had hope in the last ended sadc meeting but as usual huge disappointment. i mean if not them then who is gonna help zimbabweans?

[Nokthula, Zimbabwean in London 2 Apr 2007 13:22:46]

I'll be thinking of all of you tomorrow!

[priyazim, bulawayo 2 Apr 2007 13:18:50]

The only conclusion to be drawn from this betrayal is that all the politicians who were of the opinion that we were quite fine under present conditions are people with full bellies, feel secure and have access to unlimited funds - yes, you all voted together because you're afraid you'll lose your ill-gotten wealth once your own security is threatened.

Although I mentioned the outcome would be indifferent, never did I, for one moment, think all the violence and spilling of innocent blood, would be condoned - but it was. How very African! (and I am African, born and bred, before anyone accuses me of being otherwise.)

Power cuts now seem to be almost daily, if not more than once a day. Power was cut over the weekend for up to two hours, Saturday and Sunday. However, we were blessed with rain and lots of it but, what of the people who cook outside, using wood? The wood is sodden. How do you feed your family, even if you are lucky enough to have sufficient food?

I purchased 500g of butter 10 days ago for approximately $12,000. Friday last week 250g of butter was $32,500. Does this make sense to anyone? I felt extravagent buying 500g, but with the price now, butter is no longer affordable. Imported cooking oil, another luxury, is selling in some places for $100,000 for a 2litre container. Something else we can now remove off our shopping list. Soon it will also be bath soap and shampoo included in this list.

Shops, including chemists, have now stopped giving credit because they're unable to carry their customers for a month because of inflation. What are pensioners supposed to do - if they aren't receiving help from relatives? The list is endless of what is endured here by people but, does anyone out there care? It certainly doesn't appear so. Keep the faith, be strong, things will improve, things can't get any worse....blah, blah, blah. Talk is cheap as has just been proven by what transpired at SADC, and a leader who will be around for another # years. God help us, if you're listening. It seems you're the only one who has the power.

This is my home, my country and it's the first time I've felt I can't take it any longer.