The rain has come too late
Bulawayo has finally been blessed with some rain. Night before last the heavens opened with a spectacular thunderstorm and the clouds have been heavy with thunder.
But, Selina killed my joy yesterday afternoon when she came into the house and said, “Ah, but it’s too late. The crops we planted are already dead and the commercial farmers from my area have all been kicked out. My children are hungry all because of one man.”
The government and the Western media seem to be in cahoots over the reason for hunger in this country and it is not the fault of late rains that there is no maize. We have had worse droughts in previous years with main catchment dams far below current levels and we still managed to pull through.
It is the chaotic land seizures that are directly to blame, for those resettled on the farms have no financial backing or training in running l
arge scale irrigation programmes. The zanupf chefs who are the main beneficiaries of stolen farms simply reaped what was previously planted by commercial farmers and haven’t bothered to keep the farms going.
I dread to think about what Selina and the rest of the country are going to do come winter and how will she feed her hungry children. She supports 9 grandchildren as AIDS has already claimed three of her children.
