Letter from home: Our worst winter

BY LITANY BIRD

Dear Family and Friends,

Zimbabwe apparently now has the highest inflation and the fastest shrinking economy in the world. While those may be headline grabbing words, the reality of living with it makes these the hardest of times for us all.

Everywhere you go, everyone is talking about the dramatic increases in the prices of food, medicines and services and undoubtedly this winter 2006 will be the worst any of us can ever remember.

Going shopping has become a nightmare and budgeting impossible as the prices keep changing. A dozen eggs marked on the shelf at Z$260,000 this week, was actually Z$290,000 at the till. “It’s up,” the woman at the checkout announced when I asked why there was a Z$30,000 difference in the three metres from shelf to till.

Every week more and more things get crossed off the shopping list as they become unaffordable. Cheese, fruit, eggs and cereals, all have become luxuries now, bought rarely and used sparingly - for a treat. They join goods crossed off the list a year ago when they also became too expensive; things like yoghurt, sausages, bacon, coffee, nuts, fruit juice and fish. These in turn join the things we gave up three or four years ago, things that were bad for us anyway like fizzy drinks, chocolates, cigarettes and alcohol.

913% inflation is so frightening that most people literally do not know how they will make it from one month to the next. Food prices are just the tip of the iceberg as hyperinflation rages into bills and services, swamps medical and dental costs and makes clothes and shoes a complete impossibility.

School fees are now due for the winter term and they have so many digits that they look like long distance international telephone numbers. Talking about telephones, at the top of this month’s phone bill is a statement that reads: “Tariffs were increased from $1400 to $8609 per unit with effect from 3 Feb 2006.” The statement doesn’t mention that this is an increase of over 500%, it doesn’t offer a reason, excuse or apology - its just a case of pay or be disconnected.

But, for as long as we can, we cling on to the routines of life, trying to be “normal”, trying to hold our homes and families together, trying to keep our children reasonably fed, clothed and in school. Until next week, ndini Shamwari Yenyu