MUTARE – Zimbabwe’s stone sculptors, once the envy of many, are grinding in poverty. From Chinese wishing to buy their pieces for a pittance to locals with no appreciation for art, sculptors are paying the price of Zimbabwe’s slump as a favoured destination for Western tourists. Phineas Chidzeya, a veteran sculptor who once enjoyed the…
HARARE – Tariro Nhamo trudges on a muddy path as she struggles to maintain the same pace with her mates. The bare footed six-year-old girl is oblivious to the flimsy dress she is wearing and the rain that is soaking her wet. All she is concerned about is making her way home before it gets…
HARARE – So the hooker from the street corner could be safer than the dear wife at home? Unpalatable as it might sound, this is increasingly becoming a fact in Zimbabwe, a country with one of the highest HIV rates in the region. Long considered a safe haven in this conservative southern African country, marriage…
HARARE – President Robert Mugabe has often shouted on top of his voice, fist clenched how he is determined to go for an election with or without a constitution and with or without the consent of coalition partners. On Thursday he cast a different figure, agreeing to a raft of reforms under a draft constitution…
MASVINGO – For a man who drives top-of-the range cars and owns a donated multi-million dollar wildlife conservancy and farming business, hunger is probably the last thing on Masvingo provincial governor Titus Maluleke’s mind. But many of the million plus residents in this perennially drought-ravaged province, where Maluleke is the top dog, feed on crumbs….
MUTARE – Patched and motionless,on the seals of cages that imprison them, their beautiful shiny black coats hide them in the shade — only to be betrayed by their emerald green eyes that pierce the distance beyond their wire-mesh confines. Such gentle and graceful felines! Born into communities that are deeply prejudiced against black cats,…
HARARE – Zimbabweans in the diaspora like émigrés from other countries look forward to the annual trek home during the festive season from wherever they are based. One would like to think that the journey home is easiest for our South Africa-based compatriots but unfortunately the opposite is the case. Recent press reports that people…
MUTARE – Walking on tip- toe across one of Sakubva River’s tributaries in Chikanga, one freezes and feels an instant urge to throw up. Solid faeces race through the yellowish brown sewer-chocked current towards the river whose catchment streams Mutare City is clandestinely using as a cheap open-air drainage system. This is a city the…
HARARE – Never in the history of Zimbabwe has preachers hogged the limelight, pulled large crowds and caught media attention with headline-grabbing feats, as the “prophetic movement” continued to soar above the conventional religious groups. New generation preachers and evangelists “live heaven on earth” while indoctrinating their followers with the same ambition. They have evidently…
HARARE – The beginning of a New Year always symbolises new beginnings for most people and the Christian community usually start the New Year with prayer and fasting while appealing for divine intervention. Over the past few decades, many Zimbabweans have turned to God for solutions to the socio-economic and political problems. While most people…
