Harare Nights

Traveling to Zimbabwe currently presents a different kind of weirdness, the evil sides of the human psyche (represented by the Mugabe's thugocracy) masked by politeness and religiosity (Zimbabwe once had the best infrastructure and most educated population in Africa). I felt like Zimbabwe was now a bit like how it must have been in Haiti during the Duvalier regime/Tonton Macoute years. Once thriving colonial palaces, a population brought to ruin by military dictatorship... the police and military in Harare drive (or drove?) shining new Mercedes while infrastructure decays and millions starve. I took very few pictures here because foreign journalism is basically forbidden and punished...but I did meet a handful of undercover BBC folks.

I traveled to Harare in May 2008 to help with National Malaria control efforts...I arrived on an Air Zimbabwe flight late at night with a motley band of travelers--our plane diverted from Zambia to Lubumbashi, Congo (that's the opposite direction from Lusaka) because they had forgotten to pick up some travelers earlier. Strangely, they were all Japanese. UN workers. I ended up at the airport in Harare with only a "Rhodie," as they pejoritavely call them here--a former farmer, a grisled south african type with tight dusty shorts, crusty work boots, and an aged briefcase that looked to be covered in snake skins. Outside the terminal he sat and railed about the idiocy of the Mugabe regime while a few soldiers/policemen in dark shades looked on. Nervously I tried to distance myself, but realized he was probably my best option for a ride into Harare.

The economy, of course, is a mess, and the local currency basically worthless. I knew not to use my ATM cards--with the official rate at 30,000 zim dollars-$1 (which the banks give you) and the blackmarket rate 250,000,000-$1 (upon which prices are based), I couldn't have afforded a Coca-cola with all the money in my bank account...I assumed I could use the little US cash I had at the quaint postcolonial english hotel to which i headed...unfortunately, the restaurant there was only accepting zim dollars, so with all i had on me--close to $500, i couldn't come close to affording dinner at the official rate....luckily a girl noticed me, and we walked outside to some dark alley, where she met a friend with a brick, literally, of newly printed 250 million zim dollar notes...I was certain i got a bad rate, so only changed enough to get the meal and a little extra. At the black market rate, dinner was less than $5 US.

Luckily I connected with my friend who works at UNICEF in Harare, because otherwise I couldn't have afforded the hotel stay--they couldn't accept my cards because the machine ceased functioning due to the astronomical number of zeros required. I stayed with him and his girlfriend most of the time, enduring frequent power and water outages, and was able to work at the house of a gracious employee of the US Embassy.

Visiting the Ministry of Health building downtown was always a strange, slightly depressing experience. You enter the huge, cavernous and dark 20 story edifice and are first greeted by a massive painted seated portrait of Mr. Mugabe himself. Good to know he was watching over ministry of health operations. Upstairs after passing urine-stenched staircases, I searched for my contacts in the malaria department. Mostly what I found were dusty hallways stacked with papers, old books and desks, and locked doors. Little sign of any human activity. A few charts on the walls describing something about a malaria project from five years ago. I finally found a door behind which were some actual people, remarkably those who I was hoping to work with. In a cramped room lined by stacked papers and ancient computers I was greeted with tea and buscuits by some marvelously upbeat, friendly folk chattering with heavy english accents. Throughout my two weeks in Zimbabwe, I found it incredibly difficult to reconnect with my contacts or meet anyone I'd come to meet. State workers are paid a penance, and with inflation at some trillion percent, they stand in bread and bank lines, travel to unnecessary conferences to get paid per diem, and take jobs as cabbies to make ends meet.

I left Zimbabwe, in May, just before Mugabe ramped up his reelection "campaign" (read propaganda and torture). I'd seen videos--produced by the US ambassador's team--of people in rural areas who'd been brutalized by Zanu-PF militia. And I visited a farm on the outskirts of Harare after a band of police thugs had beaten up the owner and thrown his son in jail on some bogus charge. I once found myself out of place on a sketchy late night bus from the Mozambiquean border, an old school bus, packed like a traveling market, careening through the countryside; then stopping at supposed militia control points...where the fellow next to me told me I could be beaten if they entered the bus and saw my passport...luckily it all worked out for me (I even found myself peeling old visas out of my passport at the Moz-Zim border) but Zimbabwe has declined since my visit and is a state in major economic and health crisis, with a worthless currency, crumbling infrastructure, a massive cholera epidemic, and a starving population. It has a population in dire need of international attention. Please check out the Zimbabwe Benefit Foundation for ways to help out.

On a positive note, Zimbabwe has a history as a hotbed of some fabulous music (John Chibadura, Alek Macheso among many others). Here's a classic, and one of my favorites (quality on this sucks, turn the volume down a bit, but you can get the song from itunes-Zuza Refuka Kwangu-John Chibadura):
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cLRfUXPs96k