Beauty and shame walk side by side in Zimbabwe

Dear Family and Friends,

When the bright white lightning flashed across my living room, crackling and sizzling, it wasn’t a good time to be holding a cup of tea which ended up all over me, along with a terrified dog trying to get on my lap, panting and quivering in fear. It’s one of those kind of rainy seasons in Zimbabwe this year when everything is just big. Pounding, drenching rain, big floods, fierce lightning, crashing thunder and sky filled with low hanging dark purple clouds. These are storms such as we haven’t seen for a long time, storms where you only travel if you have to, you never ever cross flooded bridges or rivers, you stay away from red muddy roads and you always wear rubber soled shoes.

The mushrooms are popping up all over the place, some as big as dinner plates and others just tiny little beads in the leaf litter or under the trees. They are all colours you can imagine from creamy white to pink, purple, orange, scarlet and neon green. In the mornings the Hammerkop flies in making a racket as it scoops up flying ants, beetles and frogs from ponds and pools. Every bit of standing water is alive with mosquito larvae. Standing upright in the water they wriggle downwards at the slightest disturbance. No matter how precious the water you must tip it out before the larvae turn into adults screeching in your ears at night, making you itch like crazy and and bringing malaria too. Out in the game park a baby giraffe is a few months old and now walking out in the open with the adults, a beautiful sight for eyes pained from watching recent events in Harare.

Reporters Without Borders have just ranked Zimbabwe a shameful 116th out of 180 countries surveyed on the Global Press Freedom Index. They said that: “Extremely harsh laws are still in effect and when new laws have been adopted their provisions are just as draconian as those they replaced.”? Reporters Without Borders said that the 2023 Patriot Act which criminalized any attack on sovereignty and national interest, had threatened the work of journalists.

At the same time as the Reporters Without Borders account was released, a Zimbabwean journalist Blessed Mhlanga was detained in police custody after broadcasting an interview with War Veteran Mr Geza who is challenging Mr Mnangagwa’s presidency. Mr Mhlanga was arrested on two counts of “transmission of data messages, inciting violence or damage to property.” Bail was denied by a Harare Magistrate who said “the release of the accused will put the nation in unrest and undermine peace and security.” (Commission to Protect Journalists)

International Television journalist, Hopewell Chin’ono, wrote: “Where in the world does a journalist get arrested for what someone else said? Blessed is not HSTV which broadcast the so-called interview, neither is he AMH, the parent company for HSTV.“ ??AMH Publisher, Trevor Ncube,? said “Blessed is not AMH. He’s just a journalist practicing his profession which is constitutionally protected.” “I am the one who should be brought before the courts, not the journalists who transmit the message.” Remanded in custody until the 14th March, Mr Mhlanga wrote a letter from prison this week which said in part: “They say when you are arrested, you are alone. That’s not true. I was never alone, your voices were with me. I stood proud in my dark hours. My wife, my family were with me….To those behind my persecution, including prosecution, aiding and abetting injustice, I wish to say, the sun will set. It won’t last forever.”

In Zimbabwe beauty and shame have walked side by side for so long that the abnormality of it has become almost accepted. Please keep Blessed Mhlanga in your thoughts.

There is no charge for this Letter From Zimbabwe but if you would like to donate please visit my website.

Until next time, thanks for reading this Letter From Zimbabwe now in its 25th year, and my books about life in Zimbabwe, a country in waiting. ?

Ndini shamwari yenyu (I am your friend)

Love Cathy 6th March? 2025. Copyright ? Cathy Buckle? https://cathybuckle.co.zw/

All my books are available from my website https://cathybuckle.co.zw/? or? www.lulu.com/spotlight/cathybuckle2018. Please visit my website for further details, to link into my social media sites, to contact me or to see pictures that accompany these Letters. ?