CORONA [5] – LOCKDOWN OF ZIMBABWE

During the coming weeks, or more likely months, who knows, while we anxiously wait for the corona pandemic to blow away with the wind, as silently and unknown as it blew into our unfenced and nicely manicured garden to begin with, I will share with you some impressions and reflections from the countries i feel particularly attached to: Denmark, Botswana, Zimbabwe, Nepal and Bhutan. 

 

Photograph shows local residents queue to fill buckets and containers with water at a communal tap in Empompini in Cowdray Park, Bulawayo, Zimbabwe, in August 2019. Photo by Cynthia R Matonhodze/Bloomberg/Getty Images.

 

TUESDAY 30 MARCH 2020

CORORNA [5] – lockdown in ZIMBABWE

 

INTRODUCTION BY THE EDITOR

On Monday 29 March, President Mnangagwa declared 21-day lock-down of Zimbabwe, thus following developments in neighboring countries South Africa and Botswana, as well as developments elsewhere in the world. And like elsewhere in the world, the decision will hurt the economy. In the case of Zimbabwe, an economy already struggling with a drought, shortages of foreign exchange and a staggering unemployment rate of over 90%, forcing people to survive on informal trade – and the remittances from the four million Zimbabweans living outside the country, although this source of income will also be drying up, since the corona virus has put the global economy at the brink of disaster.

The President made it clear, that “Should it become necessary, security forces will be deployed to assist in the enforcement of these measures.” That would not have come as a surprise to his citizens, considering the “measures” people have become used to during many decades of authoritarian rule. Having become used to hardships under normal times, it is also very likely that Zimbabweans will be much better prepared to endure still more hardship than people in other countries.

A few days ago, I wrote about the ability of communities in Zimbabwe to deal with the virus, considering that poverty is also a virus, a constant one indeed. Right after publishing the article, I read an article by Thandekile Moyo in the “Maverick Citizen”, and I found this very useful to understand what is happening in Zimbabwe. She is a writer and human rights defender from Zimbabwe, now living abroad. For the past four years, she has been using print, digital and social media (Twitter: @mamoxn) to expose human rights abuses, bad governance and corruption. Thandekile Moyo holds an Honours degree in Geography and Environmental Studies from the Midlands State University in Zimbabwe.

 

ARTICLE BY THANDEKILE MOYO

WRITTEN FOR “Maverick Citizen” AND PUBLISHED ON 28 MARCH 2020.

Because the government is guilty of neglecting their mandate to provide public goods, they are going out of their way to hide information about the extent of infections in Zimbabwe. In their 40 years of power, Zimbabwe has let the health systems completely crumble, and if Covid-19 hits Zimbabwe as badly as we fear, it will be entirely their fault.

We have a mealie-meal crisis in Zimbabwe

There has been a shortage of the staple food and thus the price of mealie-meal shot up from $40 to anywhere between $150 and $200 by December 2019. Whenever a shop receives a delivery of mealie-meal, a queue immediately forms, and people jostle to buy. In these queues, there is absolutely no respect for personal space as people touch, rub against, lean on, push and shove each other for hours.

We have a transport crisis in Zimbabwe

The majority of Zimbabweans use public transport and most use ZUPCO buses, which charge a fraction of what minibus taxis charge. For these bus rides, people queue for hours and they carry more than 50 passengers per trip. The other option for public transport users is tiny cars (second-hand Honda Fits imported from Japan), that operate as pirate taxis and ferry at least six passengers per trip instead of the 3-4 passengers they were designed for. Daring operators add two more passengers in the car boot to increase their load per trip to eight or nine passengers. In these little taxis, people sit on each other, cough on each other, sneeze into each other’s faces, touch each other and sweat on each other.

We have a water crisis in Zimbabwe

The majority of Zimbabweans in both rural and urban areas have no access to running water. We fetch water from rivers, boreholes and wherever else we can. In cities, people can go for days without water. The excuses by the government for failure to provide adequate water and sanitation services vary from shortage of chemicals, to lack of damning infrastructure, to drought. Lack of access to clean water cost thousands of Zimbabweans their lives during the cholera outbreak of 2018.

We have an unemployment crisis in Zimbabwe

Independent statisticians have put it at above 90%. Many Zimbabweans have resorted to vending and various forms of self-employment in the informal sector. We have markets that house in the same vicinity: hardware hubs, carpentry workshops, car washes and vegetable markets – our towns and cities seem to have long abandoned town planning as wherever you go, there is someone selling something on the pavements, in street corners and in flea markets. These areas are overcrowded and have no “real” infrastructure, so many have no toilets and no running water. Food, clothes, car parts and whatever you can think of, are sold wherever, whenever by whoever.

We have a Covid-19 crisis looming in Zimbabwe

At a personal level, Zimbabweans cannot do much to prevent contracting or spreading Covid-19. There is no chance that people will social distance while jostling for mealie-meal or in overcrowded buses. There is no chance that we can correctly, constantly and consistently wash our hands under running water. There is no chance, unless literally at gunpoint, that Zimbabweans living from hand to mouth, will stay at home.

We have a production crisis in Zimbabwe

As a country, we produce very little. Most of our groceries and clothes are imported. The closing of borders to Malayitshas and cross border traders will plunge the country into a serious shortage of basic commodities, from toiletries to food. A lockdown will also be difficult to enforce as very few Zimbabweans have the capacity to buy food supplies for 21 days. Unless households are given food, it will be impractical to have a lockdown. People have to be able to leave the house every morning to hustle for money to buy food. Whatever most vendors make per day is for that night’s and the next day’s meals. The Zimbabwean government knows and fears this, hence their failure to close our borders, as evidenced by the people that were still going in and out of the country even after announcement on 23 March 2020 that Zimbabwean borders have been closed; and to lockdown the country as South Africa has done. They also know that it would be political suicide to force a population on the brink of starvation to stay at home.

We have a health crisis in Zimbabwe

Zimbabwean doctors have been complaining about the incapacitation of hospitals for years now. In 2019, they went on strike for months explaining that because they were not earning decent salaries, they could not even afford to transport themselves to and from work, and to feed themselves and their families. Central to their grievances, was the state of the hospitals and lack of equipment. The doctors explained that our hospitals are dilapidated and unequipped for the core business of treating patients. They said there were no surgical gloves in hospitals, no disinfectants, no drugs – nothing basically to help them do their jobs of treating the sick. They said they were frustrated and tired of going to work to preside over senseless, and preventable deaths due to hospitals’ incapacitation. In response to their grievances, the government fired doctors en masse.

Using the Zimbabwe ‘health system’: Real life experiences

In January 2020r, I took my cousin to our local hospital and they refused to treat her because she did not have the $140 consultation fee. Her mother is a teacher and at the time earned $1,000, an amount that could only buy her a combination of 30 loaves of bread at $15 each ($450), 10kg of mealie-meal at $150 and 5kg of meat. There was no chance she would have $140 lying around for emergencies such as this one. We sourced the money and paid, only to be told there was no doctor available and she would have to return the next day, despite her case being an emergency. The nurses, who had no idea what was wrong with her, even after consulting google and a textbook they had, told us it could be mumps and prescribed medication, but advised us that the hospital pharmacy was closed and we would have to find a private pharmacy. All this after paying an amount equivalent to 14% of her mother’s salary. They did not even have paracetamol.

This was how dire the situation was for hospitals, health personnel and patients prior to Covid-19 landing in Zimbabwe. Now that we are faced with the possibility of an outbreak, what chance does Zimbabwe have? We have already heard that doctors and nurses have gone on strike until they are given adequate personal protective equipment (PPE) to deal with the virus. Wilkins Infectious Diseases hospital, Harare’s isolation centre was shut down, reportedly for renovations, on 27 March 2020. It is clear that our health sector is at present unable to handle the looming Covid-19 outbreak.

On 20 March 2020, I posted this on twitter :

#Sigh. So Gwanda hospital has people exhibiting #Covid_19 symptoms,
Spoke to some,
Who said they’ve been investigated & cleared,
They aren’t quarantined.
I’m like wow!
So fast?
Turns out no tests done,
There are no test kits at the hospital,
Investigation was verbal
#ZanuPfMustGo
“They have no hand sanitizers at the wards,
They don’t even at the very least,
Have soaps for hand washing in the bathrooms.
They have face masks thou,
But that’s hardly enough.
There are kids with pneumonia,
Nurses says there’s a pneumonia “outbreak”.
#Covid_19
#ZanuPfMustGo”

An hour after I posted the tweets about the suspicious cases, the Minister of Health was on national TV announcing Zimbabwe’s first (official) Covid-19 positive patient.

We have a propaganda crisis in Zimbabwe

This has led to trust issues between the people and the state. We have no idea what part of the news reported by state media is factual and what part is misinformation? Up to that point, the government had been insisting that we had no positive cases yet in the country. A declaration many found to be suspicious considering the fact that by 20 March 2020, nearly 100 people had already tested positive in neighbouring South Africa. Also, a Chinese woman exhibiting Covid-19 symptoms died on her way to Wilkins Hospital, but authorities insisted she had not died of Covid-19. A British tourist to the Victoria Falls, who had fallen ill while still in Zimbabwe, had tested positive once he got back to England. Namibia had also announced that someone who had tested positive in Namibia had come from Zimbabwe two days before. Add the fact that we were still letting people from all over the world come in and out of the country at will, and it was puzzling how we had got to be so lucky. Many thought the government of Zimbabwe was not being honest.

The next morning, Nelson Chamisa, leader of the opposition MDC, announced on his Twitter page that two more people had tested positive for the virus. Government was then forced to make a statement, but they claimed only one more person had tested positive and the other patient’s results were inconclusive. It became apparent to many that the government was withholding information.

The death of Zororo Makamba

On 23 March 2020, we were shocked to hear of the death of Zororo Makamba, a 30-year-old pro-government journalist and son of James Makamba, a businessman and a former Zanu-PF member of parliament. He had succumbed to Covid-19. One wonders at what point the government discovered he was positive and why they had not informed the nation. Had Nelson Chamisa not spilled the beans, would they have told us? How many more people have died or recovered from the virus that the government is hiding?

Zororo is said to have landed at the Robert Mugabe International airport from New York on 10 March. He is alleged to have recorded a high fever upon entry. Airport staff wanted to detain him, but Zororo allegedly called someone who apparently then instructed airport officials not to quarantine him and he was allowed to leave the airport, unleashing Covid-19 on an unsuspecting public. He had several meetings over the next few days, including with someone from the office of the president and cabinet as well as someone from the ministry of finance. Speculation is high that he was chasing payment for his propaganda videos. He was also seen at Pablos nightclub, a high-end club in Borrowdale where the country’s rich kids (read Zanu-PF kids) party.

I posted this on Twitter after Zororo’s death:

“So govt of Zimbabwe,
Expects us to believe,
To accept,
That from the 10th of March when Zororo landed in Harare,
Going through customs,
On the drive home,
Reunions with loved ones,
Before he fell sick,
During his illness,
Until his death,
He didn’t infect anyone?
#ZanuPfMustGo”

Even after interacting with many people from the day he landed, the government is mum on who else was infected by Zororo, or at least suspected to have been infected. Since his death, three more people have tested positive, but the nation is yet to be given details on the new infections.

It is said Covid-19 is more infectious than the flu. In other countries, it is spreading like a wildfire. We have heard of South Korea’s “patient 31”, whose case explains just how infectious this virus is, but the government of Zimbabwe expects the nation to believe that Zororo, who was allowed to roam around freely despite exhibiting symptoms, did not infect other people.

Zororo’s brother told the nation that staff at Wilkins Hospital were afraid of being around Zororo. He alleges that they would leave him unattended for hours and Zororo would call home telling them he was not being attended to. They were helpless because they were not allowed into the hospital. He says the doctor in charge switched off his phone. According to Zororo’s brother, Wilkins Hospital has no ventilators and even after they sourced one privately, the hospital failed to use it as there were no compatible electrical sockets in the hospital. The family apparently called the president to intervene, but even that could not save Zororo.

One wonders if one so monied and well connected could not get treatment, do ordinary Zimbabweans have a chance?

We have a corruption crisis in Zimbabwe

The story of Zororo Makamba is a sad but illuminating tale. It is appalling that we are led by people who, as a “favour” can allow someone exhibiting one of the most telling symptoms of Covid-19 to avoid quarantine. It illuminates the dangerous privilege, corruption, negligence, abuse of power, elite capture of institutions, failure and collapse of health institutions, the gap between the rich and the poor, and the absolute lack of readiness by Zimbabwe to deal with Covid-19 or any other crisis for that matter – much the same way the government failed to deal with Cyclone Idai, drought, cholera and typhoid before. It exposes the extent to which the government of the day is unsuitable to rule.

We have a leadership crisis in Zimbabwe

Covid-19 is exposing the failure of Zimbabwe as a state and the disaster that is Emmerson Mnangagwa. The current leaders are insensitive and completely detached from the suffering of the masses. In a clear display of cluelessness, instead of coming up with a context specific message, the president copied and pasted the general “how to prevent coronavirus” message on his Twitter feed. He advised us to practice social distancing. Does he know, or care about the mealie-meal shortage and transport situations? He advised washing of hand. Does he know we have no water? He says people must stay at home, but he then immediately got on a flight to Namibia. How does he expect this to work when we survive on odd jobs and vending? The president must first address these pertinent issues and tailor a strategy to curb Covid-19 that takes those issues into consideration.

Wilkins Hospital reportedly asked the government for $ 6.7 million to get the hospital ready for Covid-19, but they were apparently only allocated a mere $ 100,000. During that time, Mnangagwa flew to Namibia [for the presidential inauguration], on a hired private jet that flew from Dubai to Harare to take him on the hour-long trip to Namibia. How does one explain such gross extravagance at a time when the nation is facing an outbreak our hospitals cannot handle? Around that time, Mthuli Ncube, Mnangagwa’s Minister of Finance, was also gallivanting in Europe where pictures of him shaking people’s hands were taken. Was he quarantined upon return?

A day after the shipment of donations from Jack Ma landed in Zimbabwe, pictures of Mnangagwa holding a meeting of people wearing Zanu-PF regalia and face masks circulated on social media? Where did they get the masks? At a time when doctors and nurses have no personal protective equipment, they saw it fit to waste the scarce masks on themselves. What a shame.

We have a marginalisation crisis in Zimbabwe

Covid-19 is also exposing the extent to which the Zanu-PF government has been marginalising many parts of the country – most rural areas and all of Matebeleland since 1980. As it is, the government is in a panic and trying to refurbish Wilkins Hospital, and accused of getting an elitist Covid-19 centre ready for the ruling political elite. What about the rest of the country? The whole of Matebeleland province only has Thorngrove Hospital, a rundown infectious diseases hospital that has no capacity to handle any illness. So where is the rest of Zimbabwe going to go if the virus spreads? We cannot all go to Harare.

We have a political crisis in Zimbabwe

Because the government is guilty of neglecting their mandate to provide public goods, they are going out of their way to hide information about the extent of infections in Zimbabwe. In their 40 years of power, Zimbabwe has failed to build hospitals and clinics, or to maintain the hospitals built by the Rhodesians. They let the health systems completely crumble and if Covid-19 hits Zimbabwe as badly as we fear, it will be entirely their fault. Millions of people are going to suffer and thousands risk dying unnecessarily because of the state of our health sector.

Because of all these crises, Zimbabwe is an unfolding disaster. The government, which has misgoverned the country for decades, has neither capacity nor desire to deliver on matters of national and public interest. They just do not care.

My only prayer is that geographical and environmental factors like our weather, the age of people concentrated in the cities and sheer luck will protect us. This is a terrible, frightening and also infuriating situation. We have no reason to be experiencing this uncertainty. Covid-19 may be a natural disaster, but if it spreads in Zimbabwe, its effects will be entirely man-made.

God save Zimbabwe.

 

MONDAY 30 MARCH 2020

corona [4] – THE empty streets OF kathmandu

 

INTRODUCTION BY THE EDITOR

On a normal day, Kathmandu, the capital of Nepal, is unquestionably one of the most polluted in the world, one reason being the number of vehicles [cars as well as motorcycles] needed to bring the three million plus people living in the Kathmandu Valley to and from their workplaces. This is also the reason why on any normal day, you will find many people wearing a facemask, not because they are afraid of a particular virus or diseases in general. I am not sure the exact number of people dying from pollution is known, but my guess would be that they should be counted in the thousands. Despite of the traffic that takes hours to navigate, and the fine particles of dust filling your nostrils, I have always enjoyed my visits to Kathmandu. I enjoy the streets of the old sections of town filled with people walking shoulder to shoulder. I love the old parts of town with the beautiful buildings. I never tire of the Hindu and Buddhist places of worship, filled with both Nepali citizens and the hordes of tourists coming to get a feel of the country.

I sent a message to Shrishti Rana, a former colleague during my years of working for the Danish Institute for Parties and Democracy [Shrishti still works for DIPD as the Representative for Nepal], my mentor into the intricacies of politics in Nepal, and now a dear and close friend, asking what the corona situation was like. She told me that Kathmandu was right now not at all the city I used to visit. Just like my own city of Copenhagen is a different city altogether right now. When I asked her to reflect on the situation in her country, she accepted the challenge right away. Below you will find her contribution, and most likely not the last contribution from Nepal.

 

STORY BY SHRISHTI RANA

PHOTOGRAPH BY “KATHMANDU POST”

The streets of Kathmandu, which would be most crowded during this time of the year with excited and confused tourists milling around, are empty. There’s a sense of anxiety and apprehension in the air. The mountains look forlorn. Even when spring is coming!

For a majority of Nepalese, what’s happening is not unprecedented. We encountered a similar threat to our lives recently, when the massive earthquake accompanied by a series of big and small aftershocks struck Nepal in 2015. Soon afterwards, we were subjected to a blockade of essential goods from India, due to differences between two countries on a few political issues. We also lived with constant insecurity to our lives and frequent lockdowns during the armed conflict that had lasted till one and half decade ago. And, almost every year, we go through one or the other natural disaster. These experiences have made us accustomed to living amid shortages of food, fuel and future.

For months following the corona virus outbreak in China, it didn’t seem to sink in within us despite our borders with China. As it is, people dying from simple diseases is not strange to us; in 2017, around 7882 people including children had died from minor diarrheal diseases. Not surprisingly, rather than taking it seriously, we joked that Nepalese are used to so much dust, pollution, and pesticide-contaminated food that we would be immune to the corona virus as well. Our tourism minister also  advertised Nepal as a “Corona Virus Free” destination to attract tourists even from China when the epidemic was at its peak there.

As the infected numbers proliferated around the world, Nepal reportedly detected one positive case. The World Health Organisation also put Nepal into a list of high-risk countries. The government was compelled to respond and prepare for the crisis. One of the first actions we observed from the government was screening in our only international airport in Kathmandu. Unfortunately, this triggered nervousness among more aware citizens like me because it demonstrated that our government is trying its best, but failing miserably in the implementation side. The passengers coming from the highly affected countries were not quarantined and the staff checking their fever in the airport did not have any protective gears. The government would make right policy decisions such as increasing the capacity of ICU’s, but they would not carry them out in practice. One thing was sky-clear: if the mass transmission of virus occurred in Nepal, then millions could die due to our weak governance including poor health services.

Yet, most Nepalese were in their own la-la land. Even senior political leaders that we work with were saying, “Oh! Nothing will happen here.” When I told my father, who is well-educated and well-informed, to take precautions, he said, “Just take it easy. Nothing will happen here. An astrologer has said that Nepal does not need to worry.” I must admit that we in Nepal are not the most rational people around. Most of us can assume that nothing like the corona virus spread would take place in our country even though the evidence shows otherwise. Interestingly, it was reported that in many remote areas people experienced washing hands with soaps for the first time and they could not understand why they had to wash their hands so many times in a day. Based on all the above, I can claim that till mid-March, the corona virus scare had not really reached the youngest South Asian republic.

Suddenly, on 23rd March 2020, the government announced a complete lockdown after a nineteen-year-old girl coming from France via Doha was tested positive. As of now, five have been tested positive. Now, Nepalese seem to be finally coming to grips with the pandemic. There is a sense that so far, the numbers are low because testing has been limited due to inadequate testing kits. Understandably, people are concerned that virus transmission has already happened but not been tracked. The news from Europe and America have fueled our fears, because we feel if such resourceful countries could suffer like that, then what about us? Then, there’s also deep-rooted ignorance among some of us. Yesterday, I heard a deeply worried man in the street saying, “Now virus transmission will be airborne even if there are no infected patients.” People in this category are scared to come out of their houses even for essential groceries and seem mentally disturbed.

Personally, I feel a sense of helplessness, not just for the people in my country but also for my friends in Europe and America. Thinking about so many people dying and suffering is heart-wrenching. It’s impossible to eat, sleep or just be, without getting that stale sour feeling piercing all over your body. I am coping by trying to avoid the news as far as possible. It seems the most effective way, you can help right now, is by staying at home, and this is an unusual and uncomfortable position to be in.

I also see a ray of optimism in this situation. Perhaps for the first time in our human history, we are all sharing common fears, griefs and uncertainties irrespective of our nationalities. The divide between rich and poor nations seems irrelevant when it comes to the corona virus spread. Hopefully, this experience will foster a new global unity that’s urgently required to deal with many of the similar challenges in the future.

 

SUNDAY 29 MARCH 2020

corona [3] – IS POVERTY also A VIRUS?

Before flying straight back to Copenhagen from Gaborone in Botswana on Monday 16 March, I spent the weekend communicating to friends in Zimbabwe about my decision not to come to visit them as planned, considering the speed with which the corona virus was now spreading, and how borders were likely to close all over. It was a sad, but necessary, exercise. I had looked forward to meeting all of them again. They were kind enough to tell me that I was doing the right thing. I needed to go home! My family needed me back home! Maybe Zimbabwe would not even allow me to enter when I arrived at the airport! They were not sure if the health system would be able to cope!

Well, this is not entirely true. Most of them pointed out that the health system in Zimbabwe would NOT be able to take care of me in the manner my own country would. Nor take care of others for that matter. Like almost everything else in this beautiful and resource-rich country, things had been spiraling downwards in what could best be characterized as some grotesque form of suicidal dance. Before the November 2017 military-led toppling of President Mugabe, resulting in former Vice-President Mnangagwa assuming the role as President, the deteriorating social conditions could be explained by Mugabe’s rule since Independence in 1980. Following the elections in June 2018, officially resulting in a hair-splittingly narrow victory to Mnangagwa, he has to assume responsibility. After all, he campaigned on a platform of CHANGE, undoing the fall into the abyss that was the combined result of the unfair practices of the Mugabe era. Today many Zimbabweans are poorer than they were in 1980, and certainly poorer than in 1990. Also, health services are in worse shape than in the past.

A few days after my communication to friends in Zimbabwe, I received a message from one of them, describing the health situation in one of the rural districts that I used to work with back in the 90s. For reasons I am sure you will understand, I will not mention the name of the district, nor the source of the information. The following is my summary of the information I received:

Today there is only 1 [one] doctor in the district, covering 300.000 people [my estimate]. There used to be 4 [four] doctors. There are 2 [two] clinics officers. The district has 22 health facilities and 2 hospitals. They face perennial cases of malaria, so malaria is one of the worst enemies in the district. Last year, the district had the highest numbers of maternal mortality, mainly due to inaccessibility of health facilities and also religious beliefs. It also had the highest number of human anthrax cases last year. This is mainly due to animal vaccination issues and also resistance in some communities. Those are the big 3 problems when it comes to diseases.

Staff shortages are serious. There were a lot of nurse transfers last year. The dental unit closed because the technician resigned. The 3 doctors given to the district last year refused to go to the district. Currently there is no local fueling station, so sometimes there is not enough fuel to go around the clinics and even transport patients. Water shortage is serious. The hospital is relying mainly on one bush pump in the hospital (sharing with community) and also an electricity powered borehole in the nutritional garden. The hospital has no solar system to save as backup – it receives power over night mostly, but sometimes it operates for days without. There are two generators, but fuel remains a challenge.

All of this is the work of the poverty virus having ruled the district with determination for decades, supported by the equally determined individuals responsible for the mismanagement of the human and natural resources that do exist. It should therefore not come as a surprise that the communication from the district ends like this:

Regarding the Corona: The hospital has just held a stakeholder sensitisation meeting. The physio department was identified as an isolation ward. But there are no resources at all to manage the cases if they come.

A few days later, another friend alerted me to another illustration of why it could be difficult for Zimbabwe to manage an attack by Corona with the same aggressive approach that we have seen in countries like Italy and Spain. In a disturbing development, Zimbabwean doctors and nurses went on strike on Wednesday in the middle of the pandemic. The doctors and nurses both cited the lack of protective clothing to protect them from the dangers of the coronavirus as their reason for downing tools. The Zimbabwe Hospital Doctors Association [ZHDA] wrote to the government advising them that they do not have the necessary tools to allow them to work on the frontlines fighting the deadly coronavirus. This is the full letter from the ZHDA to the Clinical Director Chief Executive Officers at Harare Central Hospital:

Dear Sir, pursuant to the meeting we had on Monday 23 March 2020, in which we communicated to you our genuine grievances and expressed our fears concerning this deadly pandemic which has not spared healthcare workers as well. We expected an urgent response in writing from your office which has not come up until now. We have expressed to you the issue of PPE which is still not yet available. The way in which the Hospital is to be functioning still remains vague. Whilst you continue to run around putting things in place, we would like to make it clear in no uncertain terms that our members will not be able to continue carrying out their duties with immediate effect. Any inconvenience caused regarding this position we have taken is sincerely regrettable, but it was necessitated by a communication breakdown between the top management and frontline doctors. Given the urgency of the matter and the need for social distancing, a hardcopy version of the same letter will be hand-delivered when the conditions are permissive. Dr Tawanda Zvakada, ZHDA President.

I know that my Zimbabwean friends would have liked to tell me that I should not worry about coming to Zimbabwe, because I would be safe in case I fell ill. I also know that they will find the strength to manage yet another crisis if it arrives at their doorstep. They have done so on innumerable occasions, like when the combination of poverty, drought and mismanagement sends two-three-four or five million Zimbabweans to survive at the mercy of food aid. Which is what is in fact the case right now. Close to all of the 300.000 people in the district I have told you about depend on food aid right now. How do we expect them to handle the Corona pandemic when it hits them?

 

THURSDAY 26 MARCH 2020

corona [2] – blaming the chinese

A few weeks ago, while I was in Botswana, the South Africa media “Daily Maverick”, which daily provides me with most of my information on developments in Africa, featured the cartoon I am using for this corona posting. It is certainly not a nice way of characterizing the President of the United States, and no comparison of him with the virus makes the life-threatening nature of the corona virus go away. Still, in his own unorthodox and shameful way, I also consider him a threat to humanity as I have been brought up to understand it, just like the virus is. I therefore felt that the cartoon was an appropriate way of illustrating the following message.

Some days ago, when watching CNN to get an idea of developments in the US, in particular developments in New York City, where my daughter and her family unfortunately happens to live right now, I heard President Trump blame the Chinese government for the virus now charging forcefully and purposefully forward, as if it [the virus that is] has made up its mind that the United States under Trump’s leadership should be made to pay a prize as high as possible. He repeatedly called it the CHINESE virus, or the WUHAN virus, deliberately pronouncing the words CHINESE and WUHAN very slowly, almost as if he was tasting each word carefully before they left his mouth, keeping them between his lips for as long as he could, before spitting them out into the world, where they would confuse or anger people depending on their inclination. And reminding us, once again, that this President will do anything he can, anywhere and at any time, to ensure that he is not to blame for anything. The others are. Always. Today his target is the CHINESE. Tomorrow it could just as well be the SHITHOLE AFRICANS. Trump himself is, after all, the most stable genius we have on this planet. I just finished reading the book with precisely that title, and apart from being hilarious in the Trump-like way, it is scary. It is really difficult to believe it is true.

Well, this takes me back to my beloved Botswana, today and 15 years ago. Back then, when I worked for the UN, one issue I had to discuss, officially as well as informally, was the rising number of Chinese coming to work and [it turned out] live more permanently in this vast country with a relatively small population. This was part of trade and investment agreements between the two countries, and it was no different from what took place in other African countries. China had been very active in Africa all the way back in the 60s and 70s, with large-scale and very visible infrastructure projects, rail stations, soccer stadiums, and the like. Now China was back with purpose and muscle, and with more people than in the earlier stages. Very much appreciated by those governments caring little about human rights or rights of any kind. But in many countries the Chinese were also seen as being cautious about interacting and integrating with the locals, and they were from time to time considered as a threat to local businesses, not least those in the informal sector. In Botswana there were several skirmishes of a violent nature.

Today, the Chinese are still there, and more dominant than ever according to friends I talked to. Not much had changed in the perception of the locals, who accepted they were there to stay, but did nothing to get in touch with them. However, they do understand the role China is playing for the economy of Botswana, and the government considers China to be a trusted and skillful partner. When President Masisi held a major press conference last week to present the strategy to combat the corona, he was asked which countries had come to the help of Botswana. His answer was quick and clear: “Our friends from China.” Had the same question been asked 15 years ago, when Botswana confronted the HIV/AIDS pandemic, with people literally dying as flies, I am sure the answer had been: “Our friends from United States.” President Bush and Bill Gates visited Botswana to express their willingness to help wage war on the virus.

Leaving Botswana this time around was easy, considering the few passengers on the flight from Gaborone to Johannesburg. A week earlier it had been different. The flight from Johannesburg had been almost full, and it included a large group of, yes, you are right, CHINESE, most likely residents of Botswana for the majority. Since most airplanes flying this route are small, the plane is parked far away from the departure building, and you are put on a bus to reach the plane. The bus was reasonably full, with two thirds being black and one third Chinese, and then the two odd whites of course. Blacks in one end, and Chinese in the other end. There was no conversation taking place, only the eyes secretly eying the others. I was wondering if the blacks knew more than I did, because instinctively my sense was that it would be very unlikely if any of the Chinese came from Wuhan, so why worry. Later, I learned that news media in Botswana printed maps of Africa showing which cities in China were the predominant links into African countries. Although Botswana is green on the map you can see below the text, the anxiety in the bus could be felt physically, almost like the heat is felt during the peak of summer.

 

SUNDAY 15 MARCH 2020

corona [1] – under african stars

Our game ranger on the Sunday evening drive has stopped her open seated Land Rover close to the only real tree to be seen for miles. The sun is now set just behind the top of the tree, but half an hour later it has disappeared in a sea of yellow and red and shades of both. The ranger has left the vehicle to see if she can find tracks of a cheetah that has been spotted in the area hours earlier. No tracks! But she is determined to show us something memorable on our last game drive, before we return to Denmark. We explain that just driving through the bush under the star-spotted sky is plenty memorable for us. The silence is devastating, and the smell of dust in our noses and the occasional scent of animals passing by is comforting in a strange way. We tell her that we feel at home, here, under the stars. What more can one wish for, when the world is falling apart?

We had been scrambling frantically for the last couple of days, since Jeppe Kofod, the young Danish Minister of Foreign Affairs, who was now being seriously tested for the first time in the job he had been holding for a little more than six months, on Friday 13 March in a press conference announced the new reality to his fellow citizens:

“If you consider travelling abroad, don’t. If you are already abroad, find a way to get home as quickly as possible.”

It seemed like Friday 6 March, just a week ago and the day we had left Copenhagen on a tour to Botswana [both of us] and Zimbabwe [only me], was years ago. Botswana was our home for three years in 2003-2005, and we had not met the people on our list of visits for 15 years. We had been looking forward to these meetings, wondering what turns and twists their lives had taken, how their children were doing, and through them get a sense of how the country was faring. Zimbabwe was an even older friend than Botswana, since we lived there in the early 90s, but we had visited more recently, and this time it was only me going, to visit a few places I needed to see, touch and smell to be able to finish my book project. We had followed the corona experience of China, and we had read about Danes being infected in ski resorts in Northern Italy. So yes, we knew of course that the virus was out there, somewhere and somehow. We never seriously considered cancelling the trip. We also did not have the sense that this was what the Danish authorities would want us to do. But at the end of the week, we knew that our world had changed as well.

During the first days in Botswana, we greeted friends as we had always done, energetically hugging, holding hands, laughing face to face at stories about the good old days. Mid-week the news about what might in the worst-case scenario also happen in Botswana started running through the streets of Gaborone, as quickly as the virus did elsewhere in the world. Hugging was replaced by elbow touching and feet kicking. When we arrived at the game lodge on the other side of the border, in South Africa, on Saturday 14 March, we had our temperature taken at the border and were met with a precautionary distance by the hosts at the lodge. All guests were careful.

Theoretically, we might have been able to change our tickets or buy new ones right after we had heard from the Minister of Foreign Affairs on Friday 13. However [as we would learn the hard way], with South African Airlines on the brink of bankruptcy, cancelling several departures from Gaborone every day, it was difficult to figure out how to get connected with international flights out of Johannesburg. It did not help that we were unable to get through to any relevant office, probably because we were not the only ones scrambling to get tickets changed. The SAA office practice of opening later and closing earlier than announced was not helpful either.

At the end of Friday evening we gave up on having my ticket changed – from leaving for Harare and stay in Zimbabwe all of March, to returning to Denmark with Anne right away. We bought a new ticket, the last one on offer on the same flight. Considering how the world was now behaving, we felt it would be nice and safe to travel home together. Then we would have to deal with the bureaucratic challenges of getting a refund later, safely cooped up in our apartment.

An hour after our stop at the tree to look for the cheetah, our ranger stopped the Land Rover and cut the engine, then turning around to whisper that we were now number two in the row of cars waiting to observe a group of three lions, two males and one female. And she added: “Don’t speak too loudly! No sudden movements! Do not stand up in the vehicle! This may be a ‘civilized’ game park, but the animals are wild.” A little later she started the car and drove into the lions ‘den’, parking very close to the biggest male, who was in the process of devouring a large impala. He clearly had a look of contentment on his face. A short distance away, the female was resting peacefully on her side, looking tired from the hunt, but she finally rose and stretched her slim body before lying down again. The other male followed the eating feast of the older male with measured interest, not too much, but enough to indicate his right to a piece of the kill. Suddenly he rose and roared, showing his teeth, and in what seemed like no more than a fraction of a second, he had secured the hind legs of the impala and started his own feast close by.

Little did we know that night what our country would look like, when we returned 48 hours later. But we were grateful that our aborted trip to our beloved Africa, and Southern Africa in particular, had ended like this. With yet another strangely calming understanding of the basics of life.