Land of Miracles

Let there be light! (or not).

To my two year old son (aka The Boy) this is the natural thing when one flicks the light switch on. And he loves to play with electricity, switching things on and off and on and off until he gets “the look” from me then he shies away laughing. Caught out, young man! (Perhaps he will grow up to operate a power station).

Here is a boy who enjoys being naughty like any normal child exploring the world and experimenting with the apparatus of this wonderous laboratory naturelle. A tap is for opening and marveling as the water pours out, and the most fun of all can be had the toilet - the flushing sound, waterfall of liquid gushing down into the bowl and the gushing of a refilling cistern. Hmmm, all the things you can do with that, his little mind is simply blown away…..

So The Boy is bewildered when he flicks the switches on and the light does not come on; the taps are dry and all the toilet does is to gurgle like an old emphysematous man gasping for air, lungs rasping. We are in Harare, and in the late seventies in our village in faraway Nyanga we used to talk about the capital city with great longing as “kumagetsi” – the place of bright lights and sophistication country bumpkins could only imagine.

To-day in Zimbabwe, when the lights come on and stay long enough to finish cooking, or when water flows out of the taps, it is a small miracle worthy if thanksgiving. And this is how Zimbabweans live their lives, from one little miracle to the next. Lights, food on the table, rains, the commute to work and back, all of these appear to be miracles, at least to those of us visiting from far where we take all of these mundane things as given and guaranteed. But the greatest miracle of them is quite possibly how the country has not disintegrated into open armed conflict or anarchy. Some people think that this is a curse rather than a miracle, for they argue the matter would long have been solved one way or the other had then been open conflict! Most people who say this do this in their air-conditioned homes or bars in Cape Town, London, New York far removed from the reality of war.

Zimbabweans have become more religious as a result of their travails. An irony really; while other people would question the existence of a God who looks on their suffering without interest, Zimbabweans seem to see their troubles as a consequence of their misdemeanours (whatever our collective sins might be).

So to-day the country has a delectable menu of churches available – the traditional protestant and catholic churches thrive. The Anglican Church once one of the most progressive religious movements in the country, however, is in the middle of a battle royale in which the Mugabe government is directly involved; renegade bishops are causing problems in Harare and Mashonaland provinces regarding the small matter of sexual orientation. Question – why are we so afraid of gay people? Another question – how many gay people do you know? Enough to disrupt a whole church of 3 million people just trying to worship their God? It is trite, really, that an unquantifiable minority (and largely irrelevant to the Zimbabwean Church) has been used as proxy to divide and conquer.

 The “African” churches – particularly the Mapostori church (no English translation for this word would do it justice despite it’s origins being from Apostolic) – in all it’s gazillion branches and sub-branches is the most prolific and most prominent in it’s visible dominance. Darted across almost every open urban space you will see devotees in their white or red or green garments (gemenzi) – a gathering of 10 people here, there a group of fifteen or twenty maybe more, over there a woman prophetess praying for a young child, another man raising his staff to the heavens like the picture of prophets of old in the Illustrated Children’s Bible. And it’s not just on Sundays when these scenes play themselves out (like in the old days) but now it seems you see them everyday. It is testament (no pun intended) to the lack of economic activity that a quarter to half of the townships are out praying during working hours. With all the talk of black Jews having taken residence in pre-historic Zimbabwe perhaps the Mapostori are an even closer branch to the writers of the Torah.

Then there is the new phenomenon of the pentacostal charismatic churches. Previously they were only a handful either homegrown or American, now they are coming in from Nigeria. No-one does pentacostal and charismatic quite like the Nigerians. With names like Holy Mountain Fire Church, Redeemed Holy Church of God, Holy Spirit Revival Church etc they have colonized buildings in downtown Harare preaching deliverance from the devil and ancestral strongholds and wealth to the poor. The bigger and more prosperous ones dominate the wiztech free-to-air satellite television offering with services beamed from Lagos or Johannesburg. And in Zimbabwe they find fertile ground to plant their churches.

So one can be cynical. But to be sure Zimbabwe is doing a Lazarus – it is a country that is being slowly raised from the dead. The problem is that the sisters (in the bible they were Mary and Martha, in our case they are Mugabe and Tsvangirai) are bickering while Lazarus is thirsty and asking for sip of life-giving water. If they don’t stop soon, this Lazarus might just die again… 

Christmas in Zimbabwe: to Gweru

First published in The Zimbabwean

We arrived in Gweru just after lunch, burning 50 liters of fuel in the process with a misfiring luxury car. It is a Sunday and we literally snake our way along the gulleys of the township road (these are not just pot-holes). The mood is a little bleak and it doesn’t feel like Christmas.

The kids are excited to see their cousins and play in the streets, my wife is excited to see Maiguru and exchange tidbits of family escapades and village gossip. I am despondent; worried about the car and the other leg of the journey to the East and what it is all costing. Further to that I keep in the shadows lying in bed because there is no man’s company here. About 3 months ago babamukuru (my brother – in – law) finally threw in the towel and escaped. He now teaches in far away Kuwait and has indicated that he will not be able to make it home for Christmas.

Kuwait, Dubai, China, Cayman islands, Indonesia, Bermuda, all these exotic and far-away climes, is there no place that Zimbabweans are not exiled? In the face of an unyielding regime Zimbabweans have opted to put their tails between their legs and choose life rather than confrontation. And this apparent cowardice has served us well on the individual level but it has also wreaked havoc with marriage and family life. In some cases the very fabric that makes us who we are, the cultures and sub-cultures that make us Zimbabweans, haven been lost.

I am still grumpy when I take a commuter taxi into town – I cannot afford to get the fuel -guzzling car to town and back – to check out e-mails and try to connect with the outside world. Normally when I need cheering the virtual world sometimes offers solace, but after 30 minutes of catching up with the saner outside world (I deliberately avoid opening work e-mails), I am still walking around feeling the whole Zimbabwe on my shoulder.

Gweru – this used to be a vibrant little town, the “warm heart of Zimbabwe”, it’s residents used to call it, and I fell in love once here. But that was 15 years ago and, like the rest of the country, it remains firmly in the 1970s. There are no new buildings here nor any sense of economic activity apart from the Sunday fleamarkets selling sub-standard Chinese goods. The central feature of the main street is the tower constructed to the memory of those who served the crown in defending the English world from the Germans. Next to it is the Midlands Hotel, an early 1900’s building. Walk in there and you will be greeted by uncensored photographs of the struggle for Zimbabwe. This colonial building is now in the Kombayi family estate, and the late politician has chronicled his personal story and that of Zimbabwe on the photographs hanging on the walls spanning from 1976 to the 1990s. Pictures of Zanu-PF leaders arriving in Mozambique, Tongogara’s disfigured body and the gory details of a mortician’s job, independence with Kombayi becoming the first black mayor of the Gwelo, Kombayi’s botched assassination attempt…All these pictures are accompanied by detailed notes and it makes fascinating reading.

Now Gweru operates more like a remote rural village than a modern city. The roads are pot-holed everywhere and the few traffic lights don’t work. In the townships there is no water and people trek miles with buckets on their heads to well that were provided by donor finance. In some cases, my sister-in-law tells me that she wakes up in the dead of night to wait for water to fill up the various buckets; and in the bathroom, the scummy water used for bathing and laundry is not thrown away but rather kept aside for ablutions. The cholera will be back here soon, if it ever went away and it will probably be as vicious as it was in 2008.

All these thoughts feel my mind as I walk into the sunlight with streets filled with people. I decide to go into OK bazaars to buy bread and then I am confronted by scene from the Christmases of old. Back in the early 1980’s my parents would take us to Mutare for our Christmas shopping and there we experienced our Mall fever for the year – people scurrying up and down with trolleys filled with groceries for the festivities, the air was filled with corny piped Christmas carols and decorations hung from all shop fronts with season’s greetings. We would do our shopping, get measured for new clothes and then sit down at the Dairy Den to have pork pies and ice cream before setting off back to Nyanga. And those were the most wonderful Christmas memories being partly recreated in Gweru.

The shop is abuzz with activity, people pushing trolleys, holding baskets and picking up items – sweets, Mazoe juice, rice, drinks, beer – and earnestly preparing for the Christmas festival. There are long queues of half-laden trolleys (the US dollar would not allow for the filling of several trolley loads for these people) and excited chattering – a distinct change from last year (2008) and previous years – when people were said to have had Christmas lunch of pop-corn (maputi).

Who can look on this site and fail to be uplifted? Uplifted in spirit because despite the intransigence of the regime people are going ahead and living their lives; grateful for small mercies, and, doggone it, they are going to celebrate “their Christmas” and having survived another year and no-one is going to stop them!.

There and then my grumpiness dissipated and I could not help but smile ruefully at such a people. God bless Zimbabweans, God damn its leaders!

Christmas in Zimbabwe 2009

15/12/ 2009

Africa is not for sissies, so the popular South African saying goes. Or maybe Africa north of the Limpopo river is for the hardy camper-types. I have probably been “sissied up” by staying too long in South Africa with the trappings of the middle class which bely a rural African upbringing.

Here we are in Harare; and unlike my recent visits in 2009 – 6 months and 2 months ago respectively – I have in tow the wife and two children, daughter, aged 6 years and who says what she thinks; and the boy, 20 months, and at the age where he does what he thinks and is irrepressibly energetic.

We land on an overcast Harare afternoon, it’s 10 days to Christmas, and take the shuttle to what used to be home. Now we have access only to the tiny and shanty outhouse because there are paying tenants in our former family home. The bags and most of our clothes are soaking wet thanks to BA’s sub-standard handling services at Johannesburg International Airport, and when we open the door to the little cottage Zimbabwe welcomes us. No electricity, no water flowing from the taps or for flushing the toilets. The children are hungry and unhappy; the clothes are wet and there is misery all around. An extreme camper’s paradise but not quite what we had bargained for.

I spend the next two hours driving around with a kind uncle searching for paraffin which we eventually snag at USD1 a litre in the working class township of Epworth. I buy three litres of the precious stuff, a kilogram of chicken (which is much cheaper than beef and of superior quality) and triumphantly hurry home like a hunter who has snared the prized beast. I arrive to hear that power has just come back.

I am tired and cold, and disenchanted. And when later on I curl in bed, I ask myself if this is a country I would come back to soon to settle.

16/12/09

Day 2

Day 2 at the passport office. I have with me my daughter,6, whose passport needs to be renewed. Yesterday afternoon didn’t go well. I met my contact (everyone who goes to apply for a passport in Zimbabwe needs a contact on the inside, even if that contact is the security guard at the gate). Or so we are made to believe. The contacts I had last time I was here three months ago were not very useful.

This time around my contact seems to be more in the action. Yesterday she had tried to get my copies authenticated by the guy in room 6, but he was not interested – he said it was too late in the day and that I should return the morrow.

So I am here to-day with Paida, my loquacious daughter, all carbo-loaded on bread and with mealies for packed lunch, just in case it turns out to be a daylong expedition. As we turn the corner into the parking street and Paida sees the large crowd milling outside the building she asks her first question:

“Daddy, are they refugees?”

She knows all about refugees because we went with her to the holding camp of Zimbabweans who were attacked in Cape Town in May 2008. So she knows about refugees and their plight, and she still prays for them.

But no, sweetie, these are not refugees, these people are us!

But maybe on second thought maybe we are all refugees, and this paper or small green passport book is the last step to full flight and asylum in seemingly saner places.

We park and head for the crowd and through to the office of our contact. She tells us to go to room 6 and trying to squeeze through the wall of human beings with a little hand to hold and guide becomes a perilous thing altogether. In crammed corridors, poorly lit, flesh presses against sweaty flesh waiting to push into this office or that office. The walls are dirty from all the touching, elbowing and shoving of a million bodies a year. The offices have rows and rows of dirty manila files and folders piled on brown clattered shelves, the ceilings are peeling and the crevices of the wooden panel walls are filling with dust and dirt. This is a makeshift warren of offices, a temporary wooden structure which has assumed a state of permanence it was not intended for. Welcome to the Passport Offices of the Ministry of Home Affairs, the same man who is director of this chaos is also in charge of the shambolic election process.

 Once at the gate, a woman has delegated herself the role of allowing access and she does not yield. This is the thing with these people, civil servants – instead of being at their desks pushing papers, half of their time is spent berating the crowd and telling us (“vabereki”, “parents” as they call us) to form orderly queues to sit down where they are benches or to start in tidy lines.

Eventually pushing through we get to room 6, get the signature and then we are sent to room 3, then we are told to go and pay the fees which entails jumping the queue (we are paying for the 3 – day passport so we get preference), and more strong words to “sit there and move along fast, vabereki”. Here the cashiers do not accept small notes, and for some inexplicable reason they have to write down the serial number of every note they receive. So the queue snakes along like a snail. Once we have obtained the receipt, they send us to room 5, then it’s back to the moody guy in room 6. In each of the various rooms that we visit there are queues to be navigated and bodies to be shoved and elbowed, a civil servant who lazily looks at the forms and scribbles some code or other and pushes it back with instructions to the next room – it’s surreal, if not funny and sad, a kind of Amazing Race in miniature where every room and signature is a much sought after pitstop and the ultimate prize is a passport, the privilege of the privileged.

 It is certainly not a right in Zimbabwe to possess a passport.

Of herbalists and scientists

The speech was first presented at the Toxicological Society of Southern Africa (TOXSA) Conference

It is an honour and a privilege to have been invited to TOXSA to give this talk. My expertise lies in pharmacognosy and analytical chemistry – having spent the past 10 years doing work on the pharmacology and chemistry of medicinal plants. As for traditional medicines, not only have I been involved with them from a scientific aspect, but I am a product of that culture and I can remember using herbal medicines from as far back as I can remember remembering – in other words from my earliest memories.
Traditional medicine has a long history of use world-wide and has not only survived various assaults by Christendom, colonial authorities westernization and urbanization, but to-day thrives and is widely used in all its many and varied forms. The WHO estimates that 70 – 80% of the world population (mostly in the developing world) uses traditional medicines exclusively to meet their health needs.
Traditional medicine remains popular for various reasons – it is a cultural heritage which is closely tied with many ritualistic and religious aspects of life from birth to death and everything between.
- It is more easily accessible for many poor people of the world.
- Traditional medical practitioners are respected members of their communities and provide holistic solutions to the health-care needs of their people unlike over-worked and poorly-resourced western-trained health personnel who tend to medicalize everything. This explains why herbalism which is the cornerstone of traditional medicine now appeals more and more to citizens of Europe and North America. It offers individuals the opportunity to self-medicate and be in control of their own health.
- There is also a general disillusionment and frustration with the failure of allopathic medicines to offer a curative solution to many of the ills of modern society e.g. depression, cancer, and HIV / AIDS. Most modern medicines only offer symptomatic relief (rather than cure) and their use has many side effects.

In the public’s mind traditional is safe because of its length / history of use. In the US surveys have suggested an increase of people reporting use of botanicals or non-vitamin/ non-mineral supplements from 2.5% in 1990 to 12.7% in 1997. 38% of cancer patients and between 14 – 29% of children have used herbal / botanical medicines.
South Africa as is readily acknowledged, is endowed with a rich plant biodiversity – 24,000 indigenous species – strong. 70 -80% of our population use traditional medicine. This correlates to figures from elsewhere in the developing world. In SA, more than 200 000 traditional healers are believed to be practising. Unlike other countries in the SADC region, notably Zimbabwe where one may only practise upon registration with a professional body (akin to the health professions council) in SA anyone can prescribe and dispense traditional medication even when they have no training or claim to the art and science. This may be part of the problem.
But then again, what is a traditional healer. African traditional medicine is generally practiced at three main levels (specializations, if you like), or combinations thereof.

• Diviners / Spiritualists – magico-spiritual, invoke spirits of the ancestors and uses plants, animal parts, rocks or water
• Traditional Birth Attendants (Gynaecologists and Obstetricians, if you like), they are knowledgeable in ante-natal issues and mother and child care
• Herbalist s– use knowledge passed on from generation to generation based on empirical observations. By far the most useful for biological prospectors and pharmaceutical drug discovery.

Regulation of medicines in SA is by the Medicines and Related Substances Act 101 of 1965 with subsequent amendments and this is administered by the Medicines Control Council. Traditional medicine falls outside of this Act for historical reasons however, and this has created many problems. There are ongoing efforts within the MCC to create legal space for traditional and complementary medicines and their practitioners.
Because of the prevailing legal situation and South Africa’s new found enthuasism for all things African, not uncommon in post-colonial Africa, as well as political expediency the terrain of traditional medicine became a battlefield. This battle was largely fought over this society’s response to HIV/ AIDS with activists such as the TAC, politicians, scientists, healers, quacks and pretenders all ranked against one another. And there were no winners – just losers all around.
But this battle royale is also being fought elsewhere albeit on different issues. In the UK the battle pitches HRH Prince Charles and a coterie of GPs and complementary healers against the “medical establishment”.
A few years ago the Prince in addressing the WHO said, “Many of to-day’s complementary therapies are rooted in ancient traditions that intuitively understood the need to maintain balance and harmony with our minds, bodies and the natural world”.
When challenged to produce evidence to support the use of complementary and alternative medicine in the public health sector on of the Prince’s supporters said "I think what this suggestion amounts to is a form of medical apartheid: any therapy which can't trace its origins to what is called the biochemical model should be excluded from the NHS […] The weight of the evidence does suggest that homeopathy is effective."
But then the British can afford to fight in this way and there is certainly no health crisis of the nature we have in Southern Africa. In South Africa while we fought people are dying. Almost everyday the media splashes stories about this or that cure for AIDS or this or that healer making unfounded claims about his treatment.

Let me be clear at this stage and say that we must debunk three myths here
1- that traditional medicine is primitive and has no place in the days of our lives. If this were true it would have long fallen out of use. We know that traditional medicine is a potential asset and in fact provides up to 50% of the pharmaceuticals that have transformed health care in the past century.
2- with regards to pharmaceuticals, advocates of traditional medicine claim that they are toxic and traditional medicine is not. Anti-retrovirals have been called “toxic” and “poisonous” by one camp and “lifesavers” by AIDS treatment activists. We know from basic pharmacology that everything that is ingested has some adverse effect – even water!
3 – that traditional medicine is an alternative science with it’s own principles and laws which are in a different paradigm to so-called western science. This myth is propagated by people who want to discourage enquiry into the use of some of these herbs without proper scientific evaluation.

The then South African Minister of Health in motivating for the Act to govern complementary, alternative, African traditional medicine said “We cannot transplant models designed for scientific validation of allopathic medicine and apply it to other remedies.”
The rejoinder to that would be – if you are going to treat disease which can be explained and diagnosed by allopathic medicine and talk for instance of CD4 and viral loads then that supposed cure should also stand up to the scrutiny of conventional science.
We need to move away from the either or syndrome that is gripping the South Africa. Traditional medicine has a vital role to play; however that role is limited and should be defined. Traditional medicine cannot and should not transplant medical and scientific enquiry. It needs to be put into perspective. And that starts with putting science and ethics into this whole debate.
And the science and ethics of science says that if you are to put out a medicine into the public domain then there must be certain assurances that it is meets three criteria
- that it is efficacious,
- that it is of good and acceptable quality
- and that it’s toxicity profile is understood.

These issues must be addressed in some manner with regards to traditional medicine.

Come Home Campaign

This article was published originally in The Zimbabwean (http://www.thezimbabwean.co.uk/2009121527495/opinion-analysis/come-home-campaign-let-us-proceed-cautiously.html)

Who does the “Come Home Campaign” serve?


David R. Katerere

I went to see Morgan Tsvangirai speak at a public forum in Cape Town last week. Surprisingly , it was actually my first in-life experience. He was cogent and lucid, humorous at times but not quite the politician on the stump because, of course, he was playing Mr Prime Minister, Mr Inclusive Government, the statesman. And he played it well.

His message was mainly to the Zimbabweans in South Africa, urging them to go back home. He has previously carried this message to the UK, where it did not go down well and ended in some humiliation for him. To his credit, though, he did not shy away from preaching the same gospel, albeit with some caution. But when asked by a member of the audience what opportunities for gainful employment there exist in Zimbabwe to-day, he rightly pointed out that the inclusive government cannot give or guarantee jobs but rather is trying to create an enabling environment for people to pursue economic activity. In his words, “there will not be a time when a line will be drawn in the sand to say things are now good”, it’s time for those in exile to come home; each person, he said, must take a risk and throw in their lot.

The issue of going back to Zimbabwe is indeed a complicated one. In fact is it necessary for people to be urged to go back to Zimbabwe, to go back home, or perhaps in these days of globalization we should actually look at the continued existence of the diaspora as an asset. India has millions of it’s citizens resident around the world; they were not exiled by political turmoil (as in the case of Zimbabwe) but by different accidents of history and personal choices. To-day they form a powerful economic bloc and important pillar to India’s development and international standing. Increasing China and Mexico also have a burgeoning number of non-resident citizens. Prime Minister Tsvangirai should perhaps take a leaf from this. The problem is that the Zimbabwean diaspora was largely spawned by the collapse o f the country and much of it has led to social instability within the region, so it is natural that the leaders of the region are supporting a resolution of the Zimbabwean question in order to put the genie back in the bottle. However it also true that a substantial number of Zimbabwean immigrants are educated and skilled persons who contribute to economic activity in host countries and are the unsung heroes in saving Zimbabwe from total collapse. Tsvangirai did not acknowledge the latter fact. Mugabe has predictably been scathing of Zimbabweans working menial jobs and in a discussion I had with Margaret Dongo, she also appeared blind to this fact that despite Zimbabweans living in some of the most horrendous circumstances, particularly in South Africa, and despite Zimbabweans suffering abuse from locals (read xenophobic attacks), they have continued to work to send money home for their families. And this money prevented total economic collapse the past and is now playing a huge part in stabilizing the current economic situation in the country.

The other worrying part of this blanket call to go back home is that it might inadvertently expose Zimbabweans to xenophobic attacks. In South Africa in a particular, this has been a gathering storm and when locals hear news that “there is progress in Zimbabwe” or “things are getting better”, they appear to find no excuse why Zimbabweans should continue to be sheltered among them. Go back to Zimbabwe, they have said in the past, and vote Mugabe out. And now they say, Go back to Zimbabwe because things are now well, you don’t belong “in South Africa”.

So let us approach the “come home” campaign with some caution. First because it is a good thing to continue to have Zimbabweans in influential positions in other countries of the world – it gives us what in business they would call a global footprint; second, because the idea of home makes little sense in a globalized world; migration is a reality that we have to live with and take advantage of; and third, because it might expose citizens to increased xenophobic attacks.