Cathy Buckle – Zimbabwe in late November: Lunch on a stick

Take a journey through Zimbabwe in late November, as the countryside bursts into vibrant green after the rains. From smallholder farms to bustling roadside vendors, Cathy Buckle captures the resilience and ingenuity of ordinary Zimbabweans navigating daily survival. Amid stunning landscapes and stark contrasts, hope shines through with the release of opposition leaders after months of detention. A vivid, heartfelt snapshot of life, struggle, and beauty in a country yearning for change.

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By Cathy Buckle

Dear Family and Friends,

Come with me on a drive in Zimbabwe this late November and see what I see through the windscreen. I am heading east towards Manicaland. It’s a little after seven in the morning and heavy grey rain clouds are hanging low in the sky ahead of me. The countryside is green again after months of dry and it takes a while for your mind to believe what your eyes are seeing: everything looks softer and cleaner. We haven’t had a lot of rain yet but it doesn’t take much for green shoots to appear.

Sprouting crops are emerging in lines in newly ploughed land. Largely gone are the views of big commercial farms stretching away into the distance along the highways. Every now and again you see a big farm with circles of pivot irrigation watering new tobacco crops but they do not dominate this landscape anymore. Most have been carved up and replaced by small self- sufficiency plots with round, mud-walled thatched huts and little fields. Where in the past you saw tractors and big gangs of farm workers here, now you see pairs of oxen trudging backwards and forwards pulling a plough, turning the soil and a woman following them, dropping seeds by hand into the red earth.  How on earth do they survive you wonder, and the answer is right there to see if you care to look.  

In big letters in white paint on a rock, a sign says: ‘Welding,’ an arrow pointing to an invisible location somewhere in the dense bush. A few kilometers along the road a man has a pile of second-hand tyres stacked up on the roadside and a small blue compressor. Further along the highway a woman sits on the ground with little red plastic bowls balanced on stones each filled with wild fruits, the first orange fruits from the Muzhange trees. Nearby a youngster sells sacks of potatoes propped up against each other. Ten kilometers ahead you come to yet another police road block. There is no sign, no drums or bollards, just two policemen standing in the middle of the road and a third on the verge with a vehicle they have stopped. Fists are being bumped and something is moving from hands to pockets. Everyone knows what’s really going on.  

Another small town is approaching and roadside vendors are everywhere, in the lay-bys, next to the bus stops, on either side of the railway lines, crowded at every junction on the highway and under every tree. You have to slow down to a crawl here, people run out into the road from all directions, holding out bunches of carrots, bundles of rape and kale, punnets of strawberries and grapes, bowls of peaches and apples, bottles of water. As buses pull in to drop off and pick up passengers, vendors run to the windows, holding up their wares, passengers lean out of windows and deals are done. Innovation is survival here. Young guys have roasted maize cobs on long forked metal spikes and they hold them up to reach bus windows, lunch on a stick.

If I pull in to stop and buy something, anything, from a bunch a carrots to a bowl of peaches, I know I am giving someone their survival today. A dozen people crowd my window, desperate to sell me anything.  ‘Dollar for two,’ an old lady selling avocados says. ‘Dollar for six’ another lady says, selling beautiful orange mangoes. Five dollars for a punnet of grapes, three dollars for strawberries, five dollars for a big bowl of peaches. ‘Two for a dollar,’ a youngster with roasted maize cobs says. Every time I go out onto the highway I have as many single one and five dollar notes as I’ve got because this is the end result of two and a half decades of collapse. Every dollar here is life and death.

Further along on my journey the elevation is increasing, the mountains are in view and the highway is busy here with big trucks, tankers and buses all heading to the border, first Forbes and then Machipanda into Mozambique. Troubled Mozambique, where protests continue to erupt after rigged, disputed elections, the scourge of Africa and her greedy politicians who serve themselves and not the people.

I have reached my destination and turn off the highway. Thank you for sharing part of my journey with me, this is the real Zimbabwe that I describe to you, its about us, the ordinary people where one dollar is the difference, every day and its not about them, the greedy politicians. I end with two pieces of current news. The first is that the Minister of Finance has said that bids for funding in the forthcoming 2025 budget had already surpassed Zig 700 billion, far exceeding the budget ceiling which is Zig 140 billion. Quite a difference.  

The best news to come out of Zimbabwe this week is that, finally, after five and a half months in prison in what they call ‘pre-trial detention,’ interim opposition leader Jameson Timba and the remaining group of 34 co-accused, known as the Avondale 78, are free at last. Convicted of participating in an illegal gathering they were given wholly suspended prison sentences ranging from two years to 12 months. To all of us who have followed this iniquitous, heartbreaking story for half a year, we wish all of the Avondale 78  healing, health and dignity, hope has been restored, you were never far from our minds.   

There is no charge for this Letter From Zimbabwe but if you would like to donate please visit my website.

Until next time, thanks for reading this Letter From Zimbabwe now in its 24th year, and my books about life in Zimbabwe, a country in waiting. My new evocative photobook ‘Zimbabwe’s Timeless Beauty The 2024 Collection’ and my ‘Beautiful Zimbabwe 2025 Calendar’ are now available. Please visit my website or follow the links below for details.

Read also:

• 🔒 No water by year-end for Bulawayo: Zimbabwe’s second-biggest city
• Cathy Buckle: Rain, resilience, and Zimbabwe’s land crisis
• Cathy Buckle: Zimbabwe’s currency crashes, millions left 44% poorer overnight