Zimbabwe economy in free fall

Inflation tops 7,600 percent as the country's economic crisis forces people to flee the country or scrounge for food.

from the August 27, 2007 edition

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A bill put forth last week forcing foreign companies to give Zimbabweans majority ownership is expected to make life even harder for people like Sibanda, a hotel porter who refused to give his last name.

The father of three says he pays 3 million Zimbabwe dollars a month for the two rooms he shares with his wife and kids. His salary, he says with a sigh, is only 5 million Zimbabwe dollars a month and he pays 200,000 commuting to work every day.

"I can't support my family anymore," he says.

Sibanda's family is forced to subsist on whatever his wife can scrounge up from the markets, which these days isn't much.

A recent dinner was typical: okra and potatoes. No corn meal means they can't even make sadza, a thick porridge that is eaten with meats and vegetables.

The porter says his family hasn't eaten any beef in weeks.

"This country used to be beautiful for us," he says. "Now people are running away."

And they are doing so at an alarming rate.

Exodus to South Africa

More than 3 million Zimbabweans are believed to have fled the country, among them doctors, teachers, and other highly educated professionals.

Unable to afford visas or obtain passports, some have crossed illegally into countries like South Africa, braving attacks from bandits and the threat of imprisonment.

Hours after he and a friend slipped into South Africa through a hole in the border's barbed-wire fence, Tatenda Muzondo nervously walked down the tarred road toward the town of Musina.

Anxious, tired, and penniless, the 18-year-old high school graduate says that despite his education he couldn't get a job and headed south at the suggestion of his parents.

"We forced ourselves to cross to look for greener pastures," Mr. Muzondo says. "They call this 'the promised land' now."

Those with passports and enough cash cross into South Africa legally to stock up on goods they can then sell on the black market back home.

Last week, a primary school teacher who refused to be named was among a dozen others crammed into a van stuffed with goods heading to Zimbabwe from Johannesburg, South Africa.

She says the constant struggle to survive was coming at the expense of students throughout Zimbabwe.

Having stocked up on soap and cooking oil, the mother of two was planning on selling them on the street after her classes were through.

"I go to school and just teach some basics," she says. "I don't have time for the children because I have to worry about providing for myself and my family."

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