HARARE, Zimbabwe \u2014 I know we\u2019re meant to be washing our hands frequently. We\u2019re trying. But we\u2019re running out of water again and I don\u2019t know when the water truck is going to be back.<\/p>\n
Queuing and crowding for food was a daily chore even before the coronavirus. It\u2019s worse now. Social distancing is a luxury.<\/p>\n
Our economy is broken. Only Nicolas Maduro\u2019s Venezuela has a higher inflation rate than us. We\u2019ve had critical shortages of water, food, gas, cash. We thought things couldn\u2019t get worse. The virus saw to that.<\/p>\n
Water is my biggest concern. It\u2019s usually delivered on a truck by a private company. The municipal water system has been dilapidated for years. We might get municipal water out of a tap at home once or twice a week if we strike it lucky. Mostly, when I turn on a tap it gurgles, spurts some muddy-colored liquid for a few seconds, then stops. My kids won\u2019t be washing their hands in that.<\/p>\n
Jeffrey is my water guy. My delivery time is Friday afternoons. I pay Jeffrey, he pumps 5,000 liters from the tanks on his truck into the one I installed at my house and we\u2019re good for another week.<\/p>\n
Jeffrey doesn\u2019t arrive every Friday now. The trucks are being stopped at lockdown roadblocks.<\/p>\n
When Jeffrey doesn\u2019t show, I go to Plan B. A friend has a borehole to access groundwater in his yard. I call him and go round. At the gate, I yell. He answers, passes his hosepipe over the fence. I fill as many containers as I\u2019ve managed to fit in my car. I don\u2019t even see Kuda. Haven\u2019t for a while. We just talk over the fence and laugh at what we\u2019re doing. Then I\u2019m off home with tomorrow\u2019s showers and laundry water slopping around on the back seat.<\/p>\n
At work, I document the food queues, one of many elements constraining the lives of harried Zimbabweans. There\u2019s been little change in attitudes, even with the threat of the virus hanging over every line. If anything, the people pack tighter, more afraid of missing out on food.<\/p>\n
A cough here at the front of the queue. A sneeze there at the back. Heads snap to see who it came from. Sometimes people demand the guilty party leave the queue. They never do. The expressions on faces are a mix of concern and determination, with eyes narrowed, that this day\u2019s queuing won\u2019t be in vain. The faces are clearly visible because hardly anyone wears masks. In the ongoing quest for overpriced bread and milk, who has money for masks?<\/p>\n
I do have personal protective equipment. But I can\u2019t avoid the queues forever. I sometimes think, \u201cWhat groceries do we need at home? Damn, I should be in that queue.\u201d But I\u2019m working.<\/p>\n
Even in my car, I\u2019m uneasy. Roadblocks are plentiful \u2014 one thing that is. Police or soldiers want to know what I\u2019m doing, where I\u2019m going. They leer in through the window. I explain, like I\u2019ve done nearly every day since our lockdown began. But I\u2019m really doing some kind of impossible mental calculation about how much of their saliva landed in my car, or on me, when they barked out that question. I\u2019ve now taken to rolling up the window more. It\u2019s a balancing act. How much is enough to protect myself without angering them?<\/p>\n
There are brighter moments \u2014 the extra intimacy with family. I have three children. My eldest son is 16 this year. We\u2019re starting to talk in the evenings about what he wants to do after school. Maybe a future in agriculture. He\u2019s fascinated by aeroponic farming. Growing plants in air. It suits our water situation.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
HARARE, Zimbabwe \u2014 I know we\u2019re meant to be washing our hands frequently. We\u2019re trying. But we\u2019re running out of water again and I don\u2019t know when the water truck is going to be back. Queuing and crowding for food was a daily chore even before the coronavirus. It\u2019s worse now. Social distancing is a […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":84,"featured_media":22786,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3,1361,7],"tags":[1279,91],"class_list":{"0":"post-22785","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-all-news","8":"category-coronavirus-in-zimbabwe","9":"category-files","10":"tag-coronavirus-in-zimbabwe","11":"tag-harare"},"yoast_head":"\n