Crumbling Infrastructure

Thursday, July 08, 2004

Driving home from the gym tonight, the roads were very dark. Too dark. The street lights were ALL out, and this was on a major road. The robots (that’s the local name for traffic lights) were working, and I saw some houses had lights on, so it could not have been the electricity unless the street lights are on a different circuit. Not that the pale yellow lights are much help, but it’s better than pitch blackness. Eddie had a hard time seeing where to turn, and traffic behind us was just as rude as you’d see in Atlanta with flashing brights and horns.

Eddie was quite angry about the situation. I’ve noticed that certain things will set him off, even though he is normally quite an even-keeled character. His first diatribe against the government was due to the condition of the roads. Apparently, if Mugabe isn’t going to travel the road, they don’t worry too much about upkeep. Last night was the lights. It was difficult to follow at times, b/c Eddie’s English gets hard to understand when he’s excited. I could gather that lights going out on public streets is not a new thing, and how the government says it doesn’t have money to do anything about it.

One thing that really hits home with me is how vital government is to provide services and upkeep of basic infrastructure to maintain the happiness of the people. The GOP in the US would like to say that government’s only function is to provide for an army with the rest being taken care of by state government or (better yet) private industry, which they conveniently own huge stakes in. Here in Zimbabwe, you can tell that this country was once nice but is now in decay. The only recent building I’ve seen has been the Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe, which has a huge, modern skyscraper downtown. Everything else is obviously from the 1950s and 1960s and has not been updated since. I know most of the 1970s were spent with guerilla warfare by Mugabe and his African nationalists. Their cause was just, as they wanted to have a majority government. Of course, this has turned into a program to drive out ALL the white people so that Zimbabwe is black only. That extreme is just as wrong as the stranglehold the white elites had before independence in 1980.

Nothing has been done on infrastructure from what I can see since then. It’s really a shame, because this country could be a shining star in Africa. Mugabe’s program of stealing farms from whites who’ve got expertise to squatters who no nothing of farming and have no collateral with which to get started (since the state now owns all commercial farmland) is a direct cause of the coming food crisis. It’s sad to think that people are going to starve due to bigotry and misguided policies.

On the way to the gym, we came to a stoplight, and suddenly the car in front of us opened its doors and raised its hood. Even I could see a scam, and Eddie just drove around and explained how that was a common ploy with robbers. They act like something is wrong with their car to get you to get out of your car so they can rob you. Another reason hiring a driver is money well spent!

I made a small mistake with Richard’s share of the bills, and we caught it when he called me in a panic over why he had no money for the rest of the month. I was confused too until I realized I’d made a mistake in the way I billed him for his share of the mortgage tax catch-up fee I had to pay. The mortgage company underestimated my taxes, so I had to pay them back for what they had covered. I usually spread something like that out for him, and I forgot this time. Luckily, it’s been corrected. I understand too that the porch enclosure should be finished today! I can’t wait to see it. I’m sure it will be very nice.

Otherwise, it’s been pretty quiet. I’m a little sore from the gym but that happens when you slack off from going as I have. I’m about to finish the 2nd of 4 books that I brought to read on this trip. I need to find a social life and soon or I’ll not even have books to read!