At my local Parliamentary Constituency office a deep gully adorns the road outside and a  rusty, barely legible signboard mostly obscured by the branches of an overhanging tree, proclaims that this is the “Parliamentary Constituency Information Centre.” This is where you go to register births and deaths, get national Identity Documents and register to vote. It&rs
Read more ...     Email to this letter to a friend

Dear Family and Friends,

Winter came to Zimbabwe this week with cold, grey skies and freezing nights. A very unusual heavy downpour of winter rain filled with hail stones in my home town left everyone running for cover and wrapping blankets round their shoulders. All week, as temperatures dropped I couldn’t get m
Read more ...     Email to this letter to a friend

Dear Family and Friends,

I am writing this letter with the Constitution of Zimbabwe open in front of me. Outside on the road I can hear a man calling out: “kunama poto” (fixing pots) as he walks around the neighbourhood. A young man, in his late twenties, he has a small blue and grey rucksack on his back and carries a gas welder everywhere he goes. This young
Read more ...     Email to this letter to a friend

Dear Family and Friends,

At 9.30 in the morning an Air Force helicopter flew low overhead, its green and brown camouflage stark against the bright blue winter sky.  We didn’t need the clattering of the helicopter to remind us that this was rally day, the day the President was coming to town.  For a week before the Presidential visit the town
Read more ...     Email to this letter to a friend

Dear Family and Friends,

Happy Africa Day! It’s a beautiful day here in Zimbabwe; the sky is clear and blue, the early morning winter mist has lifted and in the garden sunbirds are sipping nectar from flowering aloes and mousebirds are sunbathing high up on tree branches. On a recent trip out of the country I was reminded how lucky we are to live in Africa: the continent where lif
Read more ...     Email to this letter to a friend