African Laughter - Doris May Lessing [210]
The herd of free-range pigs, as happy as house dogs, showing how a pig’s life must have been in Eden, have had to be penned, for they do too much damage.
The noble and sagacious dog Seamus, his master’s friend, has died.
A group of seven zebras at their toilet in the bush. First one rubs her cheeks, and her forehead, then both sides of her neck, against a tree. Then first one side, and the other, most methodically. She stands under a low branch and rubs her back. Then chooses a sapling, positions herself, and walks forward over it so that the branches scratch her stomach. Another goes through the same performance. Then another, and all of them. They are watched by a male zebra who is turned on by this and has an erection like a yard of rubber hose. But he only watches them and when they have finished uses the same trees to rub and scratch himself. The zebras took no notice of us watching them from ten paces away.
The drought is so bad in some areas that not only cattle, but hardy goats and the wild animals are dying. They are shooting calves as they are born.
At the Victoria Falls Hotel, old colonial, one of the world’s great hotels, spacious, dreamy, slow, cool in the great heat, like a setting for an Merchant Ivory film, a young black man peacocked in new jeans stylishly slit at the knees, the slits adorned with coloured safety pins. He swaggered, mocking himself, accepting applause with an air.
No one knows how to assess the long-term results of the calamity AIDS, which the government says will kill at least a million people by the year 2000, in a population of nine million. Women in Africa south of the Sahara have the highest rate of infection in the world–one in forty women. In Zimbabwe’s rural areas many women sleep with men for money to feed children and dependants, pay school fees. They are described as prostitutes. In an urban clinic recently one out of four babies tested was HIV positive. Most men refuse to wear condoms. Promiscuity is admired. That is, in men. ‘A Shona good bull impregnates many women.’
An editor: ‘Only one thing would save this country. The government must stop repeating mantras, like ESAP. It should look coldly at the situation, without distorting it by ideology. It should examine criticism, instead of regarding all criticism as hostile. It should then describe our situation as it is. Then act. But is our government capable of it?’
A letter: ‘When I think of our dreams at Independence I want to cry for Zimbabwe. Oh it is so sad, so sad, don’t you think so? I do cry, sometimes.’
But: A visitor returned from Zaire, Kenya, Tanzania, Mozambique, said: ‘Let me tell you! In comparison with any of those Zimbabwe is up to its armpits in jam. In Nairobi the shanty towns stretch for miles and no one cares. In Zimbabwe they are ashamed and try to rehouse homeless people.’
During a game of Epitaphs, it was decided there was only one possible epitaph for Robert Mugabe: ‘A good man fallen among thieves.’ Rejected epitaphs: ‘God will reward him for trying.’ ‘Here lies a tragic hero: he destroyed himself by paranoia, not understanding how much goodwill there was for him among the people.’
A meteorological expert: ‘Corruption? Don’t make me laugh. Compared to someone like Robert Maxwell they are babies. Bad planning? So what! They’ll learn. No, Southern Africa is drying up, that’s the news. That is the only news.’ But: ‘We survived the War. We’ll survive the drought.’ A village woman, from Masvingo, where it has rained very little for ten years.
LETTERS, TELEPHONE CALLS, APRIL 1992
‘The rainy season is over for this year: seven months to go before the rains. Even if we get good rains this year it will take three or four years to make up the damage. The chicken farmers are killing their flocks–no feed. The pigs are being killed: no food. The mombies are dying in hundreds