A Zimbabwe Dispatch by Mark Eveleigh

At a traffic island on the edge of Harare a single crippled beggar is lying by the road. Across the front of his ragged t-shirt the print is still legible: ‘Vote Zanu PF – Robert Mugabe for Students.’ He is clearly oblivious to the irony as he holds out a dusty hand that already clutches a fistful of banknotes.

He is a billionaire several times over yet he is still a couple of trillion dollars short of the price of a loaf of bread. Zimbabweans talk with an unsettling fluency about such things as trillions and even quadrillions but as one leading hotel owner admitted to me: “don’t even try to understand the country’s economy – there’s nobody here who can grasp what is going on!”

Harare on the Surface

I had been expecting to see many more beggars in Harare. One of the typical symptoms of African famine is a mass invasion of hungry rural refugees to the allegedly gold-paved streets of the big cities. But even today Harare appears at first glance to be richer than the likes of, apparently thriving, Nairobi…and infinitely more prosperous than supposed ‘boomtowns’ like Delhi or Jakarta.

Our kombi bus swung southwards at the beggar’s junction and soon we were on the Masvingo road. I remembered this area from earlier trips but what was once a seemingly endless region of rolling farmland is now just ash-covered wasteland. Apparently the local villagers and settlers burn the land so that it will be ready when the mythical seed – promised for so long – is finally distributed. They burn the land too because any remaining game will be easier to hunt in the incinerated forest.

This was my fourth visit to Zimbabwe but on previous trips I had entered the country illegally as a journalist to cover such Mugabe-esque phenomena as farm occupations and poaching. So I was surprised (and slightly unnerved) to receive an official invitation to come back now to report on what the Zimbabwe Tourism Authority sees as the start of a new era in their ‘democratic republic.’

I was dubious about what we would be allowed to see on a government run press trip of course but it seemed that our hosts were sincere at least in their wish that we report truthfully on what we saw. (It was probably only force of habit on the part of the local constabulary, rather than official policy, that led to my short stint in the Harare central police station after photographing the arrest of a crowd of black-market moneychangers).

Getting to Grips with Zimbabwe

I first travelled in the country in 2000 and had fallen in love with it. I was relieved almost immediately to see that the Zimbabwean people are still among the most friendly and hospitable people in the world and intimidation is almost unheard of (at least beyond the walls of the Harare cop-shop). Nor has the greed of Mugabe and his cronies managed to entirely wipe out the country’s wildlife. It is fair to say that a package tour to the major parks might these days offer one of the world’s great wildlife experiences. Since crowds are almost unknown you can also enjoy a level of exclusivity that would break the budget in another country.

But for the backpacker the Zimbabwe of today is very different prospect. In fact it is nothing short of a logistical hell for independent travellers unless you have support from excellent local contacts. Fuel is rarely available – we carried refills in canisters in the back of the kombi and even our Air Zimbabwe flight was forced to make an unscheduled stopover to refuel in Zambia (traditionally Zim’s poorer cousin). Meat too is almost non-existent; a single US dollar might buy you the entire stock of a small backcountry fruit market but try to buy a beef-burger in a Harare fast-food dive and it will set you back USD25…without fries!

There has been an ongoing discussion throughout Zimbabwe’s traumatic recent years about the ethics of travelling in a country with such a despotic regime. But it is only through the occasional presence of a few dedicated visitors that many tourism businesses (and the local families who depend on them for work) are still in a position to help get the economy back on its feet when times – and administrations – finally change.

Wildlife and the Tourist Dollar

One ranger I spoke to (like most others he was fearful of retribution if his name appeared in print) had seen the resident zebra herd on his private reserve depleted from eighty strong down to just seven animals. The picture is far worse in remote areas where witnesses (and the funds to pay for rangers) are almost non-existent: WWF reports for example that no less than 70 rhinos have been killed in Zimbabwe in the last eight years.

The last time I was in Victoria Falls, in 2002, baboons outnumbered tourists on the high street by about ten to one. Today you might drive around the entire town without counting more than a dozen foreigners. But there are hopes that change is just around the corner.

Jonathan Hudson, general manager at Victoria Falls Safari Lodge, shares the mood of optimism as the country enters into what surely must be the final days of the Mugabe regime. “Now is the time to start re-investing heavily in the country’s future,” he says, “when Zimbabwe’s tourism industry finally gets a chance to start booming again we don’t just want to be on the band-wagon – we intend to be driving it!”

I had been stunned to see just how much the country had slipped back in the six years I had been away. But, at the same time, I was vaguely astonished that somehow it was keeping on its feet at all, albeit like a grizzled and exhausted old buffalo when the wild dogs have already begun to tear away their pound of flesh.

The words of a white farmer friend came back to me. “You only realise just how rich this country is,” she said, “when you see how much has been ripped out of it, by so many, for so long…and there’s still something left!”

But Mugabe’s pack is fast losing its strength now and, with support from the outside world, the buffalo might still get a chance to struggle back to its feet. It will take time for the wounds to heal but Zimbabwe still has the potential to regain its position as one of the most delightful countries for travellers in Africa.