Hunger in Rushinga
January 25th, 2009
Reports from people in the Rushinga area in Mt Darwin are that the starvation is taking a deadly grip on the area. Mealie meal can be purchased in limited amounts for US$15 for 10 kgs.
People in urban areas struggle to withdraw Zimbabwean dollars from the banks, so you can imagine how hard it is to get cash in the rural areas! Nobody in the rural areas has access to our redundant Zimbabwe dollars; foreign currency is even rarer. The result is many are trying to live off vegetables they are struggling to grow . One resident from that area said that his family had not eaten sadza for over five weeks.
The salaries paid to many who are lucky enough to have jobs don’t begin to remotely meet the cost of living. It’s especially bad for those paid by the government; for example, a middle-ranking prison officer’s January salary, on the day it was paid in in Zimbabwe dollars, translated in forex to the equivalent of US$3, or one fifth of the price of a 10kg bag of maize meal.
In the meanwhile, heavy rains have been falling on Harare and its surrounds.
This is wonderful for the urban maize crops and wonderful for the people who have managed to find vegetable seed to grow a little food in the rural areas. It is also very good news for the millions of people who rely on rainwater run-off from their roofs for drinking, cooking and washing water. It is wonderful for Harare Central and Remand prisons who sometimes go without water for weeks at a time.
Sadly, the very bad news is that that demon called cholera , carving a swathe of illness in Zimbabwe, is reliant on downpours just like this to spread its deadly network.
