NON-EXISTENT CIVIL SERVANTS IN ZANZIBAR?
'Ghost workers' haunting Zanzibar.
Non-existent civil servants on the Zanzibar government payroll are costing the semi-autonomous Tanzanian islands more than $1m a year, an official says. An inquiry has found about 1,400 "ghost workers" who draw salaries but never report for work, Zanzibar government chief secretary Ramadhani Muombwa said. He told reporters a task force was being set up to investigate the fraud.
The Zanzibar islands employ 26,000 civil servants, earning a minimum of $50 a month. "We had to immediately start investigating after finding out that the government has been losing $110,000 a month by paying 1,400 ghost workers," Mr Muombwa said at a news conference. "We are leaving no stone unturned in our investigations and whoever is found to have taken part in the cheating, will be charged and penalised for embezzlement of public funds," he said. The semi-autonomous archipelago maintains a political union with mainland Tanzania, but has its own parliament and president.
BBC NEWS REPORT.
HELP NEEDED FOR EX PRISONERS IN SOUTH AFRICA
Mandela appeals for ex-prisoners.
Mandela joked that he had lost his fund-raising pull. Former South African President Nelson Mandela has said more must be done to help thousands of ex-political prisoners, many of whom are in poverty. A trust was set up 10 years ago, but Mr Mandela appealed for more funds. He called on South African businesses to help as many as 3,000 political prisoners from the apartheid era. Mr Mandela, who was South Africa's most famous prisoner for 27 years, said his fellow inmates had made huge sacrifices for their country. "If I still had the fund-raising pull that I once had, I would have gone full-out in this worthy pursuit," the ex-president joked to reporters in Johannesburg.
Some former political prisoners occupy key positions in government and industry, but many are reported to be unemployed, living in poverty, and some have suffered mental illness. Defence Minister Mosiuoa Lekota, who is heading the latest fundraising campaign with Mr Mandela's backing, described the veterans' situation as "a critical matter of conscience". "We have to sustain them. It gives us sleepless nights," he said, adding that the "very minimum support" the veterans deserved was to ensure that they were "buried decently." He said a trust that was set up in 1996 needed to be sustainable.
BBC NEWS REPORT.
TRILATERAL GROUP'S AGREEMENT!
India, Brazil, SA to boost trade.
Brazil's Celso Amorim has called for richer nations to ease trade barriers. India, Brazil and South Africa have a agreed to continue efforts to improve trade between the three nations. The announcement came at the end of a day of talks between the three ahead of informal World Trade Organization (WTO) meeting in Rio de Janeiro. The trio said the move would strengthen their bargaining power during efforts to break down global trade barriers. The trilateral group has been trying to lift trade between developing nations in the continents they represent. "We are doing the right thing," Brazilian foreign minister Celso Amorim said of the agreement. Last year, more than half of Brazil's total trade - worth about $200bn (£115bn) - came from developing nations, he added.
"In the last two years, bilateral trade with India increased by 170%, with South Africa it went up by 86%," he said. "We are creating better conditions to negotiate at the World Trade Organization." Developing nations have expressed dismay at the lack of progress in WTO efforts to open up agricultural markets. Developing countries want rich nations to lower farming subsidies, but the US and the EU insist that poor nations must open their markets to more non-agricultural goods. News of closer trading ties between the three nations came as India outlined plans to liberalise its sugar export market. Following a bumper harvest and rising global prices, the government is set to allow 300,000 tonnes of sugar to be exported, Food Minister Sharad Pawar said.
BBC NEWS REPORT
DOES OBIANG KNOW OF ZIMBABWE'S CASH FLOW PROBLEMS?
Mugabe eyes Equatorial Guinea oil.
President Obiang promised to help Zimbabwe. Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe hopes to sign an agreement to import oil from Equatorial Guinea, Africa's third-largest producer. Equatorial Guinea President Teodoro Obiang Nguema is visiting Zimbabwe two years after the authorities there helped foil a plot to oust him. Zimbabwe is suffering chronic fuel shortages, the result of a foreign exchange crisis. Mr Obiang said his country was ready to forge stronger links with Zimbabwe. "I can assure you that you can always count on the support of the government and people of Equatorial Guinea to do their best," he said at a dinner hosted by Mr Mugabe.
Mr Mugabe himself accused western governments and media of vilifying Zimbabwe. President Obiang promised to help Zimbabwe. "The born-again democrats in London and Washington would like to hoodwink the world on the situation in Zimbabwe in the very same manner they have done on Iraq," he said.
Simon Mann, the British leader of the alleged coup plot against Mr Obiang, is still serving a jail sentence in Harare after the plane on which he was travelling landed there in 2004, on its way to Equatorial Guinea. More than 60 men arrested with him - most of them South African citizens of Angolan origin - were released last year after serving a year's sentence. Others remain in prison in Equatorial Guinea.
Zimbabweans have endured shortages of fuel and basic foodstuffs in recent years, as a result of a foreign currency shortage. The government blames the crisis on sanctions, while its opponents say a controversial land reform programme is responsible for a sharp drop in agricultural export earnings.
BBC NEWS REPORT.
TANZANIA BOXERS GO AWOL
Tanzania shocked by runaway boxers.
By Emmanuel Muga BBC, Dar es Salaam.
Karim went off to make a phone call and never came back.Tanzania's Commonwealth Games team has returned home with two medals, but without two boxers who have gone missing in Australia. The Tanzanian twosome's behaviour has shocked team-mates and relatives as they are the first athletes to disappear while representing their country. Prisons officer Iddi Omary Kimweri vanished last week, while his compatriot Karim Matumla, who is a lance corporal in the Tanzania army, disappeared on Monday morning just before the team were about to board their flight back home. Henry Ramadhan, who headed the delegation to Melbourne, said he had taken precautionary measures after the first boxer had gone missing, but Matumla outsmarted him. "We were together having breakfast and then Matumla excused himself. He said he was going out to make a short phone call, but he never came back," Mr Ramadhan said.
Tanzanian Minister of Information, Culture and Sports Muhammed Seif Khatib said that while the government was not happy, it did not feel embarrassed. He loves his family and his job here. I don't know what has happened to him - Wife of Iddi Omary Kimweri. "Why embarrassed? It is very common for Africans to run away from their countries, for us this is nothing, the majority have come back," he told the BBC. But the army's director of sports, Lt Col Juma Ikangaa, said the incident gave the army a bad image. He said athletes would have to be screened in future before being allowed to leave for overseas competitions. "I think we will have to be careful in the future with athletes going abroad," he said.
Matumla's brother, Rashid, who is also a high-profile boxer, expressed his family's shock. "He was a soldier, his life was not so bad," he said. "I don't know why he has decided to remain illegally in Australia. "Maybe there are some people who showed up and promised him something there." Kimweri's 17-year-old wife Rukia said she had been unaware of her husband's plan.
DISAPPEARING ATHLETES
2006 Commonwealth Games: 14 Sierra Leoneans, 9 Cameroonians, 2 Tanzanians, 1 Bangladeshi
2002 Commonwealth Games: 21 Sierra Leoneans, 5 Bangladeshis, 1 Pakistani
2002 Asian Games: 12 Nepalese, 3 Sri Lankans and 1 Mongolian
2000 Sydney Olympics: 80 officials and athletes overstay visas, 11 cases unresolved
"Since he left for Australia I have not been in touch with him," she told the BBC at her home in Dar es Salaam. "I don't have his number and he did not tell me anything about his other plans besides saying that he was going for the games." The newly-married couple lived with two relatives in a two-room house in the outskirts of the city. Rukia said the family had depended on Kimweri's monthly $80 salary from the Tanzania Prisons Force. The Tanzanian team managed to win two medals - a marathon gold won by Samson Ramadhan and a 10,000m bronze won by Fabiano Joseph. But the celebrations have been overshadowed by the disappearance of the boxers.
BBC NEWS REPORT.
RAPE CHARGES STILL FOR ZUMA!
Zuma judge rejects dismissal plea.
Mr Zuma had been seen as a possible future president. A South African judge has refused to end the rape trial of former Deputy President Jacob Zuma, dismissing a plea that there was a lack of evidence. The defence argued that the evidence presented by the state was not solid. But Judge Willem van der Merwe rejected the motion, and said the case would resume on Monday, when Mr Zuma may be called to take the witness stand. Mr Zuma, 63, denies raping a family friend at his home in November. He also denies separate corruption charges. Mr Zuma admits to having sex with the 31-year-old woman, but says it was consensual.
The case has attracted huge publicity and court sessions have drawn demonstrations by groups both for and against Jacob Zuma. Women's groups have been critical of the trial and the cross-examination of the woman at the heart of it, who is HIV positive and an Aids activist. Supporters of Mr Zuma have at times stood outside the court and jeered as she arrived at the courthouse. Mr Zuma - a veteran of the ANC struggle to end apartheid and a favourite of the party's left wing - was once thought a likely successor to Thabo Mbeki as South African president. But the allegations of rape and corruption are thought by many to have ended that prospect. A separate corruption trial is scheduled to begin in the Durban High Court in July.
BBC NEWS REPORT.
HANDSETS GET TAKEN TO THE GRAVE!
'Hello? Could someone let me out?'
More people than ever are asking to be buried or cremated with their mobile phones when they die, say researchers. The trend, which began in South Africa, has now spread to a number of countries, including Ireland, Australia, Ghana, and the US. Martin Raymond, director of international trend-spotting think-tank, The Future Laboratory said that this had started off "in the realm of the urban myth", but was fast becoming fact. "You hear about it, the idea that people are being buried with their mobile phones, but you can't really believe it," he told the BBC World Service's Culture Shock programme. He explained that the first cases of people asking to be buried with their phone originated in Cape Town, where some people's belief in witchcraft meant they feared that "they could fall under a spell, be put to sleep and actually be buried. "In fact, they were asking for the phones to be put into the coffins with them in case they woke up."
Mr Raymond said that in Australia the trend was more about affluence. "People wanted to be buried with the totems that they felt represented their lifestyle," he explained. Ancient Egyptians were buried with goods for the next life."We came across one guy who asked to be buried with his mobile phone and his Blackberry, and also with his laptop." He added that in many cases, being buried with your phone is part of what he termed limelight funerals, people wanting to be buried like celebrities. The phone is put in the coffin along with diamonds, jewellery, expensive suits, and gold watches. In some places, however, the practice has parallels with a much more distant time, as being buried along with one's possessions can be traced to ancient Egypt.
In the days of Tutankhamen it was done because they believed literally that the objects would be available to them in the afterlife. However, in modern times some people are finding they like the idea of being buried with the things that defined them while they were alive. "When we looked at this in Chad and Ghana, there was part of that implicit in the burial service - that you were taking things with you that would be useful," Mr Raymond said. "In Ireland, where we came across this, it was more to do with people being buried with things they liked. One guy we came across was buried with a pack of cigarettes and some matches. "Another was buried with his favourite teddy bear, given to him by his girlfriend."
In some cases, they are even taking their mobiles into cremation. A beloved bear is one of the comforts taken to the grave." We came across this in places like South Carolina in the US - people were being burned but unknown to the crematorium, they had left the phones in their jackets," Mr Raymond said. "If you heat a mobile phone battery, it tends to explode, and the first reports were about explosions, and that's how they started noticing this trend." Some funeral parlours will now arrange for the phone put into the box with the ashes following the cremation. And one service in South Africa will put a number of batteries in the coffin just in case the dead person wakes up much later and finds their own battery has run out.
BBC NEWS REPORT.
WORLD PREMIERE OF RWANDA GENOCIDE FILM!
Shooting Dogs gets world premiere.
Hundreds of Rwandans appear in the film as extras. Rwandan genocide film Shooting Dogs had its world premiere at a football stadium in the capital Kigali on Monday in front of 1,500 guests. Culture Minister Habineza Joseph joined survivors of the 1994 massacres and their families at the screening. The film features hundreds of Rwandans, including some genocide survivors.
It was screened at the Amnesty Film Festival in The Netherlands earlier this month but the Rwandan screening is being billed as the world premiere. It centres on events at a school complex in Kigali in 1994 when the militia attacked people hiding inside after the UN pulled out of the site. Directed by Michael Caton-Jones, it stars John Hurt as a priest and Hugh Dancy as a teacher who have to decide whether to leave the Rwandans to their fate and save themselves or stand with them and face the consequences. "The film-making was a most rewarding experience for the thousands of Rwandans who participated," said Mr Habineza.
"The story that is told in the film is an important contribution to this country's recent history and I believe can help in the process of reconciliation that we have been building in Rwanda for more than a decade," he added. The UK premiere will take place on Thursday in London, ahead of its nationwide release on Friday.
BBC NEWES REPORT.
QUOTES
"POLITICIANS ARE THE SAME ALL OVER.
THEY PROMISE TO BUILD BRIDGES
EVEN WHEN THERE ARE NO RIVERS"!
~ NIKITA KHRUCHCHEV
GAMBIANS ARRESTED OVER COUP!
Arrests over Gambia 'coup plot'.
President Jammeh took power in a coup and won elections in 2001. At least 27 Gambians, including former army officers and top officials, have been arrested over last week's alleged coup plot. Six of them were shown on national television for almost two hours. They admitted to planning to topple President Yahya Jammeh and appealed for mercy. One said he had been instructed to liaise with neighbouring Senegal. President Jammeh, who seized power in 1994, has vowed to crush any attempt to overthrow him "without mercy". "I will set an example that [will] put an end to... treachery and sabotage," he said at the weekend.
The alleged mastermind, former army chief of staff Mbure Cham, has reportedly fled to Senegal, which surrounds The Gambia. Gambian authorities have asked Senegal to arrest him. President Jammeh seized power in a 1994 coup and won a second term in 2001. He seeks re-election this year. There have been a number of high-profile army sackings in the past year or so. Late last year, Gambian police arrested three leading opposition figures in what the government said was part of a probe into a national security threat.
BBC NEWS REPORT.
MAYBE BE CASTRATION IS THE ANSWER?
Kenyan schoolgirls raped on march.
Three of the girls are critically ill in hospital. At least 15 schoolgirls in Kenya were raped during a night-time protest march in the central district of Nyeri. Hundreds of pupils had stormed out of school in the middle of the night to go to the district commissioner's office to demand better conditions. The BBC's Wanyama wa Chebusiri in Nyeri says three of those attacked are critically ill in hospital. The victims say as they were marching a gang of local villagers attacked them, raping at least 15 girls in turn.
"Unfortunately their screams could have been confused with the excited shouts of protesters," a student on the march told Kenya's East African Standard newspaper. Our correspondent says almost 700 Kanguburi Girls High School pupils chose to make the 10-15km walk at night to disguise their identities. Police say they are investigating the matter, but no arrests have been made. The school's headmistress spent much of Monday in an emergency meeting with local education authorities, our reporter says.
BBC NEWS REPORT.
SOUTH AFRICAN PRISONERS ON HUNGER STRIKE!
HIV prisoners stage hunger strike.
Prisoners say they have to pay for the treatment. Inmates at a prison in South Africa have begun a mass hunger strike to demand free HIV treatment. Some 242 inmates at Durban's Westville prison began refusing food after months of negotiations with the government. A spokesman for the prisoners, Xolani Ncemu, said the strike was scheduled to last three days but could be extended. South Africa's government currently hands out anti-retroviral drugs to about 50,000 of the approximately 6m South Africans who are HIV positive. Although there is nothing stopping the government providing prisoners with free HIV treatment, inmates at Westville complain they have to pay for the necessary identity documents.
The BBC's Nick Miles, in Johannesburg, says other prisons say they cannot give out the drugs because their hospitals have not been accredited to issue anti-retrovirals. Others say that there are security risks involved in taking prisoners into ordinary hospitals to receive treatment. "We are sick, we are sick," Mr Ncemu told AFP news agency from Westville prison. "We want the minister to come and hear our demands," he said. An HIV/Aids group based at one South African university is preparing to back the prisoners by raising their case in the country's high court next month.
BBC NEWS REPORT.
IT'S A FACT
THE WORLD'S OLDEST PAINTINGS ARE IN CAVES
IN FRANCE - THEY ARE 32,000 YEARS OLD!
PLANE STOLEN FROM JOHANNESBURG AIRPORT.
SA plane robbery - 'inside job'.
SAA is trying to increase security. Police in South Africa suspect that the theft of a reported $16m from a plane inside Johannesburg's airport may have been an inside job. The cash had been flown in from the UK and was being transported to Tanzania and one other African country. A police spokesman said they had made no arrests and had no firm leads in the airport's biggest robbery.
A gang armed with AK-47s were able to access the plane inside a supposedly top security section of the airport. They reportedly held up security guards and police officers and escaped without a shot being fired on Saturday morning. "Our detectives haven't slept all night and they will continue working around the clock to catch the suspects," said senior police superintendent Vish Naidoo. "We view this matter in a serious light and I must emphasise that we will leave no stone unturned to get to the bottom of it." "But now, part of our theory will be that this was an inside job," he said.
South African Airways, which owns the Boeing 747 plane, said it was seeking a meeting with the airport authorities to discuss security arrangements.
BBC NEWS REPORT.
QUOTES
"IF YOU WANT TO STAND OUT,
DON'T BE DIFFERENT,
BE OUTSTANDING"!
Meredith West.
Posted by: Mara at March 25, 2006 23:34 |
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NO COCA-COLA IN ZIMBABWE!
Zimbabwe Coca-Cola stocks dry up.
Bottling plants have run out of imported syrup. Zimbabwe has run out of locally manufactured Coca-Cola. Retailers were told bottling plants in Zimbabwe had run out of the imported syrup used to make the drink and supplies would resume later this month. The cola drought is the latest symptom of a foreign currency crisis gripping the country. Agents in Harare for the US-based soft drink company said local production of the drink had stopped earlier this month, but refused to give a reason. However, Coca-Cola agents told shop and bar owners that syrup had not been imported owing to foreign currency shortages, AP news agency reports.
Coca-Cola is normally available even in small villages in Zimbabwe, and supplies continued even throughout the bush war that led to independence in 1980. Zimbabweans have endured shortages of fuel and basic foodstuffs in recent years, as a result of a foreign currency shortage. The government blames the crisis on sanctions, while its opponents say a controversial land reform programme is responsible for a sharp drop in agricultural export earnings.
BBC NEWS REPORT.
NEW FA BOSS IN ZIMBABWE!
Zimbabwe FA elects new boss.
Steve Vickers - BBC Sport, Harare.
Nyatanga is a former boss of the Premier Soccer League.Wellington Nyatanga has been elected as the new chairman of the Zimbabwe Football Association (Zifa). Nyatanga, who beat Cuthbert Dube by 17 votes to eight, takes over from Rafik Khan, who was jailed earlier this month. Saturday's elections mark the end of a 15-month Fifa plan aimed at ending the political troubles in the Zimbabwean game.
A longstanding dispute between two factions within Zifa had seen Zimbabwe at risk of a ban from the world governing body. "We're happy that the process of the roadmap ended today," said Ashford Mamelodi, Fifa's development officer for Africa, who oversaw the elections. "We want to believe that this has cleansed the system and you will all forget the troubles."
Nyatanga, a former chairman of the premier league, has called on all stakeholders in Zimbabwean football to close ranks and work together. "I'd like to see total unity within football, we need to work as a team, government included," he said. "My priority is qualification for the 2008 Nations Cup." The new Zifa board members are expected to attend a training course to be organised by the government-run Sports Commission in April. This follows criticism from state president Robert Mugabe, who had accused Zifa of mismanaging the game in the Southern African country.
BBC NEWS REPORT.
CATHY's weekly letter from Zimbabwe.
Million Dollar Loaf?
Saturday 25th March 2006
Dear Family and Friends,
0Almost every night now the electricity goes off for at least two hours and that's if we are lucky. In the last week the daily power cuts have ranged from 1 to 6 hours at a time and they almost always coincide with the main evening TV news bulletin. In these circumstances it is very hard to keep track of what is happening in the country - both news and propaganda. Frankly most people would rather not know anymore as it's all just too shameful. On the one evening when both electricity and news were on at the same time this week, I watched a group of agricultural experts presenting the facts and figures about the imminent winter wheat crop. It made me feel very afraid for Zimbabwe.
According to the permanent secretary in the Ministry of Agriculture, Zimbabwe is planning to plant one hundred and ten thousand hectares of wheat this winter. If everything was as it should be, this hectarage would yield four hundred thousand tonnes of wheat - this, coincidentally, is almost exactly how much wheat the country needs for a year. According to the agricultural experts though, this 110 000 hectares is unrealistic in the extreme and three main farming unions said that at best they would only be able to plant 45 000 hectares this winter. The reasons were glaringly obvious. A shortage of tractors for ploughing was one reason, no fuel was another and then there were the nitty gritty's like money, pesticides, fertilizer and irrigation. A pesticide expert said there are currently only enough chemicals in stock to treat thirty thousand hectares of wheat - just over a quarter of the government planned crop. Referring to crippling controlled prices imposed by the state, the fertilizer representative said that unless government allowed them to charge viable prices they would go out of business. The expert didn't give figures but said there was currently "hardly any fertilizer in the country" and that 72 000 tonnes would be needed for the wheat crop. The final "challenge" to the winter wheat crop was apparently going to be ZESA . (Zimbabwe Electricity Supply Authority) The experts pointed out that wheat is dependant on irrigation and said that any periods of "outage would derail the crop." Outages, in ordinary English, are power cuts and the acronym ZESA, it is now joked, stands for Zimbabwe Electricity Sometimes Available.
In March 2005 a loaf of bread was four thousand eight hundred dollars. In March 2006 that same loaf is sixty six thousand dollars. Unless something dramatic happens in the next few weeks and assuming prices continue to rise at their present rate, a loaf of bread in March 2007 will be nine hundred and eight thousand dollars. Imagine, almost a million dollars for a loaf, what shame upon Zimbabwe. It is impossible to believe that just six years ago we were called the "Breadbasket of Africa".
Until next week, love cathy.
MONTHLY NECESSITIES!
Period misery for Kenya schoolgirls.
By Anne Mawathe BBC, Nairobi.
A large number of girls in rural Kenya skip school at the time of their menstruation because they cannot afford to buy sanitary towels or tampons. It's estimated some girls miss more than a month of school each year The cost of these monthly necessities has been highlighted by women campaigners in Zimbabwe, where the economic crisis has led to shortages and prohibitive prices. But it is a problem experienced by many across Africa, and Kenya in particular, where 54% of people live on less than $1 a day. "I normally lie. I always say that I'm sick at the time of my period," says Soudah Gurhan, a student in Wajir, north-eastern Kenya. Zainabu Mohammed, a teacher at Wajir's Dambas primary school, says this is the case with many of her female pupils. "The children that can't afford them miss lessons until their period is over. When they report to classes, they normally say that they were sick because they have no other reason to give out," she says. It is estimated that an average girl loses more than a full month of classes in a school year.
Zimbabwe's sanitary towel shortage has led to an increase in infections. Those who cannot afford to buy sanitary towels resort to diverse methods, ranging from old pieces of cloth or used blankets to tissue paper or just remaining indoors to contain the menstrual flow. These methods are not only unhygienic, but a health hazard. The Girl Child Network, a non-governmental organisation, has been trying to address the problem by providing free sanitary towels in some Kenyan schools.
But Mercy Musomi, its executive director, says it is not enough just to hand out the towels as often the girls have never come across pads before. "When you give them sanitary towels they ask us: 'How are we going to use it? What will hold it?' For example in the Rift Valley area, some girls folded them and inserted them like tampons," she says. "Instead of just giving them something that they can't use, we are teaching them first, we've created programmes." In some African countries, reusable pads are used, but Ms Musomi believes it is out of the question for Kenya to go down that road. "Up country there is no water. So if they lack even clean water to drink, how are they going to get the water to wash the reusables?" The government has waived taxes on sanitary ware, but campaigners want them to further reduce the price. Civil rights groups are also calling on the government to distribute sanitary towels for free to school-going girls. But as these options are weighed, girls and women in rural Kenya remain at the mercy of market forces.
BBC NEWS REPORT.
CONTROVERSIAL PLAY IN ZIMBABWE!
Zimbabweans permit protest pregnancy.
The character of Marwei is supposed to be 13 months pregnant. Despite a crackdown on dissenting voices in Zimbabwe - where President Robert Mugabe has ruled for more than 25 years - censors have allowed a controversial play to complete its run in the capital, Harare. Pregnant With Emotion, featuring some of the country's best-known figures in the arts, is about a child that refuses to be born until there is a change of leadership. It has played to good audiences for two weeks and there are plans to tour the country next month.
The political satire was written by stand-up comedian Edgar Langeveldt and Raisedon Baya, who scripted Morons - a play that was banned two years ago. Marwei, played by Thembi Ngwabi, is 13 months pregnant and her unborn child - symbolising Zimbabwe's future - refuses to leave the womb until the country's problems are solved. Each time the unborn child predicts the unhappy events about to befall its parents, Marwei slaps her backside and holds her stomach in searing pain. Marwei's husband Noah, played by Mandhla Moyo, is a civil servant and strong supporter of the government and the ruling Zanu-PF party. But he loses his job and they are evicted from their home in last year's government slum demolition campaign, Operation Murambatsvina [Drive out rubbish].
"What kind of father kicks the children out of the house in the middle of a cold night?" poet Chirikure Chirikure asks, as the couple prepare to sleep on the street. This commentary is accompanied by the music of a mbira, a traditional thumb piano, played by well known music star Chiwoniso Maraire. "Whilst we are hungry, they feast. They are on the other side of the river and our eyes are now open. They are wide open," she says during the piece.
For Maraire, the image of the unborn child and the suffering that awaits it is very powerful. Mbira player Chiwoniso Maraire says the play's imagery is significant. "There's a lot of beauty in this world but there's also a lot of madness in this world. When you're a parent you do kind of ask yourself, was it wise to bring children into this existence?" she says. After losing their home, the couple are visited by a messenger from the spirit world who tells Noah that his problem is fear. "A fear to face the truth; a fear to die; a fear to do the right thing. Your enemies prey upon that fear Noah - they feed on it," the spirit says.
He leads Noah into a symbolic battle with the nation's leadership in which he fights for the mukombe, a wooden ladle used in ceremonies where chiefs are anointed."We know you suffered and we thank you but you have been paid enough, rewarded enough, compensated enough for your pain now it is time to pass the mukombe around," the leader is told during the battle. Zimbabwean theatre companies have tackled sensitve issues before, but for director and producer Daves Guzha, this production is a watershed. "For the first time we have come we've decided to talk about the actual problem," he said. "Whether it's within the Zanu-PF system or within the [opposition] MDC system, we're just saying the problem is leadership." Pregnant With Emotion has also been given extensive coverage in the state-run media. This, and the fact that the censorship board has allowed the play to complete its run in the capital, suggests that Zimbabwe's restrictive climate is changing.
BBC NEWS REPORT.
