Midnight
The house should be silent. Everyone knows that even the magic of fairy godmother’s wears off at midnight.
Yet in Harare, Zimbabwe, on a what would be quiet street, I am awake. Stirred from my dreams by the beep of the alarm keypad re-activating and the gurgling and coughing of water as it pushes the air out of the minute ago empty pipes. My stomach growls, hungry from not enough supper cooked on the dwindling gas of the small stove I am fortunate enough to possess. I breathe a deep sigh, and now energised by these midnight calls, I arise from my warm blankets in the same way as another person, in another place may rise to the sound of an alarm clock heralding the new day, or to the crow of a rooster, greeting the dawn.
What has happened? Why this strange ritual. Is Zimbabwe war-torn, enemy invaded?
Any person living far away would ask these questions. Why else would a person in the year 2019 be going to bed hungry, waking at midnight to fill buckets of water in the small window of light that comes at midnight.
In other households washing machines are whirring, spin driers wringing out the excess of water of at last clean clothes. Further down the road my neighbour takes out her iron, she is a step ahead of some of us, she washed her clothes last night, so tomorrow she can have the luxury of choosing what to wear, instead of looking for what is clean and not too crumpled.
“Should I bake some biscuits for the children too?” I ask myself. Soon the scale is out, the meagre portion of margarine cut carefully to keep enough for when we do get bread for sandwiches. No butter anymore, that is a luxury at 79 ZWL. ZWL? The best way of describing it is, Zimbabwe Latest currency. Divide by 10, that still means that 500g of butter is equal to US$7.90
I eat two bananas, best quick snack.
The washing has finished its cycle. Small moments of gratitude. I go out into the cool, damp, now early morning to shake out and hang up the washing as carefully as I can to minimise the need for ironing when it dries.
The biscuits are now done. MMMh the warmth of ginger infused dough. I can’t resist. I flick the switch of the barely used kettle and make myself a cup of tea. I take a moment to sit in my favourite chair in the dark lounge and nibble on the delicious sweetness. I turn on just one lamp, to enjoy the glow of light as I watch the steam waft off the top of my favourite red mug. “SMORS”- small moments of reflection. Even in the urgency of the midnight hour, if I can still myself and replenish my soul. I will make it through. I think I may begin to adapt to my new normal and learn to thrive.
Here is some of the backstory to the electricity outages and unstable currency that have created the weird way of life recounted above.
“ZIMBABWE’S state-owned power utility Zesa Holdings (Zesa) is on the brink of collapse due to a plethora of problems. It is beset by multiple crippling factors, including rampant power theft, non-payment of electricity bills, vandalisation of infrastructure, as well as insufficient foreign currency.”
ThriveZim Education 