INSIDE ZIMBABWE: BILL CORCORANrevisits a township outside Harare to see what has happened since the cholera epidemic ravaged the country and the opposition joined an inclusive government in February
THE FILTH surrounding the Highfield home where Kezener Katoma and her family lived last September has changed little in the nine months since The Irish Times unexpectedly called.
Raw sewage still bubbles up from the broken drainage system which runs next to her modest two-room house on the corner of 121st street in the Harare township, while across the road mounds of decaying refuse remain piled as high as your knees.
When Zimbabwe’s rival political parties signed the powersharing deal last year – which eventually led to the formation in February of a transitional government – hopes were high that the city’s basic infrastructure and services, which had collapsed through neglect, could be revived.
But the only noticeable changes to the depressing scene encountered nine months ago is the absence of the elderly Katoma and her children, who no longer occupy the house.
The 66-year-old and her young charges have been replaced by another woman who has two snot-nosed kids in tattered clothes, both of whom eye me suspiciously from inside their half-open front door.
Happy Munemo and her brood are the house’s new occupants, and she says that by the time she arrived at the premises a few months ago it had stood empty for some time.
A neighbour had warned her though that her predecessor Katoma, who had appeared sickly when interviewed in September, had gone to the hospital early this year with what people thought was cholera.
“I do not know what happened to her [Katoma], but she never came back to this place. I have been living here for a few months now,” said Munemo as she stoked a small fire on which a pot of water was boiling; most high-density townships have no electricity for 18 hours a day.
According to the most recent report from the United Nations Office for the Co-ordination of Humanitarian Affairs, 98,522 suspected cases and 4,282 deaths from cholera have been reported in the country since the outbreak of the water-borne disease last August.
While new cholera cases and deaths in Zimbabwe have been declining steadily since the onset of the dry season a few months ago, the overall infection rate has been far higher than the UN body first predicted due to the collapse of the healthcare and local government systems early last year.
When asked if many people had become sick from cholera, Munemo replied that after the disease first took hold there were many deaths.
“Many people here got sick and died and people just buried them. They were not seen by the NGOs. They are supposed to be spraying disinfectant to kill disease now, but that has not happened. It is better here than in many other areas though.
“The authorities [the unity government] have new cars, but they are not coming here to fix the sewage system. There is no change. People are not getting so sick at the moment because it is dry, but we are afraid of what will happen when the rains come again [in November],” she said.
Down the street at a scrap yard Charles Dzawanda (38) and his friends are burning clean old metal sheeting collected from around Highfield as a means to make a living. With 95 per cent of the population unemployed, Zimbabweans do whatever they can to earn cash.
The idea is to cut lengths of metal from the sheeting and sell them as doors to shack dwellers. Dzawanda said he makes about $50 (€36) a month from his endeavours, which helps to feed his wife and children.
“It’s not enough,” he says, “but it is all I can do to make an income. Customers come to us because we are much cheaper than the companies that sell metal from shops”.
Prime minister Morgan Tsvangirai, leader of the Movement for Democratic Change (MDC), has just returned from a tour of western nations where he has been asking for aid to the tune of $9 billion (€6.5 billion) to help kick start the country’s crippled economy and create employment.
However, because of lack of progress in implementing the details of the powersharing pact between the MDC and President Robert Mugabe’s Zanu-PF party – the latter is being accused of reneging on elements he agreed to – donor aid has been withheld.
Tsvangirai only secured about $500 million in increased aid, and even that is to be channelled through non-governmental organisations for fear of Zanu-PF trying to use it for its own benefit.
The only country to come up with significant donor aid to date has been China, which has promised to loan Zimbabwe $950 million.
The owner of the local bus company, M Mandera, says he hopes some of the money would be made available to the cash-strapped banks, as local companies need loans if they are to get businesses going again. “The banks need to provide loans. I need money to fix the buses which have fallen into disrepair. Petrol is expensive, at $1.50 per litre, and it takes 500 litres to fill the bus. It’s hard to keep the company running as I have 52 employees. My business will only survive if we get cheaper petrol.”
Despite the difficult environment in which Zimbabweans still find themselves, Dzawanda says many people are still cautiously optimistic regarding the unity government.
Since it came into existence, he says he has seen a positive change in the townships’ atmosphere. “It was so tense, as there were MDC and Zanu-PF in the same areas but now it is better and we can relax more.”
Tomorrow: The challenge of reviving the economy