Zimbabweans hungry for change

By Orla Guerin
BBC News, Livingstone, Zambia

Some who have fled to Zambia have been driven to prostitution

Ask Zimbabweans scraping a living in neighbouring Zambia how they intend to vote in Saturday's elections in their homeland, and many will give you the same reply: "For change."

"Maria" is one of them. With 10 mouths to feed, she's preoccupied with earning enough money to survive.

But, like many others, she is determined to get home to vote.

"I'm hoping for something better," she said, "something that will change everything.

"It's a very important election, and I have to participate. If I don't participate, then who will I have to blame?"

Prostitute

Maria has more reason than most to feel bitter about where Robert Mugabe has led his country.

Once the proud owner of a hair salon, she now works as a prostitute - driven to this by hunger, poverty and the need to support her family.

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In addition to two children of her own and her elderly mother, she is caring for seven nieces and nephews - orphaned when their parents died of Aids.

"Most of the time we depend on porridge and water," she said.

"When I was growing up we used to eat bread with margarine, eggs and the like.

"But these days my kids don't even know what margarine is. My son just knows it from the television.

"He asks me, 'Mum, when can we eat bread with margarine?' and I tell him things are tough.

"At times we have no water for drinking or bathing - sometimes for up to five days."

Desperation

Maria is one of as many as 300 Zimbabwean women working in prostitution in the Zambian border town of Livingston.

Their numbers are increasing, and their rates are the cheapest in town - such is their desperation.

Many Zimbabweans seek a better life, with basic commodities, abroad

In better days, many of these women led very different lives - among them a policewoman, a soldier, and a bank official.

Now they huddle in the doorway of a brothel in the downtown area, waiting for customers.

"I feel a very deep pain just to think that I was once a businesswoman," Maria said.

"And now I am a mere prostitute. Can you imagine?

"I ask God to forgive me and just to give me something, so that my kids will have something to eat.

"I wasn't expecting this, but from the situation back home we have no choice. We do what we can do to put something on the table."

'No food'

Recently Maria watched her 29-year-old niece die - needlessly, she believes.

"She passed away in December," she said. "She needed a lot of food and I had no food.

"She was getting some treatment for TB, but the hospital had no blankets, and no food to give her.

"We had to look for food to give her. You could see this person was dying not because of the illness, but because of the situation."

President Mugabe has been in power for 28 years

In Zimbabwe these days, the business of death is a struggle, just like the business of living.

It was difficult for Maria to give her niece a decent burial.

"We had no coffin. We had to look for some wood - we broke the wardrobe to make something to bury her. Even the mortuary was not working."

I asked Maria if she had a message for her President. Her reply was swift: "Please just retire."

At the local market we met other Zimbabweans hungry for change.

They make a living selling what they can, including biscuits and sweets - some of the few things still made in Zimbabwe.

With the money they earn they buy basic supplies to take back home - flour, cooking oil, soap, even bread.

Voters' roll

Some were afraid to speak out. But one young man called Unify, who supports the opposition Movement for Democratic Change (MDC), told us he was worried he would not be able to vote.

"When I went last week to check my name on the voters' roll I did not find it.

"It's a trick by the Mugabe regime because they want to limit the number of voters in urban areas. Why? Because they know voters in urban areas are for the MDC."

A woman nearby with braided hair spoke up for the President.

"People say Mugabe is bad", she said. "But he is not bad. It's the ministers who are going wrong. I am proud of the president."

But a lollypop seller in a baseball cap - unwilling to give his name - told us the Zimbabwean leader Robert Mugabe should follow the example of Nelson Mandela, and make way for a younger generation.

"Mandela spent about 27 years in prison," he said "but after elections were held he quickly stepped down and left for the others.

"This is what we are willing our president to do. We are begging him to do that."