Cathy Buckle: The Ghost Bird and the bizarre back-pocket

In Zimbabwe’s rainy season, Cathy Buckle details how the Ghost Bird’s haunting call echoes through lush green landscapes, where fruit-laden trees and vibrant roadside maize thrive. Yet, beneath this natural beauty lies the stark reality of political absurdity, with MPs benefiting disproportionately from a ballooning budget. Amid the struggle, ordinary Zimbabweans find solace in small acts of kindness, like a “Christmas Box” exchange at a roadside stall. Buckle’s heartfelt Letter From Zimbabwe reminds us to hold onto hope.

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By Cathy Buckle

Dear Family and Friends,

The Ghost Bird sings often on these cloudy January mornings in Zimbabwe and is true to its name. Its call is a single, piercing, clear note. Described as a ghostly mournful whistle, the Ghost Bird’s distinctive call should make it easy to see but it is shy and elusive as it hops quickly around the tree branches, hunting for insects, hidden by the dense green foliage. The Ghost Bird is the Grey-headed Bushshrike, a tireless hunter, with a grey head and neck, olive back, bright yellow underparts and a delicate orange wash on its chest. Once seen and heard the Ghost Bird will never be forgotten, it is the sound of the rainy season in Zimbabwe.

The thunder rumbles often these wet summer days and everywhere you look it is green, jungly and lush. The rainy season so far has come often with violent storms pounding out of deep purple clouds hanging low in the sky, fierce wind stripping leaves off trees and pools of water sitting on saturated ground. The roadside maize is deep green and knee-high and the branches of the fruit trees are laden with bounty: big soft, sweet figs; sticky, juicy yellow mangoes; green and white striped watermelons with dripping pink flesh; furry yellow cling-peaches; vines laden with sweet purple grapes and granadillas whose tendrils creep and cling onto anything and everything as they spread out in all directions, covered in crinkly green and purple passion fruits.

Despite such beauty and bounty nothing is ever as it seems in Zimbabwe. While we weren’t really watching just a few days before Christmas, Zimbabwe’s Minister of Finance announced that his one-month-old budget needed adjustments and open-mouthed we learned that his original 1.7 billion dollar ZiG budget had somehow increased by a staggering 1 billion ZiG’s and unbelievably almost all of it was going to MP’s and not to the country’s development. The Finance Minister pledged more cars for MPs allocating 250 million ZiG’s for that; $50 million ZiG’s for fuel for MPs; $50 million ZiG’s for domestic and foreign allowances for MPs; $50 million ZiG’s for MPs offices and what he called ‘tools of the trade.’ He went on to allocated an additional US$120 million for MP’s salaries and finally, the only thing that will benefit ordinary people, he doubled the Constituency Development Fund from US$50 to 100 million for 210 constituencies around the country. And where was all this extra money coming from? The finance minister said to fund the additional costs he had to ‘go to the back-pocket.’ The back-pocket? What on earth is the back-pocket we wondered and if there was a spare ZW$1 billion ZiG’s in his ‘back pocket’ why wasn’t it in the original budget that he had presented just weeks before?

I thought about the absurdity of Zimbabwe’s back pocket as I stopped at my favourite roadside vendor the other day to buy bananas and mangoes. How was ‘kumusha’ was the question we asked each other as one filthy dirty US dollar changed hands for 10 bananas and then another one for three big yellow mangoes, each so big that it only just fits in your hand. ‘Christmas Box,’ she said giving me an extra mango and I replied by slipping a ten US dollar note into her hand, ‘Christmas Box,’ I echoed, smiling at the old lady. She danced, clapped and ululated and her eyes shone, ‘I can buy sugar and upfu (maize meal) today’ she said, profuse in her gratitude. This is Zimbabwe’s front pocket, my hand to yours, yours to mine, no hidden back pocket here.

I dedicate my first Letter From Zimbabwe in 2025 to us, the ordinary people, our day will come, don’t give up hope and to all of you in the Diaspora, don’t forget us, we haven’t forgotten you. 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. Visit my website or follow the links below.

Ndini shamwari yenyu (I am your friend)

Love Cathy 9^th January 2025.

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