
We left the chaotic Harare traffic on the road to Zambia, heading via Banket, Lions Den, Chinoyi and Karoi. Our destination was the village of Magunje, and the small church of St Thomas, adjacent the safari areas of the Zambezi catchment.
The road itself is the main transport artery from South Africa, through Zimbabwe to Zambia and the Congo region. As a consequence, it is heavy with trucks of every shape and size and length and width and age and speed. And, of the course the road itself is typically reduced to a narrow slice of potholed tar bounded with sharp drop-offs where the tar has eroded to form jagged razor edges which are waiting to rip an errant tyre. So it becomes a game of dodgem with oncoming trucks, itself weaving madly to avoid the worst of the holes, while ensuring you don’t end up being tipped over the tar into the verge where boulders and huge holes await!
We had to carefully navigate past an abnormal load of exceptional length which had broken down going uphill around a bend crossing the Great Dyke, again dodging the traffic charging down the hill. Mad or bad drivers with urgent appointments (with their Maker it seemed!) would swerve out to overtake on blind bends and crazy corners, adding to the mayhem.
And as we travelled westwards, the thick thunderclouds were gathering ahead of us. Stormy times were waiting for us, in more ways than one.
I’ve had the privilege of meeting such a variety of people across the country, from all walks of life. And I enjoy asking questions and listening: in particular, trying to find what gives them Hope. Where do they find hope in the future, and what keeps them going amidst collapsing currencies, rocketing prices, droughts and corruption.

After a standard response, that “my hope is in God”, it doesn’t take long for details to emerge. And the widespread belief that change is in the air, the storm is rising. While I understand this sentiment in Matabeleland, where the region has been long tormented by the Shona majority, what is unusual is that this is echoed now in Mashonaland as well. From the elderly ladies to the young men, they are showing a greater determination to see change from the endless heart-sapping cycle of corruption and greed.
I am being often reminded of the events only 8 years or so ago, when suddenly, almost overnight it seemed, the army moved in to remove President Mugabe. Tanks were on the streets of Harare, and the people came out and danced and celebrated, and the country sang and rejoiced together.
How rapidly things changed, but didn’t change. Yes, the police roadblocks disappeared, and for a while there was Hope and belief in the future. Zimbabwe was open for business. The new president seemed to offer businesses and the population a sense of returning to normal life, the real world.
However, two failed currencies later, and a widening net of corruption and nepotism and gold smuggling has plunged the country back into the nightmare days of world-leading inflation and despondency. The proportion of the population now living on USD$1 a day is at record levels. Where a 10kg sack of staple mielie meal for sadza cost a dollar, it is now between $6 and $10, beyond the reach of some of the people, especially the rural population.
I ventured into one of the larger supermarkets, making my way to the entrance through a bustling market of informal traders. The supermarket isles were almost empty of shoppers, and the goods on the shelves were limited. The checkout ladies were boredly scrolling their phones or chatting. I am told that these businesses are increasingly heavily taxed, and are having to compete with the informal sector traders who can smuggle their goods in, untaxed, and avoid all the regulations and taxations of the formal sector. These large businesses will not survive clearly.
Is another “coup” in the offing? It is obvious that Ed, the nickname for the president, has little support. But the key is the role of the army. And he has been successful in placing his own nephews and friends in strategic positions to control this. However, even this is fragmenting it seems.
But change is never easy or painless. It also can typically simply change one “oppressor” for another one with a slightly different flavour. The road is never a straight one.
The poet Seamus Heaney wrote: “Hope is not optimism, which expects things to turn out well, but something rooted in the conviction that there is good worth working for.”

I leave a few dollars with the Mothers Union at St Thomas’, and there is an embarrassment of celebration and dancing with the borehole and water and rains. Hope might be fragile, but let’s celebrate and rejoice at the smallest shoots of growth and change. For surely that is the divine spark of Life and Hope which perhaps is hardly recognised, but present in the most insignificant moment, the overlooked and ignored person. Is that not the real Jesus story.
Thank you for reading and your support.
Sandy Elsworth 28 January 2025
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