Harare, Zimbabwe (News of the South)-Zimbabwe is currently lost on some dark path to nowhere with much genuflection to years gone by hindering any productive steam ahead.
Whilst economists and politicians have been busy through the whole year giving names to various malfunctionings and misapplications, the generality of the population has been caught up in a battle for survival.
Harare’s CBD at night is a testimony to the sheer hunger for survival that the human animal possesses.
The same fear of an unknown paradise/hell gateway called death drives the breathing human to fight to the next breath with an admirable hunger.
At night the sidewalks are invaded by a large army of vendors who more than double afternoon vendors.
But even during the day, whilst some corner shops are flying Christmas banners and blaring SALES the vendors are scripting their own versions of how-to-survive a kamikaze economy.
They are those who sell second hand clothes from Mozambique, which have been banned by the way; some are selling shoes, underwear and stilettoes; and then they are those who are selling maize cobs and mangoes.
It’s the rainy season and mangoes are flooding the CBD. A pile of 8 costs US50cents. A single mango fruit goes for US10c. So it’s cheaper to buy a pile.
Since the rain started mango fruits, like the first rains themselves, started filtering down from Mutoko and Murehwa, rural areas which are less than a US$5 journey from Harare.
They are the first Christmas gifts and everyone is loving them together with boiled maize cobs, steaming from a bucket placed tantalizingly close to the bank queue snaky line’s middle.
Old man waiting for four hours in the POSB bank queue for US$25 National Social Security Authority (NSSA) doles may love pizza and Chicken Inn (whatever the real name is for a sapphire-red kaylite full of oil-blinking chips and crisp brown chicken chunks) but it would obviously be an acquired taste, alien to the mind though tasty to the mouth.
So they (and their pockets) love mangoes and maize cobs.
Gap-toothed and white-haired, they sit on the pavements in two’s and threes munching on maize cobs, reminiscing about a gone time when the white man still walked as the lord of the city and they never came to watch cars in the CBD for hours, confined as they were in the production land of the industries.
The woman who sell the maize cobs are always adamant the maize is fresh but the old man are wizened enough to pick out the seedy taste of night on the kernels. Still they don’t draw out the argument since all they need is something familiar to revive them as the guard calls out the numbers in fits and starts.
“Number 48….49…50…51, get inside”.
The mango sellers don’t need to sell the fresh angle about their fruit. The mango does everything by itself. Almost.
A fresh mango has a dusty faded sheen about its skin which speaks of freshly running mango tree juices. A day old fruit begins to glint and shine, gaining an alien patina as it draws closer to the fatal bubble shine of worm infested insides.
So the vendors just pile the mangoes on the sidewalk for customers to see and judge for themselves.
Numbers though tell a deeper story. The more and cheaper they are, the more likely they are to being rotten.
With days to go before Christmas arrives shorn of its allure and bubble the CBD population is looking far beyond the only ‘holy’ day whose experiencing has to be stripped of any vestige of holiness to be really enjoyable.
“There are far many days after Christmas son to focus on than just a single day”, one man says resignedly but emphatically.
He is number 64 at a First Street CABS bank queue and has been coming here for a quarter of his salary for the past three days. Tomorrow will the last day. There is no light at the end of the tunnel.
His love for mangoes drives not from any fantastic explanation but a sheer need for something to eat without his pocket losing its bearings.
“Actually I normally don’t like the fruit with all that sticky juice and the acidic taste that remains after finishing, but here in town what other cheap fruit is there to buy here on the street?’, he questions.
There are apples, bananas, leeches and grapes. Oranges are disappearing.
But all these costs more especially down here far from the more derelict upper areas of the CBD such as Chinhoyi Street or the further down reaches of Robert Mugabe Street. At these extreme ends of the CBD you can buy 20 bananas for US$1; 15 apples for a dollar again and mole-sized oranges for the same range again.
Thus the number 64 man will have a mango against his normal taste. To maintain a modicum of civility and sanctity of the CBD he will not chew the outer peels but piles them into a neat dirty heap at his feet.
After a few moments flies are fighting for a bite.
He carries the peels and throws them into a nearby bin written Cheap Mnandi Burgers all over its body.
The maize cob women have finished selling their products and gone by the time the man’s number is called out.
He shuffles into the pristine banking hall with joy and joins the smaller queue that is inside enjoying the small talk of victors, nonsensical chats about measures and innovations needed to make the lines move faster.
“They should place more tellers inside here and put some money into the ATM’s so that we don’t spend all our days here”.
“They should just bring in all the Bond Notes not in batches, what is that helping when we are still queuing like this?’
“They have failed these guys, they should just give up and leave their positions”
“This country is cursed, must be the prostitution and corruption going on”
“Maybe it shall get better”
“Prostitution or corruption?
“The country, with time”
“What time? 2018?’
“Forget that”.
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