Love and miss you, darling, Mummy

Hi darling

Yesterday was a bad day. As you know, I didn’t leave my potent English bug behind along with the cheddar cheese I couldn’t squeeze into my ridiculously laden hand-luggage. So feeling really rough, dragged myself to the doctor and she put me on an antibiotic and a course of vitamin B injections to try and boost my flagging system. She also told me that the results from a sugar test, done before I left here, had shown I was prediabetic and I was to go on to a sugar-free diet. Hmmm, I said, that’s not too hard here; just as well you’re not telling me to go on to a sugar diet.

This new medical development, with the high blood pressure and high cholesterol, apparently is just another indication of Zimbabwe’s endemic stress level. Talking of which, I suggested perhaps I should come off the old Prozac. It’s been a long time. Wait, she advised. You’ve been back in the country only a matter of hours. I’m putting patients on to Prozac, not taking them off.

I had chatted to a patient in the waiting room. She came here from England a couple of years ago with her family in search of a “better life” – and found it. “There’s no way I’d go back to the UK,” she said. “I’d much rather scout round for fuel and food here than bring my kids up there. We had no quality of life. I had two jobs, running ragged, and my kids were being brought up by child carers. What kind of family life is that? Here they have open space, sunshine and a mother and father.”

My doctor was very kind and understanding of my pecuniary circumstances. She charged me only Z$1 million (£1.80) for the consultation and first injection. The pharmacist wasn’t so sympathetic. My monthly medication and the antibiotic came to more than Z$13 million. I reeled. In real money that’s just over £20 at yesterday’s black-market rate. But all those zeroes are frightening and it’s amazing how easily they add up to lots of pounds.

I came home with my bag (we don’t use purses here any more; they’re simply too small) a good deal lighter than when I went out (Z$14 million are a lot of notes) and found an electricity cut. The power’s off most days, but apart from not being able to use the computer, I don’t mind it too much during the day. I try to get up around five in the morning, boil the kettle and put some hot water in a Thermos. On the days I don’t wake in time to carry out this ritual, it’s pretty miserable. Usually the power’s off all day, so I’m parched by evening.

But it’s the black nights I hate most. Last night was awful. I came home from walking the dogs on the golf course and heard that dreaded deep-throated burrrr of the surrounding generators, and found the house still in darkness. I don’t use my baby generator. Somehow it seems extravagant to spend a few hard-to-come-by litres of petrol on the couple of lights and television it will power.

Cathy had left me some candles. I searched in vain for matches. I lay in bed in that thick enveloping African blackness, sick and hungry, lonely and despairing, worrying that Moses was a good deal less faithful than I had believed . . . and I decided everyone has a line in life that they can’t cross. And I feared that perhaps I’d reached mine.

I’ve now heard that British Airways is stopping its thrice-weekly direct London-Harare flight. A friend, whose daughter booked and paid in May to come home from England to Zimbabwe this Christmas, has been advised by BA that she will be refunded her money (which the airline has had the use of all these months). But the new fare will be more than twice the amount she receives because the route now takes in a stop-over in Johannesburg.

And so our isolation continues, our troubles worsen.

Sorry I’m so maudlin. I love you, Mummy