STELLA SITHOLE is a high school teacher with neatly braided hair and a husband
who works in a bank, yet in the twisted world of President Robert Mugabe’s
Zimbabwe she has to turn tricks to feed her children.
Battling to survive the world’s highest inflation, estimated by local bankers
to have reached 15,000%, the salary of Z$2.1m she has just received is six
times what she got last month. But it is not even enough to cover her bus
fares to school and back. In fact, it is equivalent to less than £3.50 a
month.
So for several days of the week, instead of standing in front of her class in
Kwekwe teaching history and geography, Sithole takes the bus 146 miles north
to Harare. There, she sits at the bar in clubs such as Chez Ntemba, Chez
Mambo and the Stars Studio at Rainbow Towers hotel, waiting for a
proposition.
At 32, Sithole is pretty and refined, though there is a far-away sadness in
her eyes and clients complain that there is not enough of her bottom (“What
do you expect on one meal a day?” she asks).
On a pulsating Friday night at the Stars Studio, there is no shortage of
takers. “Ministers,” she whispers, “or Zanu big men.”
While the vast majority of Zimbabweans are struggling, like Sithole, to
survive on less than £1 a week - “We’re not even have-nots,” she says,
“we’re have-nothings” - these paunchy men in striped suits knocking back
shots of malt whisky are finding that things have never been so good.
Not only government ministers and officials from the ruling Zanu-PF party, but
also top police and army officers and High Court judges have been cleverly
woven into Mugabe’s patronage system, benefiting hugely from his despotic
rule.
Many have been allotted property that was violently seized from white farmers.
But their real wealth comes from access to foreign exchange at less than
1,000th of the rate on the streets.
This enables them to buy expensive vehicles such as the Hummers, S-class
Mercedes and Toyota Prados that fill the hotel car park – one of which will
whisk Sithole to a lodge on the edge of town.
When I first meet her through a friend, the primly dressed mother of two is
ashamed to tell me what she does, referring instead to “colleagues that have
become sex workers”. But it is clear she knows too much and in the end she
admits her tawdry double life.
“I studied three years at college to become a teacher and was so proud when I
graduated,” she says, sadly. “Now look at me. I’m very ashamed and always
regret afterwards but otherwise we would starve.”
Her clients pay in “cash and kind”. Pointing at the long black leather boots
she is wearing, she explains: “The most I got was Z$600,000 and this pair of
boots as well as a mobile phone my husband sold.”
She can earn more depending on what she refers to as “the what”. This means
whether she is prepared to have sex with no condom - an enormous risk in a
country where at least one in five adults is HIV-positive.
“These dirty things make me scared because most of these guys are infected but
I’m desperate,” she shrugs.
To show the impossibility of surviving on a teacher’s wage, we take her entire
Z$2.1m salary to a local supermarket. All she manages to buy with the two
large bricks of notes is one bottle of cooking oil, one packet of salt, one
laundry soap, one pack of powdered soup, some milk powder and a pack of
sugar.
In fact, just her bus fares to travel the 15 miles to school are Z$60,000 each
way, totalling Z$2.4m a month if she goes every day. “So I’m already on
minus,” she says. “I’m actually having to borrow money to go to work.”
On top of that, her bills last month were Z$315,000 for electricity, Z$130,000
for water and Z$800,000 for rent, not to mention food and bus fares for her
11-year-old daughter and nursery fees for her five-year-old son. Her husband
earns just Z$1.4m. “We’re the poorest millionaires on earth,” she laughs.
For two years she supplemented her salary by working in a field or cleaning
after school. She would use the money to go into Harare and buy cheap
clothing. She would exchange this in rural areas for ground nuts and peanuts
that she could then sell in town.
Colleagues cross the border to Botswana or South Africa, where they can buy
goods for a quarter of the price, and come back and sell them. But Sithole
has never amassed enough money to buy the foreign exchange she would need to
do this.
This year, as inflation spiralled, she has found herself borrowing more than
her salary each month. “I don’t have any family abroad to send me money and
we weren’t even having one meal a day,” she says.
One of her colleagues suggested accompanying her to Harare for the night. She
earned more in a few hours than for a month’s teaching. When I ask if many
of the other teachers at her school are doing the same, she laughs.
“Three-quarters,” she replies.
Others have simply left the country, part of a massive exodus of 4m people. At
the start of term in May more than 5,000 teachers in Zimbabwe did not return
to their posts, among them Sithole’s headmaster.
The children they have left behind are just told to sit and read. “Zimbabweans
sacrifice bread for books to get their children to school, then there’s no
teaching,” said James Elder of the United Nations Children’s Fund (Unicef)
in Harare.
He pointed out that the pass rate had dropped sharply - just 37% passed grade
7, which means almost two-thirds are failing.
“It hurts me that we teachers are abandoning the children to service these
beasts with their fine cars,” says Sithole. “But we don’t have an option.”
Her clients’ children attend private schools or study in the UK, America or
Australia. They can easily afford this because of the beneficial exchange
rate available to those close to power.
Although the Reserve Bank knocked three zeroes off the currency last November,
the Zimbabwe dollar has continued to lose value at an astonishing rate. At
the start of the year it was 3,000 to the US dollar. Last month it fell from
100,000 to 300,000 in a week on the streets where most people exchange. Yet
the official rate is 250.
“Imagine the money you can make,” a merchant bank director explained. “Say you
buy US$100 at the official rate – that costs you Z$25,000. Then you sell
that US$100 on the streets and get Z$30m. With that Z$30m, at the official
rate you can buy more than US$100,000 – all for your initial outlay of about
eight cents.
“And that’s not to mention fuel vouchers,” he added. A litre of fuel for the
privileged costs just Z$400 while everyone else must pay Z$185,000. “If
you’re one of Mugabe’s cronies, you can live in fantastic wealth.”
That wealth is visible not only from the number of new luxury cars on the
streets of the capital but from a spin round Borrowdale Brooke, a private
housing estate with its own golf course in northern Harare.
Many government ministers have elaborate mansions. On the hill is a
three-storey glass monstrosity with its own lift, owned by the army chief,
and beyond a heavily guarded entrance is the shining blue pagoda-style roof
of Mugabe’s multi-million-pound new home.
The local Spar sells Mozambican prawns, lobster and Laphroaig malt whisky at
Z$9m a bottle but if residents prefer to eat out, they can head down the
road to Amanzi, where dinner for five costs more than Z$26m.
“At the same time most people are barely surviving, those with access to power
are literally bleeding the country and becoming richer daily,” said Roy
Ben-nett, a leading member of the opposition Movement for Democratic Change
(MDC) who had to flee to South Africa after 10 months in jail.
“It’s not just Mugabe. There’s an elite of around 5,000 scoring from the
situation and there are enough of them in high places to maintain the status
quo.
“They realise their only way to survive is to keep Mugabe there, because once
he goes it’s a bun-fight between them.”
It is not only those holding the reins of power who are benefiting. Zimbabwe’s
stock market is booming. At a cafe in Harare I met Robert, a flashily
dressed 26-year-old who was showing off a Ford Triton for which he had just
paid Z$14 billion. He and his friend had five mobile phones on the table
that kept ringing.
“More deals to make,” he explained, describing himself as a commodity broker,
which in today’s Zimbabwe seems to mean black market profiteer. “It’s chaos
but we’ve never had it so good,” he said as he drove off in his new car.
“We have this ridiculous dichotomy where this is the cheapest country in the
world if you’re earning US dollars and the most expensive in the world if
you’re earning Zim dollars,” said an importer of luxury perfumes and
cosmetics. “You can pretty much afford anything you want if you have access
to foreign exchange.”
But he added that after a couple of boom years, his sales were now falling.
“The numbers are becoming less and less and noticeably so,” he said.
With inflation so high that the Reserve Bank needs to double the amount of
money in circulation every month, it is struggling to print enough of the
country’s Monopoly-style notes and recently had to bribe printers to work
overtime with a Z$5m bonus.
It was the Reserve Bank that pushed up the exchange rate so precipitously last
month, buying up foreign exchange on the black market to pay Eskom in South
Africa for electricity and to repay money owed by Air Zimbabwe so it could
keep flying. It also paid for US$2m worth of surveillance equipment,
following the introduction of a law that permits the monitoring of phone
calls and e-mails.
The biggest payment, however, was US$39m owed to the US Export-Import Bank to
avoid legal action from the US Treasury. Gideon Gono, the governor of the
Reserve Bank, wrote a furious letter to the US attorney-general, complaining
that the repayment had forced the government to “divert funds which were
meant for importation of . . . medical drugs for our hospitals, antidrought
food imports, fuel, electricity, seeds as well as agricultural equipment”.
He added: “The people of Zimbabwe have paid an invaluable sacrificial welfare
price to meet your abrupt harsh turn of spirit.”
Short of foreign exchange and having run out of farms to hand out to
supporters - all but 200 of the 4,500 white farms have been confiscated -
the government last week announced legislation to seize 51% of foreign
companies.
Although the government has stopped issuing inflation figures since it hit
3,700% in March, prices are doubling weekly. A loaf of bread that cost
Z$8,000 in May is now Z$50,000.
In supermarkets such as the Bellevue Spar in Bulawayo, staff struggle to keep
up with the increases. Every aisle has someone busy with a pricing gun and
some items have six or seven price labels, one on top of another. The baked
beans on sale for Z$66,000 five days ago have just been repriced at
Z$125,000. Hardly anyone in the shop seems to be buying anything. People
stare at prices and window shop as if they were ata luxury department store.
“We’re going round from place to place to see if any shop has items it hasn’t
yet marked up,” says Charles, a young man with dreadlocks who is foreman of
a local factory.
He has just discovered hair gel for Z$30,000 that is going for Z$130,000
elsewhere, so he buys up six to sell on the street.
Others, such as a white-haired pensioner, walk out with nothing. His monthly
pension is not even enough to buy a toilet roll, he tells me.
The desperate situation has led to some appalling acts. In the state-owned
Herald newspaper last week was the story of a Rushinga man who murdered his
10-year-old son with an axe for eating four mice that were meant for the
family dinner.
Power cuts are so common that at night the centre of Harare is as dark as
remote countryside. The government recently announced 20-hour power cuts,
but some areas of the capital often go without for three days at a time.
People sell bundles of firewood in the city centre. Many areas of Bulawayo
and some parts of Harare have no water.
The state-owned media blame it all on a plot by British and American
governments. Last week the Chronicle wrote: “We can reveal that British and
US governments, after failing to incite a public revolt against the
government of Zimbabwe, are now working overtime to destroy the economy,
mutilate the Zimbabwe dollar, foment civil unrest . . .”
Few are taken in. For the first time in years of going to Zimbabwe, I found
people speaking out openly, suggesting that anger is overtaking fear in a
police state where one person in three is now thought to be an informer.
“The rule of economics is the one law Mugabe cannot break,” said Christopher
Dell, the US ambassador, who predicts that inflation will reach 1.5m% by the
end of the year. “Historically, no regime has ever survived six or
seven-digit inflation.”
Dell’s criticism of the regime has outraged Mugabe and in his office is a
framed front page of the Herald with the headline, “Dell can go to hell”.
“They’re printing money at madcap rates to pay for fuel, maize and electricity
imports,” he said. “It’s all self-inflicted.
“It’s like when you pull out the plug on a bathtub. First the water goes
slowly but then as it gets near the plughole, it starts swirling faster and
faster. I think we’re in the final swirl.”
Dell admits it could get even worse after Mugabe. “I think we could see a
period of instability with maybe three or four presidents in a row,” he
said. “The most dangerous thing will be if the military gets involved.” At
the moment the least threat to Mugabe seems to come from the opposition. The
MDC has been crippled, first by internal splits, then by the regime’s silent
campaign of torture and intimidation.
“Of course we’ve gone quiet - we’ve been battling to stay alive,” said Bennett
in exile in South Africa.
“In the last month I’ve had an influx of more than 30 members of the senior
leadership running away from the police and seeking asylum.”
Following the beatings of the party’s president, Morgan Tsvangirai, and other
senior members, which drew international condemnation in March, Mugabe’s
thugs set about destroying the MDC’s entire network.
“They raided our headquarters and seized all our computers and accessed
documents so they could see who’s who in all our structures,” Bennett said.
“Then they systematically went about arresting all our members so it’s
impossible for us to organise.”
Although many have criticised Tsvangirai’s lack of leadership, the opposition
is not helped by the make-do culture of most Zimbabweans. “No one is ever
going to rise up,” said a restaurant owner in Harare. “If there’s no power,
we light a candle. If there are no candles, we light a fire.”
Mugabe’s exhausted population has no time or energy for protests. Every
morning a flood of people can be seen walking into Harare and Bulawayo - the
so-called “human train” of people walking for up to four hours to get to
work because they cannot afford the fare.
Many are surviving on remittances sent from the estimated 4m Zimbabweans who
have left the country - almost a third of the population. Just £10 a month
sent back would triple the salary of a teacher such as Sithole.
Shops and factories across the country have been closing, unable to afford
imported raw materials. Bakeries in the southern town of Masvingo on Friday
suspended the production of bread following a government order to reduce
prices by 50%.
“We no longer have an industry to talk about,” said Callisto Jokonya,
the head of the Confederation of Zimbabwe Industries. “We have
deindustrialised ourselves.”
At one clothing factory in Harare, the owner said he had lost 10% of his
workforce in the past two weeks. “Frankly I don’t know why workers still
come,” he shrugged. “It can only be hope.”
Hope is all they have in many rural areas such as Matabeleland in the south of
the country. A severe drought has resulted in a 95% crop failure in the
south and in villages around Plumtree, one family after another showed their
recent maize harvest was enough for only two or three weeks. Nationwide, the
country’s harvest of maize, its staple crop, is thought to have been between
500,000-800,000 tons, compared to annual needs of 1.4m tons.
Yet this works in Mugabe’s favour because he will again be able to use food as
a political tool in the run-up to elections next March.
If the situation seems grave in rural areas, things are even worse in parts of
Bulawayo.
A whole community of people whose homes were demolished by the government two
years ago now live on the Richmond rubbish dump, surviving by foraging for
glass bottles and plastic.
Remedio Moyo, 26, shows the black plastic shelter he lives under with his wife
and children aged three and five. Small black flies cover everything.
“This is not a proper life,” he said. “I went to school and all I wanted from
life was a job anda small house, not to be a big man. There is only one
person to blame for this situation and I would like that man to die any
minute.”
Pius Ncube, the outspoken Catholic Archbishop of Bulawayo, said things were
now so desperate that he was calling on the West to invade and oust Mugabe’s
regime.
“Anyone who is ready to starve his people to death for the sake of power is a
murderer,” Ncube said. “What more does he have to do?”
Names have been changed to protect identities.
Patrick, you just dont have a clue do you. Again its no suprise. Tribal, what do you know about tribal myths, this was an invention by imperialist. The identity of our people is not through so called tribal lines. You see Mutupo is what we Africans recognise. We do not understand why you dont ask, and just assume. I do not believe Mugabe is to blame, its up to Zimbabweans to be responsible for shapping the new economic power house known as the African economic system.The future is about those who have created possibilities for a new Zimbabwe. We will reap the rewards for what Mugabe, create your own identity, educate all Zimbabweans in the mother tongue, English and Chinese will become the languages of trade. Its hard to understand Zimbabwe's destiny when you look with Colon heart and mind. And some African we envy what the west has to offer in governance and modenity. When infact we have been teaching Europe how to respect humanity and be human. To understand Zimbabwe's journey understand you must be willing to see an end to domination of African cultural, economic and psychic by Europe. Fair play you do not know us at all. Zanu is not individuals its the people.
Cuthbert , Belfast, N.Ireland
This is an old article and perhaps no one will see this, but it is important. Mugabe is the most important type of individual for the progress of African nations. He stands hard against adversity and true ignorance and stays firm for what he knows is right. The UK has brough about a propoganda mission on him that is relentless. This mess about a teacher prostituting (to pay for her needs due to inflation), you should see the next story about him cutting prices to lower inflation, and it goes on. Once I saw a British documentary about how he was freezing the people, Even as they showed the pictures of people covered up (I knew the covering was from dust storms and not cold), I had to laugh. How could you freeze in Southern Africa. Once on the same British documentary, they showed a boy supposedly starving with the big belly. Meanwhile his legs were thick stumps. That boy wasn't starving. He was full. My eyes are wided open.
Carolyn, new york, new york
Have just read Robert York's remarks. I can't help thinking it is this kind of ignorance that has lead the Brittish to get unnecessarily involved in all sorts of foreign ventures, to the detriment of the locals. Had the Brittish not insisted of a re- election in 1980, the 1979 majority elected leader - Bishop Able Muzarwa would have held office over a balanced - represented government. Heavens only knows what that out come would have been. Robert, you are simply misinformed.
M Thomson, Peterborough,
Sad though it is to read of such a mess, it does expose a commonly held myth. There are far too many people who hold the belief that "Put me in charge. I have all the answers. I will change things for the better" without having either the talents, skills or knowledge. Management is not about bullying, blustering, nepotism, obfuscation and guesswork. At the very least, Mugabe has demonstrated woeful ignorance and incompetence in the business of good government from the very start of his rule. Even when you subtract his worst faults of corruption, cronyism, brutality and militarisation of public authority, his incompetence was always going to result in the failure of the economy. In addition, hardly any of Africa's sovereign states has ever truly overcome the underlying problem of tribalism which manifests at all levels in society. Sovereign borders drawn up by colonial powers failed to recognise the traditional tribal boundaries of the indiginous people. They reap what we have sown!
Patrick J. Gillen, Suffolk, UK
West already did whole lot of damage. UK & US is absolutely responsible for this mess, with their perpetual politics of undoing wrong with another wrong. The aid & charities are also the main support for leeches like Mugabe. How come Ian Smith was able to run the most prosperous country in Africa being officially economically blockaded?
People who are still blaming Smith for what's going on in Zim now are the ones who made "liberal" a dirty word.
Mandrill, Raleigh, NC,
Ian Smith was apart of the problem that Zim faces today. Had he allowed majority rule then it is likely that the people would have elected a moderate government in which reasonable men like Josh Nkomo would have played a majorrole. Mugabe is awful and his government oppresses one of the most gentle and law abiding people in Africe, but Smith was a tawdry criminal who led an illegal, sordid and ultimately ruinous regime.
robert, york, england
Although the given report is bias, it does not alter the fact that Zimbabewe is abused unfairly by Mugabe and those working with him. World history shows outside influence would not be helpfull, action must be taken from within, howevere those who do come next due to this action must not forget why they were there in the first place.
Alexander, London, England, UK
The men work for the Mugabe government, the sad fact of life is that even a dirt poor country those with access to power can rake in a good amount of cash. In fact it's easier then in a country with a good solid middle class because you don't have share has much of the wealth. When I was Iraq I saw people living in mud huts and down the road were men in 3 story houses with satellite dishes, running water and all the comforts of home.
Garvin, Mesa, AZ
Where do all the men get the money to pay for sex? Reporting is one sided.
Dean, San Francisco, CA, USA
I will be reluctant to believe this until I read the report from a more neutral medium. Mugabe may be a rogue, but his sins and the situation in Zimbabwe are probably being exaggerated by the British press in order to get back at him for redressing the SEVERAL YEARS of injustices over lands in Zimbabwe that had been forcefully held by the minority white "lords" to the grave disadvantage of the real owners of the land owners.
Ugochukwu , Lagos, Nigeria
it is sad for our friends we are praying for the them
samuel lupili, Lusaka, zambia
I might have guessed whenever this sort of thing is reported you can guarantee that there will be someone like Bob NY who blames everyone except the one person who has caused this. Mugabe took over a prosperous country and has been in power for almost 30 years and during that time has reduced his country to a basket case. His cronies have been rewarded with once prosperous farms which are now returning to the veldt because they don’t know how to manage them. When Bob NY talks about misdirected wealth perhaps he should take a closer look at Mugabe who appears to have become very rich on his salary.
Alan Lewis, Bangkok, Thailand
Zim isnt falling apart, it has fallen apart
victor blaer, reykjavik , iceland
Totally shocking, totally unforgivable that the west does nothing! Zim could feed Africa given real help, it is ironic that the USA/UK spend $bil's in Iraq which is awash with oil, and yet nothing in Zim, no wonder people attack the west, we have shown them it is the best way to get our $$ attention.
Steve , Baghdad,
I recall a great, popular swell of support in Zimbabwe for the seizure of white-owned properties and farms, and a great deal of lambasting of the "colonial oppression" of Western powers. Now they want Britain or the U.S. to invade. Go figure.
Ash, Pittsburgh, PA
It is a sad story for these women,but at least they have a way out, by prostitution.What are the men teachers supposed to do ??They have no choice but to turn to crime,as there are not enough customers for their sexual services.
Why doesn't anyone pity the male teachers???
adam, pretoria, south africa
Yes 2 percent of the world inhabitants owns 95 percent of the wealths. while some lounge in luxury the rest pay their rent toiling on their knees. That was and is the price to keep your hypocrite westerner ass standard of living up. Enjoy while it last. Saudi Arabia as peaked.
bob, NY, NY
This is so painful, My sister studied in Zimbabwe, Zims edu, is outstanding! My niece is there I am so proud her, we will have a Doctor in the family! but Zim is falling apart! Help!
Lolita, Orlando, U.S
This is outrageous. West should do something.
Ayer, Mumbai, India
Ian Douglas Smith was right. Britain and the US should have supported his government, or just left him alone.
Richard, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
What a dreadful situation for all the people of Zimbabwe. I would love to help Stella Sithole by donating money monthly. Would you let me know if this is possible and how I would go about it.
Nora Spelman, Co Dublin , Ireland