May17 Written by:Kayle
5/17/2008 1:22 AM
Just living in Zimbabwe, you hear people make comments that are quite telling of the situation here or you see things that make you sad. So I thought I'd list some recent comments I've just heard and scenarios I've seen:
- I was in line at the grocery store returning my empty coke bottles when two guys walked past the stand and said, "Drinking (cokes) is for the elite." A coke is about 38 cents a bottle (plus you get some of that back when you return the bottle)!
- I was taking some students into town after class and one student said, "God is so good! Only among Christians would you see whites and blacks in one car." People hitch rides here to go where they need to go and typically only black Africans will stop to pick up people as it is a way they can get money to pay for their fuel. White drivers typically don't need the extra cash or are too busy to be bothered to stop to pick up people. So this student was amazed to see a white person giving black people rides into town and knew that it was only characteristic of a Christian.
Interesting scenarios:
- Donna, our maid, has been sick for over a month now so I've been hiring another maid, Margaret, to come in and clean for us during this time. Donna lives on our property and works here, but Margaret lives in the high density suburbs so I have to pay for her transport to come to work. Shockingly, her transport to get to and from work costs $500 million, while her salary for one day is only $250 million (a generous salary for a day's work). If I wasn't paying for her transport, then she would actually be losing money by coming to work! Sadly many people are in the same situation where it costs them more to get to work than they actually get paid!
- Another maid I know of said her husband's employer pays for the transport for their employees to get to work (which is pretty rare for here). But in order to save money, her husband will walk to and from work and pocket the transport money. Although he has a bike, he can't ride it to and from work because if the employer finds out he has a bike, the employer won't pay his transport anymore.
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