Vic Falls' misery reflects Zimbabwe's fall

Vic Falls' misery reflects Zimbabwe's fall
Street traders battle for survival in the tourist town holidaymakers no longer visit, writes Matt Medved

For decades, Beit Bridge, over the Limpopo, was the gateway into Zimbabwe and Africa. Today, desperate Zimbabweans cross it, daily, heading south in search of food and work. A similar situation now exists at Zimbabwe's border with Zambia.

"The next time I catch you taking pictures here ..."

The Zimbabwean border guard did not need to finish his sentence; the glare he fixed on me as he fingered his AK-47 spoke volumes.

As he left the side of my bus, I scrolled past the pictures of my face that I had taken to reveal the border photographs I had hidden from the guard.

Anticipating that I would raise the ire of some authority while snapping shots of the Livingstone-Victoria Falls border, I had turned the lens on myself to create a buffer between the series of pictures.

As expected, the gruff guard halted my bus before the border station and approached me, shaking his head and pointing at my camera.

"You have to delete those photos," he barked.

"All of them."

I cheerfully complied and deleted the five pictures I had taken since my self-portraits.

When my smiling face graced the LCD camera screen, I grinned at the guard.

"The rest are just of me," I said. "I'm a bit of a narcissist."

With a humourless grunt, the guard delivered his warning and waved us through. My fellow passengers seemed to heave a collective sigh and I felt numerous stares and glares boring into my back. Troublemakers were not taken lightly here.

The border between Zambia and Zimbabwe was a vast outdoor waiting room in the sweltering heat. Bags of food were used as impromptu chairs by the sea of residents waiting to be processed.

Inside the border station, a framed portrait of President Robert Mugabe loomed over the long queues of people at the Immigration and Customs desks.

The last time I had crossed the border was on foot, in June, exposing me to the hustling of the street vendors who patrolled the road into Victoria Falls.

Although their dogged persistence was similar to their counterparts I had encountered in South Africa and Mozambique, their asking prices differed dramatically.

"I like your shoes man," a trader in a ragged T-shirt told me, hoisting an ornate carving of a giraffe that would have fetched at least R300 in a gift shop.

"How about we trade? Sculpture for shoes?"

I laughed, but when I looked down at my filthy sneakers I saw that the trader was barefoot. It was no joke.

Another trader tried to convince me to give him the T-shirt off my back in exchange for a set of painted bowls. Their eyes harboured a desperate look I had only seen before on beggars' faces.

The town of Victoria Falls was reminiscent of an amusement park in the winter. It contained all the trappings of tourism, despite being practically devoid of tourists.

The vast Kingdom Hotel sprawled by the town's entrance, a garish facility complete with a casino, shopping centre and sculptures of Ndebele-Zulu warriors guarding the fountain in the front. A plaque outside read that The Kingdom was opened by "His Excellency the President of the Republic of Zimbabwe Robert Mugabe" on August 6, 1999.

Almost exactly eight years later, the grounds were completely deserted. The bright array of slot machines inside stood unoccupied below an electronic display screaming of a possible jackpot.

Despite being elegantly set, the tables at the hotel restaurant were empty.

The town streets were sandy and dotted with warthogs, beggars and children. In June, a tiny boy covered in dust followed one of my companions for no less than 10 minutes begging for a handout. By the end of the encounter, he was not even asking for change anymore.

"Some jacket," he said, gesturing towards the windbreaker my companion was holding, as if it could be broken into pieces and distributed.

"Please, just some jacket."

The bus chugged on, passing a supermarket I had entered in June. At that time, the supermarket was fairly empty and the customers were mainly white.

The prices were self-explanatory. A box of cornflakes was priced at Z$198 000, while a one-litre Coke bottle was marked at Z$55 000.

According to a Victoria Falls resident whom I will call "Tobias" for his protection, that supermarket is now practically barren.

He said many other stores have followed suit since Mugabe ordered the prices of all basic goods to be cut in half in late June to battle inflation. The price cuts have made it impossible for store owners to make a profit on affected goods, including bread, salt and milk so many have stopped stocking their shelves altogether.

Born in Harare, Tobias left for Victoria Falls three years ago to work as an elephant trainer, ferrying tourists on elephant through the depleted wildlife of Victoria Falls that has suffered rampant poaching.

Tobias works from 6.30am to 6pm before making a daily trek into Livingstone, Zambia to purchase food for himself and his family.

"The trip is very difficult because of the $20 US it costs to cross the border and the time," said Tobias.

"But in the supermarkets in Zimbabwe there is nothing. There are just shelves."

A passport is required in addition to the fee, and Tobias said it takes between six and eight months to be issued one, assuming the passport office is not closed due to a lack of funds.

Tobias shook his head grimly and said he was the only member of his family that owned a passport, which makes him the only one keeping them from going hungry.

"We are suffering here," Tobias said.

"No one will take our currency in Zambia and it is so expensive. But how else can we eat?"

I have neglected this blog a bit

But take solace in the fact that my articles and personal writing are thriving.
I have been covering township flooding, service delivery and housing riots and evictions. I have covered 3 rugby matches (one a national match between South Africa and Namibia) and 2 soccer matches. I have met Desmond Tutu and interviewed Pele. I also have an amazing girlfriend in Johannesburg.

Life is at one of those full throttle phases reminiscient of two subway trains passing one another, a bright and surging flipbook of faces and places passing me by in unearthly light. But there is always the knowledge that at some point the two trains will pass and the usual gray darkness of the underground will return. Not that my life in the States is gray darkness... but it can't compare with what I have experienced here.

Here are some of the more important stories:

SABC investigates Ncube smear report:
http://www.iol.co.za/index.php?art_id=vn20070817114320357C656693

A front page lead that is as exciting to see in print as it was to write. Investigative work that implicates the South African Broadcasting Corporation in a Zanu (PF) plot to discredit a prominent critic of Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe. Also discovered the correspondent involved in the sting interview is the nephew of Mugabe's wife and has received a farm from the land grabs. So much for impartial journalism.

Harassment of the homeless increases:
http://www.iol.co.za/index.php?set_id=1&click_id=15&art_id=vn20070814114302984C357500
Written after I witnessed police brutality and theft against a homeless, one legged man named Harold Cookman who was only panhandling. He, as well as other homeless people who have faced harassment, are interviewed in the story.

My foray into sports journalism

Exclusive interview, syndicated by other South African newspapers... hurrah

http://www.iol.co.za/index.php?set_id=6&click_id=194&art_id=vn20070524114308258C314401
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"I'm an African and always will be- Luke Watson"

By Matt Medved
Staff Reporter

Despite the controversy raging over his inclusion in the Springbok squad, Luke Watson's focus has never strayed from one objective.

"All I'm focusing on is rugby now; it's the Springboks and just the Springboks," Watson told the Cape Argus on Tuesday.

"Any manner or form in which I can contribute to Jake White's campaign to win the World Cup would be fantastic."

'All I'm focusing on is rugby now'
The Stormers skipper returned from the Bok squad training camp in Bloemfontein on Wednesday.

Watson said that while he and coach White were not exactly best mates by the end of it, he did not experience any hostility or prejudice against him.

"It's strictly a coach-player relationship," said Watson.

"No personal feelings have been taken into account. We're professionals here in a national club and we're focused on winning the World Cup."

Watson will rest before flying to Johannesburg on Sunday to resume practice with the squad.

'It's strictly a coach-player relationship'
He was not included in the 22-man squad for the first two tests against England, but the 2006 Super 14 Player of the Year will reportedly make his Bok debut against Samoa at Ellis Park on June 9.

This came after White and SA Rugby Union president Oregan Hoskins reached a consensus at a meeting in Durban on Sunday.

"Nothing's written in stone yet, but if I get an opportunity to play as a Springbok and don the South African colours, it would be fantastic," said Watson.

"Obviously you've got to take into account that the coach selected the best side he thought for playing against England and I hope they do brilliantly. They've been looking phenomenal and I wish them the best of luck."

Watson called the camp a "great experience" although he was surprised by the chilly spell in Bloemfontein. "On those days where it got to -5?C, I'm surprised we managed to survive," he said, laughing.

Although the Bok training camp was entirely new territory for Watson, there were plenty of familiar faces to greet him.

"I'm very fortunate that I played for the Sharks for two years, so I know quite a few of their players, as well as my own teammates there," he said.

Watson said he appreciated the support he had received, ranging from Sports Minister Makhenkesi Stofile to Premier Ebrahim Rasool, who said Watson should be considered a formerly disadvantaged player, like other black sportsmen, because of his family's history in helping disadvantaged communities.

"I've met with the premier a number of times and he's done a phenomenal job within the townships and rural areas.

"There's a tournament in Khayelitsha now called the Premier's Cup. He's totally involved in transformation.

"As far as what he had to say about me, I think he has earned the right to speak his mind," Watson added.

"I'm an African, I always have been and always will be, and I am enjoying the democracy that we have not had for a long time."

Watson's selection and addition to the initial 46-man squad against the wishes of White caused an uproar. White had previously said that Watson was too small to play test rugby and would be a divisive influence in the camp.

The situation boiled over last week when Saru deputy Mike Stofile accused White of being prejudiced against Watson due to the anti-apartheid stance of his father, Daniel "Cheeky" Watson, who chose playing club rugby in black townships over the Springboks.

White was also reported to have said in the past that Watson's name "carried too much baggage".

"I try and refrain from the media limelight and stay away from the politics associated with the game," said Watson.

"My family played a certain role in the history of the sport during apartheid and it's something I am very proud of. I'm just trying to carry on with the job at hand."
matt.medved@inl.co.za

Alan

His name is Alan.

He's been wandering the self-absorbed streets of Cape Town for 9 days now, with only 3 meals, if you can consider scraping together the bare minimum for a street vendor to be a meal. He's spent 3 days on Long Street and no one will give him any of their time. No one will stop and listen to him, because his strained eyes are weary, his speech slow and methodical and he appears to be a beggar with his ragged clothes and aimless gait. But he has an aim.

He clutches a worn scrap of parchment, barely intelligible words scrawled across the back of some sort of advertisement, a handout that would mean nothing to a random recipient but for Alan it means absolutely everything despite the fact that he cannot read it. You see, the few words that are not smudged out of existence read Pladekilp Bay, a location approximately 2 hours outside of Cape Town. He needs to meet his brother there. Presumably someone, perhaps this brother, wrote it for him to use as a beacon to find his family. Another word is readable: china. He says his brother is working for people from China, which he pronounced "Cheena".

The paper represents his only lifeline, his one hope of reaching a familiarity in the shape of a family. It's not like he has any left in Darfur.

His name is Alan and he is a refugee from the genocide in Sudan.

He stowed away on a ship, hiding in the cramped and broiling quarters of the boiler room. He lifts his feet out of his frayed sandals to show me the smooth soles of his feet, prints and wrinkles burned off by the steaming oil he had to withstand for days on the sea. His hands also bear this horrific slickness, cauterized of fingerprints.

And so has he been stripped of his identity, joined the nameless, faceless sea of dark faces, joined the lump category of "refugee." But even the Refugee Center in Cape Town will not take him in. They charge R7 a night for lodging, the equivalent of one US dollar. But Alan needs to get to the Bay, and every Rand is equivalent to a precious mile, one step closer to ending the nightmare of being a stranger in a strange land.

He is hungry. But food is money and money is miles.

I am walking with my friend Babalo, who works at the Cape Times. In fact, he is the only black reporter at the Cape Times, the sore thumb I heard about even back in the States. Babalo, though I didn't know him or his name then, played a large role in deciding my fate today. For he played a direct role in my decision to pick the Argus, due to its diversity. I don't have any misconceptions about it. According to my frequent photographer and friend Michael, both Cape newspapers are full of shit.

"A little over a decade ago, the closest we could come to the newspaper was to sell it on the street corners," he told me as we sped through Wynberg today, chasing an illegal mortuary and the inept city inspectors that were supposedly following my tipoff.
"And then apartheid ends. But you take people, white and coloured, who have been taught to hate or at the very least mistrust blacks and suddenly you tell them to love their black brother. Do you actually think they will? They tolerate us here. At best."

It's a good thing Babalo was there, because as Alan approached me I murmured the usual "Sorry" and avoided eye contact. Long Street is a vulture's den and I am a carcass solely due to my skin color. But Babalo sensed his intentions and stopped to talk to him, calling him brother.

The look on Alan's face when he was called "brother" is one I'll never forget. I cannot conceive of what it must be to leave everything I've ever known, endure scalding, disfiguring transport under fear of being caught and finally to arrive on the shores of a completely foreign land. Then the days of pleading for help, unable to read the one ticket to freedom and a semblance of life that you clutch in your ravaged palms. It was as though some sort of horrible desperation had been calmed, a sadistic fading hope has been buoyed.

"Please my brother, I am from Sudan. I need to get here but I do not know how."

He pointed to the location with a trembling finger.

Babalo has bad news for him. It's two hours away, meaning a hefty taxi fee.
His face crumples.

We talk for a bit longer and wish him luck as well as a few spare coins. He blesses us and staggers onwards, lonely broken hero of the African night.

Jesus Killer Victims Speak

MATT MEDVED
Staff Reporter
When Sally Van Niekerk awoke the night of November 19, 2005 to feel someone's hand on her throat, she instinctively reached up and recoiled at the touch of his closely cropped hair.
“I realized it couldn't be my husband,” said Van Niekerk, a 37-year-old worker at the Honey Hood Farm in Philippi.
“He has nice hair and this man's was rough. I shouted and he said he would kill me if I shouted again. I told him he could do anything, just please don't kill me.”
The intruder proceeded to rape her before escaping through a broken window. Van ne Kert had been locked in her house by her husband Frans Martinus Baneswa for safety and when he did not return to let her out, she climbed through the same window and alerted her neighbour Marie Isaacs.
“I was getting ready for church when she came and said a man got in from the roof and raped her. I sent a friend to check if her husband had come back,” said Isaacs.
“I never made it to church. She came running back in tears.”
Baneswa's ravaged body was found in a nearby shack, evidently dragged inside after he had been killed by head wounds from a blunt object.
Van Niekerk identified the perpetrator as Jimmy Maketta, the “Jesus Killer” who pleaded guilty to all 47 charges- including 16 of murder and 19 of rape- against him in the Cape High Court today.
Maketta terrorised the Philippi farmlands for almost three years.
Victims and Philippi community members demonstrated outside the Cape High Court today hoisting handwritten signs reading “He raped our mothers and sisters” and “Bring back the death penalty now.”
Skiday Petersen slumped against the side of the High Court, silent amidst the protest din.
The same morning that Baneswa's body turned up, the naked body of his wife Jennifer was found in a dam nearby the Geduld Farm in Philippi.
“I saw her skirt and panties scattered on the ground,” said Isaacs.
“I had to find Skiday and tell him his wife was in the dam. The rapist killed her.”
“After the attacks, we had to sleep four families to a house,” said Abraham Fransman, Chairman of the Philippi Farmworkers Informal Settlement Urban Development Council.
“We were terrified; no one knew when he might strike again.”
On November 9, 2005, Johannes Williamson, 62, awoke in confusion to his wife's screams wafting from the back of his house in Kleingesorg Farm. He rushed in to see Maketta throwing his wife out of a window after he had finished raping her. Williamson tried to assist her but Maketta bludgeoned him on the side of the head with a pole and knocked him down. He struck his head repeatedly before fleeing the scene.
After spending six months in the hospital, Williamson can barely walk and one side of his face appears sunken in, fractured beyond repair by the pole blows.
Williamson stared sadly at Maketta when he was brought into court in chains today. Maketta, clad in a green chequered shirt and black jeans, smiled at the gathered farm workers who drew a sharp collective breath at the sight of their tormentor.
“I gave the pole, still dripping with blood, to the police after the attack on Johannes,” Fransman said.
“Maketta is sick. He murdered the old and weak. He raped old women.”
Isaacs said she did not think a life sentence in prison was ample justice.
“We cannot get our people back,” Isaacs said, with a steely glare.
“I feel very hurt seeing him in court, dressed nicely and being taken care of. This man murdered our people. He killed them like dogs. We still live in fear.”
matt.medved@inl.co.za

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I love covering serial killers...

Please don't make me kill you

Only in this country will seven year olds add "Please don't make me kill you" to their street litany of begging for coins.

In perhaps one of the more disturbing occurrences I've experienced here thusfar, I was walking down St. George's Mall on a public holiday when two tiny children who could not have been any older than 7 or 8 flanked me and began repeating their stream of begging "Please sir, I need food, I just need a few coins to get some bread, please give me money, I can hear it in your pockets..."

After a number of refusals, they attempted to corral me to the side of a restaurant. I quickly sidestepped them and glanced down incredulous. Were these toddlers actually trying to team me? And very casually, inserted in their canned deliveries I heard it “Please don’t make me kill you”.

Excuse me?

I’ve had a man about my age ask me “please don’t make me use my knife” after begging for money in broad daylight right outside work and I told him to fuck off. But this was just eerie.

So it’s been about 5 weeks in. The time has gone quick, months flitting by like fan blades. Luckily I’m here until September, otherwise I would be getting sad

I’ve been basically on the death beat recently, following up on the undertaker story we broke. I’ve been covering paramedics moonlighting as and tipping off undertakers for illegal commissions. Real interesting, and I’ve gotten numerous calls from readers reporting things from a mortuary masquerading as computer repair shop to estate agents receiving illegal commissions, a story I’m working on with a hidden source. Investigative journalism is really the way to go,.

I applied to the creative writing sequence a few days back, both in poetry and fiction. They will only accept you to one and so I left it up to them but mentioned I might be leaning towards poetry. A tough choice because I write more songs than either poems or prose, but I figured that working on poetry could only help with songwriting. I’ll be happy with fiction too because that’ll work the journalism angle.

My professor told me that writers are usually only really good at one of the two genres, something I don’t really buy. Sure, I suppose if you pursue one more than another it will grow stronger. But confining oneself to one genre makes no sense.

Hoping to do Investigative Journalism and the Innocence Project with David Protess this fall. Freeing some innocent men on Death Row sounds like a good use of my time this fall.

Lots more to think about, but I’ll sign off for now.

-MM

MAY DAY

Before a sub editor butchers it:

MATT MEDVED
Staff Reporter

No sooner does the dancing end and ANC Arts and Culture Minister Pallo Jordan take the May Day stage at the Company Gardens than the crowd recedes, leaving the stalwarts to resist the tide of the emptying square.
“Viva COSATU!” he proclaims to a moderate response.
“Viva ANC!”
The cheer falls on the deaf ears of cotton candy eating children and families scampering past CEPPWAWU posters boasting “A working class united for socialism”. One girl pantomimes the models that performed earlier wearing clothes designed and made in South Africa. Even workers at the CANSA tent, which offers free pap smears and cancer information, spray gold and purple paint in delighted childrens' hair.
Vukile Selana, a 35-year old secretary of a Gugulethu branch of the National Educated Health and Workers Union, says he was not surprised to see the exodus before Jordan's speech.
“Although we're all meeting here under the umbrella of COSATU, everyone has different opinions,” says Selana.
“The ANC keeps making these speeches and promising the same things, but at the end of the day they do nothing. They say they are for the masses but they are not looking out for the working class.”
“The people just come here for the fashion and music,” says a reclining 52-year-old man in dark brown sunglasses.
Identifying himself only as Mogamat, he says he spent seven years in exile between 1973 and 1980 in Zimbabwe and Zambia after he was forced to leave the country due to his ties to the United Democratic Front.
“What saddens me is my kids don't have an appreciation for what happened in the struggle days,” he says, shaking his head.
“They have no interest in the history.”
Fashion model Kwakho Qongzo and African Dust fashion designer Zinhle Nkosi don't believe the fashion focus is a bad thing.
“It's about supporting South African products and, more than glitz and glam, putting bread on people's tables,” Nkosi says.
While Jordan speaks, Abduragman Ismail dances. Wearing an American flag bandana and gyrating wildly, he scribbles a poem titled “Harsh Reality” onto sheets of paper carefully cradled in a clipboard, oblivious to the smirks and stares he attracts.
Ismail lost his job as an interior decorator after he was diagnosed with schizophrenia.
“If the government can't even take care of its regular working citizens, then how can it take care of people who are suffering like me?” Ismail says, pointing a finger towards his head.
“Even though they speak lots of lies up at that podium, today means trying to create a structure of the working class people. Hopefully they will listen to us.”
As I follow the traffic back through the square, Vusi Khumalo, a 27-year-old wearing a “Vegetarians are people too” shirt offers me a copy of Izwe, the official publication of the Democratic Socialist Movement.
“We believe that GEAR never made life better for the working class people,” Khumalo says.
“By embracing capitalism, our leaders only benefited a small minority of the people, being the middle class.”
A member of the Democratic Socialist Movement for over 5 years, Khumalo was fired from his job at a Superspar supermarket in 2005 after he wrote an article in Izwe that was critical of the management.
“Workers should not report to work on May Day,” Khumalo says.
“This day is very important. But employers offer double the pay today and because of the unemployment, many workers are disillusioned with the struggle. But working doesn't help to further our cause at all.”
As Khumalo sells a paper to a woman in an SACP shirt, a man pushing a rickety shopping cart full of filthy clothes staggers by. The disfiguring skin lesions on his face speak for themselves, but he musters a nod when I ask if he is HIV positive. He shakes his head and slumps wearily when I ask if he is employed.
A young man in a ragged work uniform interrupts us and asks me to write “1886” on his arm, the year May Day became a public holiday in South Africa.
“Today is our day, has been our day for years,” he says, cracking an empty-toothed grin.
“Tomorrow when my boss yells at me for missing work, I will remember to tell him I got my freedom in 1886.”