Our town is full to bursting with strangers, luxury cars, vehicles with no number plates and people with pockets full of money The atmosphere in the town is extremely tense. Most days I have to go past the house which was petrol bombed in the last elections; the house that I watched burn for hours through the night but which the fire brigade said they could not come and attend to. Every week I see friends, both black and white, men and women, who have been beaten and tortured in the past five years, lost their homes, possessions and jobs and had to literally run for their lives.Memories in Marondera are still very real, not only of burnings, beatings and even human branding carved into men's backs at the last election, but of a litany of abuse and decay that has become everyday life. Less than a year ago our schools were closed down and the headteachers arrested. As I write, our government hospitals and clinics do not even have phenobarb to control epilepsy, patients have to take their own food and outpatients queue outside in the open, sitting on the ground, for up to four hours before they are seen.
We worked out that the money spent on the party could have bought 285,000 loaves of bread which would have been enough to give six slices of bread to every man, woman and child in Marondera. Oh well, I guess we'll just have to dream of delicious birthday cake.Until next week, love CathyEveryone is sketSaturday 5 March 2005Dear Family and Friends,"Everyone here is sket, coz last time they chaya'd us all." This little sentence said to me by a local shop worker, says it all for the atmosphere in Marondera just 26 days before parliamentary elections. I needed a dictionary to check how many zeros there are in a billion dollars and then my 12-year-old son to show me how to use the calculator in my computer as a normal calculator cannot accommodate all those zeros. I guess they must have heard that our water issmelly and foul tasting.After four hours, the birthday cake emerged. Slices were cut and handed out to members of the family and then the television commentator made the most amazing statement.
She said: "As you can see, Robert junior is actually eating the cake now while I am still hungry, but it looks very delicious." The words would undoubtedly have been echoed by many of the thousands of people in the tent.According to the government media, donations to the value of Z$1bn (£87,000) were raised for the Marondera birthday party. Many thousands of people are in the tent: children in school uniform holding little flags, ministers and government dignitaries wearing red sashes and the usual large number of people who find it appropriate to wear clothes with President Mugabe's face printed on the fabric. As a Marondera resident I couldn't help but smile as I watched all the VIPs and even local Marondera officials, drinking bottled water. Lines of teenage girls in youth brigade uniforms started the day off with displays of karate kicks and punches and were followed by speaker after speaker who came forward to praise the President and condemn anyone and everyone who is seen as an enemy.