Our Joyce on how to deal with a bed-hopping husband

BY MAGAISA IBENZI

WARD 12, PARIRENYATWA HOSPITAL, HARARE – I wonder what planet Zimbabwe’s state journalists are on? They seem to see things that we ordinary Zimbabweans don’t see. If what one reads in the local government newspapers, sees on local television or hears on ZBC radio stations is the really news, then something very fishy is going on.

According to the state-controlled media there was jubilation in all provinces on Independence Day as multitudes flocked to national stadia to hear Mugabe’s celebratory speech being read by the local governors.

Those in Harare are reported to have ululated and cheered as the great man himself and his first lady entered the stadium.

Zimbabwe was evidently a success story in Africa, crowed The Herald, despite repeated attacks on all fronts by westerners and their lackeys opposed to the land reform programme. The announcement of the new National Economic Development Priority Programme, which is going to miraculously turn the economy around from being the worst in the world to prosperity for all in nine months, was supposedly hailed by mythological observers and analysts.

Whatever those Herald and ZBC reporters are smoking, I would REALLY like to get my hands on some of it.

Everybody I know, even those of us on the Zhing Zhong tablets in here (where some days things are certainly rather far removed from reality – whatever that is), is suffering.

Inflation, unemployment, no fuel, no food, no drugs, exorbitant school fees, potholes, no rubbish collection, rotten water, broken sewerage pipes, empty shelves, draconian legislation to suppress popular dissent, murder and torture of political opponents with impunity, corrupt policeman and judges, daylight looting by politicians of state assets and personal property – the list is unending. That is the reality for Zimbabweans.

The fact that the state propaganda machine refuses to see this is bad enough. The fact that they continue trying to persuade us that we are all wrong and they are right is downright insulting.

What we would have wanted to read, instead of all this hallucinating, is the reality of the practical advice given to members of the Zimbabwe National Chamber of Commerce in Mutare last week by our Joyce (aka vice president Mujuru). She allegedly told the gathering a remarkable thing (I say allegedly because what you are about to read is truly stranger than fiction). Anyway the second most important/powerful person in our country gave this gathering advice on how to deal with a bed-hopping husband.

(Perhaps she should be invited to the UK to teach Mrs Prescott and others a thing or two.) Anyway, Mr Editor, perhaps you could pass on this advice to our former colonial masters: “My husband used to come home with addresses of girlfriends in his jackets. I used to be furious and could be mad about it but I realised it would not work. The other day he brought an address in his jacket. I just took the piece of paper and placed it next to where he sleeps and I prepared his supper and treated him very nicely. Since then, my husband has never behaved in a manner that suggests he is flirting with other women.” Words fail me …