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Cost of living and Zim Life

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By Tawanda Kadungure, on December 13 2007 15:36

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“How are you surving with such a high cost of living and rate of inflation,” is the most popular question I get from my foreign chat mates and friends before we share anything else.

Customers Scramble For Chicken At OK Supermarket!

As to how Zimbabweans are coping only God knows. It has now become a popular saying that the resilience in Zimbabweans is amazing and if they were put in poverty stricken countries like Somalia they would survive and have healthy body frames. It seems everything stressing has been unleashed on the populace and had it not been that most have relatives in the diaspora, some could have succumbed to hunger and for long been eaten by vultures. To some it is unimaginable that an item bought 30 minutes ago can have its price tripled in a single day. Mythical as it may look and parable like as it may sound, this is what is happening in Zimbabwe. The economy has gone so bad that the currency’s value has sunk to never anticipated levels. A rough monthly expenditure breakdown can show how bad things have gone. For a single person working in Harare from a town as Mabvuku or Chitungwiza they need $28m for transport a month. $30m should be set aside for Sadza which is ranging anything from $1,5m a standard meal.

This is just a basic transport and once a day meal expenditure for a month of a single person. Already one needs $58m for the above before we even talk of rentals, groceries, sundrys, clothing and other accounts like water, electricity and schooling. If all expenses could be compiled one needs well over $100m a month at the moment to live a basic life. The disheartening factor is that the majority of those still in formal employment are earning well less than $50m a month and most of them being family man and women with more responsibilities at their hands. What more pain would one need when they can’t access the few dollars they are earning for nearly a month as is the case at the moment.

As if that is not enough, going to work and home is more than death in a horror movie. Buses are so few that it is hustling and bustling to get into one on both ways. “Itai two ply tione vabereki, dumbu nemusana apo. Kana Paine vamira vari vanyarikani chinjanai nevamwe tione kuenda,” has become popular statements from bus conductors as they pack passengers like bags of potatoes in their buses. Breathing air is filled with human stink and some will be shouting vulgar words and insults at the top of their voices. To those with reputable but unrewarding jobs such that they can’t buy vehicles, it is a total embarrassment to be subjected to this. On disembarking one has to squeeze between the two plied passengers and by the time you get off, your neck tie is facing the back, your belt unbuckled on its own and your shoes as if you were kicking cow dung.

This has just become Zimbabwean life. From the envy of many in the region to the laughing stock. All standards once set and met only sorrow and poverty remain. Shops are filled with funny looking soaps some in carrot colour and some from Mozambique called Sabau soap which make you think twice before you use them on your white clothes. All said and done, Zimbabwe needs salvation as its people are too innocent to suffer like this. Can next year’s elections be the turning point? Nobody knows and most are of the opion that as long as President Mubage is standing for the elections, he is going to win whether through orthodox or unorthodox means.

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mystic-man

By: taiziveyi (Guest) on December 14 2007 14:38

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mystic-man

By: taiziveyi (Guest ) on December 14 2007 14:38

well sir, i hope you have done your research proper on issues about Zimbabwe and its other Afrikan states. The situation in Zimbabwe is just a very tiny fraction of whats going on in the whole of Afrika. We were conquered and divided by our colonisers, so we now only think of Zimbabwe and forget that the Whole of Afrika is suffering this same way. When are we going to wake up and realise that....IT IS AN UNATURAL LIE FOR ONE RACE TO CLAIM TO CARE FOR ANOTHER RACE MORE THAN THAT RACE CARES FOR ITS SELF.

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