Mail & Guardian (Johannesburg) - December 15, 2006
Godwin Gandu

"We are suffering, unemployed and desperate. I can't buy drugs or feed my four children. Christmas doesn't mean anything to me and my family," says Irene Kumbirai (34), a HIV-positive widow from Highfields township near Harare. "After my husband's death a few years ago, my life went from bad to worse. I'm sick, can no longer afford drugs or even basics from shops."

Bianca Seremani (28) works for a food outlet in Harare's CBD where she says business has deteriorated over the years. She won't be doing any Christmas shopping this year because it is something that has become a luxury that few can afford. "I will be home with my sister and daughter," she says. "There is nothing to celebrate. Where is the money or the commodities?" The food outlet where she works sports mostly empty shelves, with only a few meat pies and bread, reflecting the scarcity of basic commodities in most supermarkets.

"Even if some of the basics were there, we have no money to buy groceries," says Portia Chikandavhara (39), a mother of four. Chikandavhara is a newspaper vendor in Harare's busy main street. Even rice is now a luxury, she says - its price having risen by 120% from Z$3 500 in less than a week.

"In the past, we enjoyed Christmas to the full. We would eat and drink until we dropped dead. But these days there are no parties. This festive season will just come and go, just like any other ordinary day," says Trust Tanga (21).

"I have come from my rural home to enjoy Christmas in Harare," says Witness Matando (18). Matando has just completed his ordinal levels and looks forward to going for his lower sixth studies before he graduates for university. His rural home, Zaka, about 400km south of Harare, is dry and he hopes his relatives are able to "produce enough from the fields to survive". Given that "school fees, bread and maize-meal prices have all gone up à people there are battling to make ends meet," he says.

Tucked in a corner along Harare's first street is a paint shop owned by Martin Marwick (70). Business might have slowed, but the shop manager is soldiering on, even without the finances to paint the town red. The economy has hit his pocket so hard that he can't afford tickets to visit his two children in the United States and Canada. "I will just spend Christmas with my wife at home," he says. "What can we do? The situation is getting worse. It's not improving, we are not seeing signs of recovery."

Alex Nyamupusa (25) is wondering where he can get the money to buy his daughter and pregnant wife goodies for Christmas. "I'm saving the little I have to visit my relatives in the countryside," he says. While relatives and friends will be expecting a lot from those living in towns, Nyamupusa says he will try to make them understand "it's now tough out here".

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