Birthday town and beatings from behind – Cathy Buckle February 14, 2014, 4:13 pm
Dear Family and Friends,
President Mugabe turns 90 on the 21st February and his public birthday celebration is being held in Marondera. For a few weeks we’ve been waiting for the usual frenzy of face lifting that comes before a VIP arrives in town but it’s going to take more than spit and polish and a bucket of whitewash to sort things out.
Three weeks before the 90th anniversary we turned on our taps in birthday town and thick, stinking, black water came out. You couldn’t call it water at all, it looked and smelt like sewerage. There must be some terrible problem, we thought, a burst sewage pipe must have contaminated the mains and it surely wouldn’t last more than a few hours. Three days later black filth still poured out of the taps but a call to the municipality was as good as useless. They wouldn’t answer any questions, wouldn’t even acknowledge that the towns water was black and unusable and insisted all questions be directed to the Engineer. The conversation with the Engineer turned out to be as unbelievable as the filth coming out the taps.
Q: We’ve had black water for three days, can you tell me what’s going on?
A: We are aware of the problem. We are carrying out de-sludging.
Q: De- sludging? But the sludge is now in our water pipes, toilets, geysers and taps.
No comment.
Q : Can’t you let the sludge out at the base of the reservoir?
A: We can’t.
Q: You mean there’s no outlet for the sludge except into the whole town’s water pipes?
A: There is no other outlet.
Q: But why didn’t we get any warning this was going to happen? People are going to get sick.
A: You shouldn’t use it, it’s not for consumption.
Q: Then why did you let it into the pipes?
No comment.
A week before the big birthday party most people thought it still wasn’t fit for or consumption and everywhere people’s arms were dragging on the ground from carrying buckets.
While all this was going on we had a third of our annual rainfall in a week. 200 mm (10 inches) of rain left the town even more pot-holed than before and some roads completely impassable. Small holes which could have been easily patched weeks ago are now deep, spreading ditches. Some residential roads like mine which haven’t seen any maintenance at all since 2007 are almost unusable after seven years of neglect. Storm drains are completely blocked with sand, tar has been eaten away by erosion and steep drop offs are criss-crossed with gullies. Add to this no street lights in most residential areas for ten years, two metre high grass on road verges, dumped litter and car wrecks decorating every suburb and you have to wonder how to hide all this from the VIP birthday party about to take place here.
A week before the birthday a little strip of paper, thinner and shorter than a ruler, did the rounds in town. It was an invitation from the town’s MP to attend a meeting but it wasn’t to discuss the diabolical state of the town, roads or water. Eyebrows went up when people saw that the venue was the local Zanu PF Headquarters and at the bottom of the slip were the words: ‘Agenda: 21st February Movement.’ (President Mugabe’s birthday celebrations)
In the same week before the big birthday party, unarmed women singing and carrying roses were beaten outside Parliament in Harare. Riot police moved in from behind and started beating the women who were leaving flowers and a message to parliament to respect and activate the country’s new constitution. A WOZA leader said “ they were beating us from behind because they couldn’t even face us.’
Our thoughts are with hundreds of thousands of people affected by flooding , snow storms and volcanic ash in many countries around the world and to thousands affected by flooding in the area of Zimbabwe’s Tokwe Mukorsi dam in Masvingo. Until next time, thanks for reading, love cathy
COMMENTS
Muggersboys. Remember. Treason is punishable by death. You and your cabal have already been found guilty. Fear us
Cathy Buckle I want to choose this moment to salute you. You have been in this from I don’t know when. I just wanted to let you know that you are close to a lot of our hearts. Keep it up GOOD PERSON.
My respect and appreciation too.
What kind of an engineer answers questions in such an ignorant way?Surely, every water system has in- line-stop valves and flush points to clean the system when needed.I think they have a semi-skilled guy employed as an engineer,if he is an engineer then Marondera town should fire him over this issue and get a new guy because this guy’s action is dangerous to the society.
Potholes and no street lights are now part of our daily lives ,therefore its good that they will have to fly to the venue and bring their own water to avoid potholes and dirty water.All our towns are like Marondera or worse.
Only misguided and naive police attack unarmed women from the back.
I always like your comments Mr Race.
We live in a place where a policeman is not a policeman, a judge is not a judge. Why then should an engineer be an engineer? It sounds as though an actual plumber would do a better job.
Yah, and one has to wonder what that ‘Engineers’ monthly salary is, maybe about US$20,000??? For that kind of service!! What an absolute shambles! You can’t help but wonder how such people sleep at night, knowing full well that they are taking people for one helluva ride.
Someone today said are we pasting and copying? Yes we will paste and copy what the police and Zanu pf have been doing so that we never forget. Cathy has day in and day out keeps a lot of people in the loop about the basic things that are happening in Zimbabwe. A lot of us appreciate the part she plays in our lives. She talks about the happy times during this misery. She also talks about the sadder parts, but most of all she cares. Cathy I salute you.
This is a message from up above. Everyone affected by the issues raised by Cathy is urged to dump any debris ( the stinkier the better), old burnt out cars,tyres and rubbish along the route which the Muggabage man will travel to venue. If you can please enlarge the potholes to the size of craters. Muggabage understands this kind of language more than he does any spoken word besides you will not be able to speak with him as his face will be full of cake on the day.
yours
the messiah from up above
Zimbabwe, for God’s sake bring back Rhodesia and save the beautiful,wonderful black people who deserve a decent life.Oh how they have been betrayed by a bunch of thieves
I don’t understand why a private event like someone’s birthday is turned into a national event with wall to wall coverage on both television and radio. How many other countries in the world do that? I wonder.
This guy is just a president doing his job like everybody else and the only difference being that he can do it so badly and get away with it.
Also if Mugabe is turning 90, why is he still president? Are there no other people even in their 40s and 50s who can take over the mantle and work hard to resolve the current problems? It’s an insult to the rest of the population to see a 90 year geriatric being president when that person should have been 25 years into his retirement.
No wonder why there is a myriad of problems because basically nobody is in control, it’s just an office with a snoozing person occupying it. Enough.
Mugabe’s wish is to take Zimbabwe with him in his coffin because he decided long ago that if he can’t rule Zim no one else can which explains why he never entertained the idea of a successor or retirement. In his deluded mind he will be ruling forever and he will eventually own every farm, goat and stream.When one idiot in his party said Mugabe was like Jesus Mugabe believed it and he now thinks he can have a diresct audience with God and his wishes will be granted
You can actually get municipal water out of your taps?? We haven’t had any municipal water of any colour whatsoever for three years in our bit of Harare!
A cry from the wilderness,\.
PERSON REQUIRED, male or female, has made on personal fortune ,preferably Zimbabwean but any will do. Of any creed or colour. definitely WITH NO AMBITION TO BUY A PREMIERSHIP TEAM.
JOB, to manage a nation out of a self destructive path.
Remuneration, unparalleled joy and sense of achievement after accomplishing the task.
Forget about zanu ,zapu, mdc, zunde , we need to seriously look at the type of leadership we choose. we need to go through cvs of potential leaders.nd I can tell you there’s not more than 3 self made Zimbos who fit this criteria .
We should have this one rallying point and hopefully this will be a game changer.
I love this dream ,please comment.
I have just picked up a report on Mangoma’s beating outside MDC offices yesterday. He claims that Tsvangirayi left him to the mob. Zanufication of the opposition is complete. we definitely need a new brand of politics. There is a serious lack of leadership in Zimbabwe.
You people don’t know how to welcome vakuru – its called rolling out the ‘RED CARPET’ for the celebs. Thatha ‘Ndera!!!!.For this you get a perfect 10/10.
Where do you roll the carpet with all these potholes?If he falls in the covered potholes you will be charged with treason.
This is rolling the red carpet………… ‘Three weeks before the 90th anniversary we turned on our taps in birthday town and thick, stinking, black water came out. You couldn’t call it water at all, it looked and smelt like sewerage. There must be some terrible problem, we thought, a burst sewage pipe must have contaminated the mains and it surely wouldn’t last more than a few hours’
well done engineers.they say action speaks louder than the words.
Cathy… see what you done? You have motivated people.
The engineer was the tea boy before all the real engineers left Zimbabwe. He was a zanupf member so they promoted him to engineer . Ishh.
Anybody remember the time of mobuto in wat is nw DRC,they idolized him like he was a cult leader?Bob knows all the hype about his birthday is fake like zhingzhong.So,wat does he do?He goes to Malawi wen floods are ravaging parts of Zimbabwe,he comes back for his birthday in all this midst!lts really funny to say we r learned wen a granny is in power.90 years for Christ,s sake and still ruining other ppl ,s lives.
Education is Freedom! If u r educated yet not free to speak ur mind u r as good as any idiot!
Can anyone please tel me any other country were the national youths celebrate their President’ s birthday? Sounds like an attempt at eternity to me or is it a futile attempt at creating a Dynasty.
Shame, the vanity of man!
Bayete Mzilikazi