Zimbabwean's struggle to survive

Ed (not his real name), 23, a bookkeeper, speaks to the BBC News website via phone from his home in the capital, Harare, and describes how ordinary Zimbabweans like him and his family are suffering.

" We don't have anything now - electricity, water, food, nothing.

We don't even have power now. They cut us off between 0400 and 2100 local time (0600 and 1900 GMT).

We are struggling.

I stay with my father, my mother and my brother and my sister. My whole family depend on me.

This morning we didn't have food for breakfast. We just ate bananas.

I pay two million Zimbabwean dollars (about $0.80 as per the black market) for my bus to work. That's just one way.

My salary each month is just 45m Zimbabwean dollars ($90). It is nothing.

And when I do get paid I have to wait for about one, two, three, four, five, six... sometimes even seven hours at the bank just to get my cash out.

I pay the rent for the roof over my family's head which is 30m Zimbabwean dollars.

I don't make ends meet.

I have to take out loans from work. Or I borrow from my other brother to get by. But I can't pay anything back - this is exactly my problem.

I have other jobs on the side at the weekend such as selling onions and vegetables that I have grown myself.

Now, can you imagine how we are struggling? It is too harsh.

My sister is still at school - she's in her last year of primary school but I don't know how much longer she can stay because school fees have just been hiked to 40m Zimbabwean dollars this term compared to 500,000 Zimbabwean dollars last term... I am yet to pay the fees.

And then to top everything, you are not allowed to complain or say anything about [President] Mugabe. Even now I think people are listening.

But to think of better times, today was my day to have my once-a-month treat: I had some take-away rice and chicken for lunch.

It was so good.

I hope that next month I'll still be able to treat myself. "

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