Happy Easter from Zimbabwe. I took this photograph of the moon early this morning, Easter Sunday 5th April 2026.
Somewhere out there the Orion space craft is approaching the moon and taking pictures of us.

Hello Moon.
 
Thank you for following my Letters From Zimbabwe, for your support, emails, comments and for your love and concern  for Zimbabwe. 

Love from Cathy 
https://cathybuckle.co.zw/

Early in the morning just as the sun rises over the mountains and the sky is orange and the reflection in the water is gold, two men set out in a small canoe. It is completely quiet and still, not a bird song, not a breath of wind, just two men in a canoe. They are laying their net along a stretch of the water, pendulous drops of water hanging on the oars sparkling as they catch the first light of the sun. It is so tranquil, so beautiful, so peaceful that it makes the events currently going on in Zimbabwe shameful, despicable and sickening.   

As the little boat moves out of sight, oars dipping into the water, I close my eyes and think of the words of the man I’d been talking to the day before. His story was also about fish but there was nothing at all beautiful and tranquil about it. His story was about the public hearings on the proposed Constitutional Amendment Bill Number 3. “They are throwing crumbs to the fish in the pond,” the man told me. “The fish rush to grab the crumbs only to find themselves caught in a net and then they are dead and gone, eaten up.” As it is again, and has been repeatedly for so long, we talk in riddles in Zimbabwe if it’s got anything to do with politics. It’s dangerous to speak openly and so we lower our voices and look over our shoulders. 

“The fish have not learned that the crumbs are a trap,” the man said and we both shook our heads sadly. This time the crumbs, otherwise known as bribes, are wheelbarrows, solar panels,  fertilizer, money, food and drink. People in rural villages are called outside by men who come in smart cars with dark windows and no number plates, men who tell them that they must go to the public hearings and say that changing the Constitution is good because the President needs to stay in power until 2030 because he has so many projects to finish. Projects such as filling potholes and fixing roads they say; sinking boreholes and bringing piped water to rural homesteads. No one dares say that this party has had 46 years in power and this President has been in office since 2017 but in all that time the roads are still unpassable, bridges are broken, boreholes have not been sunk and people still carry water on their heads in containers from the rivers. No one dares say that most people are so poor that they live on US$3.65 a day. Imagine that number, people are living on $3.65 a day, less than the price of a cup of coffee. No one dares say it doesn’t need politicians to fix potholes or lay water pipes, it just needs workers with shovels, engineers with lorries and tar, and funds not being looted by officials in government. As people in villages are being rounded up and ‘persuaded’ to support a Constitutional Amendment that will see the current president and government stay in power until 2030 and will strip citizens of their right to vote for the President, in towns and cities the ‘persuasion’ is more volatile.    

Lawyer and former Finance Minister, Tendai Biti said that Parliament’s public consultation process is: “a big fraudulent scam that reflects the desperation and immorality of the rag team. Through capture, coercion and brute force the regime intends to manufacture a false consensus,” he said  

In Bulawayo prominent opposition figures were denied the right to contribute at public hearings when the chairperson ignored their attempts to speak and then abruptly closed the hearings. In Harare’s public hearings individuals opposed to the Constitution Amendment Bill were also denied the right to speak including Tendai Biti, Jameson Timba, Morgen Komichi, Lovemore Madhuku, Fadzayi Mahere, Jacob Ngarivhume, Doug Coltart and others. Chaos ensued when Human Rights lawyer Doug Coltart was attacked and had his phone stolen from his hand. Outside the venue looking disheveled and in shock Doug said: “We stand for justice and what we have seen here today is not justice. What we have seen here is not right.”

Attorney Fadzayi Mahere said: “When we say the public hearings are a farce, this is what we mean. We put our hands up. We waited peacefully for the mic to come to us but they refused to let us speak. They kept saying “hamubate mic.” (you won’t touch the microphone) “It was a total farce. No amount of bussing and sham political choreography will give legitimacy to this Bill. The people are saying NO.”

Looking for hope to give at the end of this letter I found it in the words of Doug Coltart. After being physically assaulted and having his nationality questioned at the public hearings, Doug said: “And to all those who say that I am not Zimbabwean because of the colour of my skin, may you find healing for the hate in your hearts. I don’t hate you back.”

Thank you all for your support of my new Photobook, “Zimbabwe’s Timeless Beauty The Photographs 2021 -2025”. This collection of 45 pictures is our beautiful Zimbabwe, the place we all know and love.  Please visit my website https://cathybuckle.co.zw/ to find out more.

There is no charge for this Letter From Zimbabwe but if you would like to donate please visit my website.

Until next time, Happy Easter and thanks for reading this Letter From Zimbabwe now in its 26th year, and my books about life in Zimbabwe, a country in waiting.

Ndini shamwari yenyu (I am your friend)

Love Cathy 2^nd April 2026. Copyright © Cathy Buckle  https://cathybuckle.co.zw/ 

To see the photograph accompanying this Letter, the archive of my previous Letters and to see and order all my Books, Photobooks and Calendars, please visit my website https://cathybuckle.co.zw/ or my publishing spotlight: www.lulu.com/spotlight/cathybuckle2018  

If you grew up in Zimbabwe you may remember those rainy seasons where you told the time by the rain storms! It rained at 7:00am when you were walking to school, at lunch time when you were going to the dining room and again at 2:00pm when you were walking to the sports fields. And then, if it was a ‘real’ rainy season, it rained again at 4:30pm when you were going home. We are having one of those ‘real’ rainy seasons this year and in this horrific time of war in the Middle East, of mortars and missiles, death and destruction, I find myself overwhelmed with sadness and needing to look for hope. Walk with me today. 

Along Zimbabwe’s highways rain water lies in deep puddles and pools in the grass for days, so clear you can see the bottom and for so long that you even see the swirls of newly hatched tadpoles. Puddles where Water Boatmen and Backswimmer bugs move in, swimming in crazy circles, instantly reminding you that a bite from a Backswimmer burns like a bee sting. Beyond the pools and puddles the Cosmos flowers are in full bloom, pink, mauve, purple and white, swaying in the breeze and helping you to exhale, to smile for a moment, to forget for a moment and to see hope.

In the plains and valleys, the wild grasses are tall and golden, heavy with seeds, waiting to disperse their bounty into the wind and let the cycle of life start again. Outrageously long-legged blue and red grasshoppers click and jump in the tall grass and down below on the ground the Finches and Waxbills endlessly peck at fallen seeds.

Closer to home, hope is in the rain gauge, watching the drops climb into double and then triple digits, replenishing the water table, bringing life back to wetlands, filling rivers, dams and lakes. Hope is in the grey rain clouds which are full of water and not oil. Hope is in the brief windows of sun in these rainy days, a sun which dries the birds as they feast on newly exposed worms and insects: African Hoopoes, Arrow-marked Babblers, Bulbuls and Thrushes and the noisy, cackling, bowing Green Wood Hoopoes.

Back at my desk I find hope in a 2-minute video of two senior school boys at Prince Edward School in Harare performing a musical Marimba Duet. Again and again, I listen and watch and in them I see hope and know exactly why they received an Honors Exceptional Grade (95% and above) from the National Institute of Allied Arts.

Three months ago, struggling to breathe and crippled with bronchitis, I yearned for the beauty of Zimbabwe and began to think of how best I could share this beautiful country with you, the people who love Zimbabwe and have been long-time, loyal and dedicated readers of my books, annual photobooks and calendars and my fortnightly Letters From Zimbabwe. I knew the answer was in photographs and so I began to put together a special collection of 45 photographs, chosen from five years of images in “Zimbabwe’s Timeless Beauty”, nine pictures from each year.

I am pleased to advise that my new book: “Zimbabwe’s Timeless Beauty The Photographs 2021-2025” is now available. It takes you to winding rivers and cascading waterfalls, sandstone cliffs and rocky gorges, secret pools and remote wild areas. For me these are the images of hope and of peace. Please visit my website https://cathybuckle.co.zw/ to find out more.

As the war enters its 20^th day and now affects us all, regardless of what we think or where we live, I can only say: Find hope if you can and hold on to it wherever you are, and never forget the innocent people who are alone, grieving and lost, caught up in the hell of war.   

There is no charge for this Letter From Zimbabwe but if you would like to donate please visit my website.

Until next time, thanks for reading this Letter From Zimbabwe now in its 26th year, and my books about life in Zimbabwe, a country in waiting.

Ndini shamwari yenyu (I am your friend)

Love Cathy 20^th March 2026. Copyright © Cathy Buckle  https://cathybuckle.co.zw/ 

To see the photograph accompanying this Letter, the archive of my previous Letters and to see and order all my Books, Photobooks and Calendars, please visit my website https://cathybuckle.co.zw/ or my publishing spotlight: www.lulu.com/spotlight/cathybuckle2018  

A couple of days after my last Letter from Zimbabwe about the ruling party’s intention to amend the Constitution to extend presidential terms from 5 to 7 years and change the election of the President from a popular vote to a parliamentary vote, the nature of the beast has again been exposed for all to see.

Both the NCA (National Constitutional Assembly) and the CDF (Constitution Defenders Forum) publicly opposed the amendments and soon after that the horrors started. Yet again we are entering a time of masked, armed men, abductions, beatings and torture.

On the 18^th February The CDF issued a report saying: “Yesterday evening Baird Gore of Glen Norah… was abducted from his home by several armed men driving a black Ford Raptor. He was blindfolded, seized and taken to an unknown location. …He was severely beaten and interrogated about CDF Convener Hon. Tendai Biti and the organization’s strategy to resist the unconstitutional 2030 Agenda.”

A week later, on the 26^th February, press reports said that two members of the NCA, which is led by Constitutional lawyer, Professor Lovemore Madhuku, had been ‘taken’ by unidentified men.  Mr Madhuku said: “We had just finished our meeting and two of our members were abducted and tortured. They were blindfolded and later dumped in Highlands without clothes.”

A few days later, on the 1st March, reports came that Professor Lovemore Madhuku had himself been attacked in the NCA offices in Harare. Later Mr Madhuku said: “We had called an NCA consultative meeting of the leadership from across the country and we were at our office. We wanted to look at the Constitutional Amendment No. 3 and we wanted to confirm our stance that we are opposed to it and we will do everything to stop it.”  Then men wearing balaclavas stormed in: “The five or so guys came in with balaclavas and ordered everyone to leave. Then they came straight for me and started beating me up. They were beating me all over with baton sticks.” Professor Madhuku added: “There were two police trucks parked outside, but the police said nothing they just sat there watching.” (The police said later that they were not involved.) Mr Madhuku was taken to a local clinic for medical treatment and when he removed his shirt for journalists to see what they had done to him, the big welts criss-crossing his back told their own horror story.

Following the assault of Professor Madhuku voices have been raised. Advocate Fadzayi Mahere said: “The attack on Lovemore Madhuku is a dark stain on our limping democracy and a flagrant violation of the Bill of Rights.”

The Catholic Lawyers Guild in Zimbabwe said: “The reprehensible attack is not only an attack on Professor Madhuku and NCA officials but an attack on the rule of law, and indeed on every democratic value that our Constitution jealously guards.”

Amnesty International said: “This violent attack is a blatant violation of the rights to personal security, freedom of expression and peaceful assembly. This assault is the latest outrage targeting critics opposed to changing the Constitution to allow the extension of presidential term limits.”

The ZCTU (Congress of Trade Unions) said “It is deeply disturbing that similar patterns appear several times during the current dispensation, and they keep on emerging. Zimbabwe cannot plausibly claim reform while reverting to methods that were internationally condemned.”

Before the attack on Lovemore Madhuku, Zimbabwe Heads of Christian Denominations, the umbrella body of most churches in the country, issued a statement on the proposed Constitutional Amendments. It read in part: “The Church calls on Members of Parliament to stand on firm moral ground and decline to endorse these amendments. The Church calls on the President to resist the temptation to amend the Constitution for selfish ends.”

Thank you all for reading this Letter From Zimbabwe at a time when the world is in such turmoil. I wish I had any words at all to say about the war on Iran but there are none. I am tortured by the images of children’s coffins being carried through the streets, and sickened to watch a President talking about gold curtains and a ballroom when presenting Medals of Honour to army veterans, two of which were being awarded posthumously. Humanity, empathy and compassion seem lost; our moral compass seems lost. 

There is no charge for this Letter From Zimbabwe but if you would like to support my work and donate please visit my website.

Until next time, thanks for reading this Letter From Zimbabwe now in its 26th year, and my books about life in Zimbabwe, a country in waiting.

Ndini shamwari yenyu (I am your friend)

Love Cathy 5^th March 2026. Copyright © Cathy Buckle  https://cathybuckle.co.zw/ 

To see the photograph accompanying this Letter, the archive of my previous Letters and to see and order all my Books, Photobooks and Calendars, please visit my website https://cathybuckle.co.zw/ or my publishing spotlight: www.lulu.com/spotlight/cathybuckle2018  

Zimbabwe finally woke up this week. Voices were raised, meetings were held and Press Conferences convened. “We will die for this Constitution,” was the phrase we heard and we knew, at last, that the voices of opposition were back. Leadership was back. Here’s what happened:

 After months of speculation, anxiety and disbelief that they would actually do it, Zimbabwe’s Zanu PF government this week took us into a dark place we didn’t think they’d go to. The illusion that they have been so busy trying to create that everything is fine in Zimbabwe has suddenly been exposed for all to see. Despite their massaged statistics, shiny shopping malls, huge mansions and palm tree lined highways, everything is not fine at all in Zimbabwe, if it was why would they be about to change the country’s twelve-year-old Constitution to give themselves more power and longer terms in office?

On the 16^th of February, following a cabinet meeting chaired by President Mnangagwa a few days earlier, the government announced that The Constitution of Zimbabwe Amendment Bill (No 3) 2026, had been published in an Extraordinary Government Gazette which now formally starts a 90-day public consultation period before it goes to Parliament.  

The Constitution of Zimbabwe Amendment Bill (No 3) proposes that the President will no longer be elected by the people of Zimbabwe but instead be chosen by the members of parliament. It proposes that the Presidential term of office will be extended from 5 to 7 years and that extension will apply to both the current President and to all the Members of Parliament. The next general election would be pushed from 2028 to 2030. The Constitution amendments also give the President the power to appoint 10 more Senators, removes the public interview process for judicial appointments and removes the voter’s roll from the electoral commission to the Registrar General’s office.

Zimbabwe’s current Constitution was adopted after a national referendum was held 12 years ago in March 2013. That Referendum was endorsed by all the major political parties and 94.5% of Zimbabweans voted in support of it. The likelihood of The Constitutional Amendment Bill (No 3) going to a referendum is apparently remote. Lawyer and opposition politician David Coltart said: “Any amendment which has the ‘effect’ of extending an incumbent’s tenure should be subjected to a referendum. They know that if that happens, they will fail, so they will do all in their power to prevent a referendum from happening.”

Tendai Biti, lawyer, former MP and Minister of Finance, has launched the CDF (Constitutional Defenders Forum), ‘a civic organization to defend and protect the Constitution.’ Mr Biti held a press conference this week, the likes of which we have not seen for many years. Mr Biti said: “we are going to work with everyone in the fight to protect this Constitution…. All hands must be on the deck. …. We are going to work together to stop this coup on our Constitution. … We will die for this Constitution. We will be arrested for this Constitution. … They must kill us, they must arrest us but this Constitutional Amendment will not pass.”

For so long we had thought we only had to survive two more years of this government; two more years of hospitals without medicine; two more years of food we cannot afford to buy; two more years of out of control corruption, two more years of illegal gold mining on hills and in rivers rubber stamped by government officials; two more years of carrying water home in buckets because taps are dry and the list goes on and on. An hour before sending this letter out today I bought an extra loaf of bread in the supermarket to give to the old man sitting outside in a wheelchair under a grey sky with a thin drizzle of rain coming down on him. You know how you know when people are hungry when you see them start eating the bread straight out the bag, then and there.

My heart is sore today. This is the Zimbabwe the present government have given us, we have got poorer and poorer while they have become multi-millionaires.

Zimbabwe has 90 days to stop this coup on our Constitution. Dark days lie ahead. Please watch, listen and share this news and keep Zimbabwe in your hearts and minds.

There is no charge for this Letter From Zimbabwe but if you would like to support my work and donate please visit my website.

Until next time, thanks for reading this Letter From Zimbabwe now in its 26th year, and my books about life in Zimbabwe, a country in waiting.

Ndini shamwari yenyu (I am your friend)

Love Cathy 19^th February 2026. Copyright © Cathy Buckle  https://cathybuckle.co.zw/ 

My new Photobook “Zimbabwe’s Timeless Beauty The 2025 Collection” and my Beautiful Zimbabwe 2026 Calendar are now available.  All my Books, Photobooks and Calendars can be ordered from my website or from my publishers LULU. Click here to order www.lulu.com/spotlight/cathybuckle2018  

Early in the morning when the dew lies thick on the grass there is a strong compulsion every day to soak in the things that are really real about Zimbabwe. The Heuglin’s Robin singing before dawn, the feather of a Spotted Eagle Owl snagged on a bush, the pink and orange sky just before sunrise, the Drongoes and Thrushes swooping and scooping worms and insects out of the grass as the day begins. Without this touch of sanity and reality every morning the events of the days just become ever more like a mirage shimmering on the far horizon.

This February 2026 the propaganda in Zimbabwe grows to bizarre levels and paints a picture of a country that just isn’t. We were still digesting the news that Zimbabwe had a bumper harvest of maize in 2025 while milling companies said silos were empty, shops were running out of stock and we were actually importing maize. It made no sense but soon afterwards came the news that we had also reaped a bumper harvest of wheat, the biggest since commercial production began in 1966, the Ministry of Lands and Agriculture said. But then why are we importing wheat, people asked? Authorities said it was because Zimbabwe produces soft wheat and needs to import 30% hard wheat which has a high gluten content for blending in bread, biscuits and baked goods. According to experts however, this explanation “collapses under mathematical scrutiny” because we are importing so much wheat that it’s over 7 times the volume needed for blending. Zimbabwe’s NewsDay newspaper wrote: “the volumes [of imports] far exceed blending needs, pointing to waste, re-exports, or overstated domestic production.”

Then last week came the strangest announcement of all when the Minister of Finance said that inflation had dropped to 4.1%, the lowest since 1997. That number apparently relates to ‘price stability in the local currency.’  No one understands how you can measure inflation of a currency that is largely invisible. A currency called the ZiG whose exchange rate to the US dollar is controlled by the Ministry of Finance. A currency that no one has in their pockets and isn’t available in the tills of most shops. How can you even have a currency that you can’t use to buy an air fare, a passport, fuel or medicine? It makes no sense.       

The Zimbabwe Congress of Trade Unions (ZCTU) said Finance Minister Mthuli Ncube was using “severely manipulated” inflation statistics in order to dismiss workers’ salary demands. They said claims of ‘currency stability’ were “cooked up.”  “Workers must earn salaries above the poverty datum line in a functional and stable currency,” they said. ZCTU Secretary General Mr Marimo said: “we urge all workers and negotiators to disregard the Minister’s misguided comments which appear designed to pressure employers into paying salaries in the unstable ZiG.” 

In the end, regardless of the mountains of propaganda and the huge spin, it all comes down to numbers and what we see with our own eyes. This week in the supermarket a 1 kg box of oats cost US$4.35; in December the same size and brand of oats in the same supermarket was US$3.50. Paying with a five USS dollar note, the teller said: “Can I give you a ball-point pen or a chocolate to make the price up to 5 dollars?” “No I said,” asking her to give me Zig’s as change, it would only be about 20 Zig’s but she said: “Sorry we have no Zig’s at all.” This is exactly how it has been since April 2024 when the ZiG was launched by Finance Minister Mthuli Ncube, there is none in our pockets, none in the tills and none in general circulation. Inflation or no inflation, the Zig is all but a mirage shimmering on the far horizon.

There is no charge for this Letter From Zimbabwe but if you would like to donate please visit my website.

Until next time, thanks for reading this Letter From Zimbabwe now in its 26th year, and my books about life in Zimbabwe, a country in waiting.

Ndini shamwari yenyu (I am your friend)

Love Cathy 5^th February 2026. Copyright © Cathy Buckle  https://cathybuckle.co.zw/ 

My new Photobook “Zimbabwe’s Timeless Beauty The 2025 Collection” and my Beautiful Zimbabwe 2026 Calendar are now available.  All my books, Photobooks and calendars can both be ordered from my website or from LULU. Click here to order www.lulu.com/spotlight/cathybuckle2018  

Turning the corner in a remote rural area I was faced with a giant pothole full of red muddy water which spanned the entire width of the road and looked three or four meters long. Three men were sitting in the open back of a parked pick- up truck watching and commentating. Behind me a bus was trying to do a U-turn in a muddy, sticky, slippery mess. I got out and went to talk to the men in the pick-up truck. Greetings were exchanged and I asked if they knew how deep the muddy pothole was and which part was safest to drive through. There was no way round the giant pothole and three men had three opinions, one of which was “there are people around that can help pull you out if you get stuck.”  That wasn’t very encouraging and so I waited until another car came along and watched where it crossed. The water was deep, their exhaust blew bubbles, muddy water splashed high up onto their windows but they made it. When their wave subsided, I reversed, took a deep breath, got the momentum steady and drove through the muddy pool, the odd little sideways slip under my wheels getting my adrenalin pumping. Don’t stop, was the lesson I’d learned about mud, but just clear of the puddle and around the next bend I had no choice and stopped in a hurry. There were no verges to stop on, just deep jagged gullies. Four overhead power cables had fallen and were hanging about a meter above the road. Getting out, looking, talking to another driver all made no difference and there was nothing to do but go back, face the first muddy puddle again and retreat.

This is the state of Zimbabwe half way through our rainy season and it’s the same everywhere off the main highways: town or country, industrial, suburban or residential areas. The big propaganda bubble being spun by authorities that Zimbabwe is booming stops as soon as you turn off the highways. Tourists arriving at Harare airport only have to go 9 kilometers when the bubble bursts at the roundabout. All hell breaks loose in all directions: huge potholes, subsiding chunks of tar, rivers of muddy water running along the roads, traffic lights that don’t work and private commuter taxi drivers pushing in on the left and right of you making five lanes where there are only two. Year after year there is so little road maintenance that everything off the highways is in a diabolical mess. There is no drain and litter clearance, no stabilization of verges and no fixing of potholes by local councils. Again and again we have no option but to retreat and find another way to go.     

Braving the mud and potholes in another direction a friend and I took a trip out to Mazowe Dam last week expecting to see a rapidly filling dam but we were shocked at what we saw. The national capacity of Zimbabwe’s dams is currently at 89%; some big dams are already 100% full but Mazowe Dam was just 8% full. While lunch time visitors ate fish and chips with gold cutlery overlooking the almost empty Dam, my friend reminisced about days spent here as a member of the Hunyani Rowing Club.

“The 45-minute drive to Mazowe Dam on a Sunday with Deep Purple’s ‘Smoke On The Water’ playing on the cassette deck. Rowing out towards the wall till we got to the barricade which stopped you getting too close to the spillways. Later a braai under the trees at the waterside.” “I certainly wouldn’t need a row boat to get out to the dam wall now” my friend said, “there’s so little water it would be easier to just float across there on a Lilo (air filled floating mattress).”

It was so painful to look at the low level of Mazowe Dam in a year of such good rain; clearly more water is being pumped out than is flowing in. The capacity of Mazowe Dam is 35 million cubic meters but it is currently holding only 3.6 million cubic meters.  The 37-meter-high wall is 163 metres long and they say the water has all gone to irrigation and we can but wonder what is being irrigated in the middle of a prolific rainy season. As we left Mazowe Dam a convoy of VIP cars came towards us, black cars, tinted windows, sirens, blue flashing lights and when you see them you get right off the road and stop, or face dire consequences. This is the reality of Zimbabwe in January 2026.    

I end my Letter this week with the news that 66-year-old Zimbabwean businessman Mutumwa Mawere has died. Mr Mawere had lived in exile in South Africa for nearly two decades after his Shabani Mashaba Mines were seized by the Zimbabwe government in the early 2000s. Mr Mawere’s words will long remain in our minds: “It is about whether the rule of law or the rule of men will govern economic life in Africa. Secure property rights are the bedrock of any investment and development.”

There is no charge for this Letter From Zimbabwe but if you would like to donate please visit my website.

Until next time, thanks for reading this Letter From Zimbabwe now in its 26th year, and my books about life in Zimbabwe, a country in waiting.

Ndini shamwari yenyu (I am your friend)

Love Cathy 22^nd January 2026. Copyright © Cathy Buckle  https://cathybuckle.co.zw/ 

My new Photobook “Zimbabwe’s Timeless Beauty The 2025 Collection” and my Beautiful Zimbabwe 2026 Calendar are now available.  All my books, Photobooks and calendars can both be ordered from my website or from LULU. Click here to order www.lulu.com/spotlight/cathybuckle2018  

Christmas in Zimbabwe was about pounding rain and red mud, giant potholes and slippery roads. It was a Christmas when the Diaspora came home for the holidays, foreign cars and number plates from South Africa, Botswana, Zambia, Mozambique and Malawi filling roads and car parks. It was about full trolley loads of groceries being pushed by Diasporans and their long calculations as they tried to navigate our largely invisible ZiG currency and get to grips with the fact that shops don’t have coins to give change so you must buy items you don’t want so as to round up bills to the nearest dollar. It was a time of brand new, crisp, clean one US dollar notes that came in from the Diaspora and filled up tills, a time when we luxuriated in clean bank notes that hadn’t been tucked away in shoes, socks and bras, glued together or washed and dried in the sun.

Christmas was a time when National Railways staff didn’t get their December salaries at all after a notice came to all branch offices and stations saying: “December salaries will be paid from the 5^th to 23^rd January 2026 due to ‘financial challenges.”  Railway employees were “implored to be patient with the organization during this challenging period.”

Christmas was the time when we faced the reality of the IMF statement which said that in Zimbabwe every US$100 we had saved in January 2025 would only be worth US$77 by December. “Prices are rising faster than wages,” they said and we saw that in those bills we couldn’t pay.  

Christmas was a time when South African Soldiers intercepted 1,174 Zimbabweans trying to cross the border illegally into South Africa in one day on the 26^th December. A week later the numbers were much higher as Zimbabweans headed back to their jobs in South Africa, the jobs they cannot get in Zimbabwe, the jobs that keep them alive and let them support their families back in Zimbabwe. On the 3^rd of January alone 22,483 Zimbabweans were processed through the Beitbridge border post going into South Africa.

As we moved into 2026, rural villagers had to face the reality that now they have to pay a ‘per capita development levy.’ Formerly the levy had been per household but now it’s changed to per person. Under the new system, rural district councils are charging between US$1 and US$5 per person and it’s really hurting the poorest of the poor. One Rural Chief said: “It is unheard of that local authorities would extract money from impoverished villagers. People are struggling to survive. Many rural dwellers are the elderly, who are taking care of their grandchildren, whose parents are away trying to make ends meet.” Villagers say that despite their levy payments “nothing is changing. There are no roads, no clinics and no clean water.” (Newsday)

When Christmas and New Year was all over and the Diasporans had gone home, I sat outside watching the dawn early one morning thinking about our Zimbabwe and how much longer we must live like this, struggling to survive. The sky was heavy with low hanging clouds, more rain and red mud was coming and I saw something small and dark sitting on a blue plastic pipe floating in the pool. A very small mouse was clinging on to the pipe, shivering and soaked, hanging on to survive. As soon as I rescued it, the mouse disappeared into the undergrowth, free of its struggle. Sometimes a helping hand changes everything so quickly.     

I end this Letter with a message of recognition and thanks to the many thousands of family members and friends who came home from the Diaspora this Christmas and brought love, laughter and comfort with them. It is their sacrifice and helping hands that keep us going and change everything.

There is no charge for this Letter From Zimbabwe but if you would like to donate please visit my website.

Until next time, thanks for reading this Letter From Zimbabwe now in its 25th year, and my books about life in Zimbabwe, a country in waiting.

Ndini shamwari yenyu (I am your friend)

Love Cathy 9 January 2026. Copyright © Cathy Buckle  https://cathybuckle.co.zw/ 

All my books, photobooks and calendars about life in Zimbabwe can be ordered from my website or direct from publishers LULU. Click here to order your copies www.lulu.com/spotlight/cathybuckle2018  

Christmas in Zimbabwe is a time of watermelons and litchis, of sticky orange mangoes and sweet fresh mealies roasted over a fire, dripping with butter, sprinkled with salt and pepper. It’s a time of sticky fingers and juice dripping down your chin. It’s a time when the crickets and frogs sing at night and the cicadas deafen you during the day. This Christmas it’s a time of vivid streaks of lightning blazed across dark purple skies and thunder that rattles the windows; a time of pinging hail and pounding rain and of thick, sticky red mud.

Christmas is also the time for me to thank you for reading my Letters From Zimbabwe for another year. At home or away, near or far, there are now readers of this Letter in 70 countries around the world and it is our love for this country and its people that connects us. Thank you all for your emails, messages, stories and memories. I read them all, some make me smile and others make me cry but all show me how the pulse of Zimbabwe still beats in your heart. Thank you for your help and support of my Letters, Books, Photobooks and Calendars; it is thanks to you that I am able to keep going.

This is my last Letter in 2025 and I leave you with this little story of a black pot and a troop of monkeys. On an ‘escape from the madness’ trip to the Mazowe River a few months ago, I put my tent up on the riverside, my faithful old yellow kettle on the fire and the river flowing gently past. With my notebook in my pocket and my camera in my lap, I watched and waited, as we do in the bush. I knew for sure that something would come along soon enough if I just sat sill and was patient.  A troop of monkeys had been watching my every move: checking the zips on my tent, peering through the car windows, sliding down the windscreen leaving little fingerprints and skid marks in the dust on the glass, attacking their own reflections in the wing mirrors.

The star attraction was my black cooking pot.  Again and again the monkeys came to inspect the pot, some would just stretch out a little black finger and touch the pot, others were braver, taking the lid off, dropping it on the ground, looking inside the pot and then running away. Every time the lid clattered to the ground I got up and replaced it and a bit later the monkey came back and did it all over again.  Perhaps, in that rhythm of Zimbabwe, there was a message for us all, and for our country: never stop looking and never give up hoping. 

There is no charge for this Letter From Zimbabwe but if you would like to donate please visit my website.

Until next time, Happy Christmas from Zimbabwe and hope for 2026.

Ndini shamwari yenyu (I am your friend)

Love Cathy 18^th December 2025. Copyright © Cathy Buckle  https://cathybuckle.co.zw/ 

My new Photobook “Zimbabwe’s Timeless Beauty The 2025 Collection” and my Beautiful Zimbabwe 2026 Calendar are now available.  They can both be ordered from my website or from LULU. Click here to order www.lulu.com/spotlight/cathybuckle2018  

Planes and cars, fuel, airports, roads and railways, land, farms and housing, grain, agricultural inputs and machinery, steel, timber, gold, diamonds, refuse trucks, electricity, cancer machines and covid masks ….. the list goes on and on of the corruption scandals that have brought shame upon shame to Zimbabwe in the past forty-five years. Corruption is now Zimbabwe’s middle name. Today’s Letter From Zimbabwe is the story of two men, one government tender and 93,711 missing goats.

It all began back in 2021 when two businessmen entered into an US$88 million contract with the Ministry of Lands and Agriculture to supply and deliver 632,000 goats over a period of five years. The goats were for the Presidential Goat Project, which was part of a Rural Development Initiative, aiming to distribute 632,000 goats across the country to benefit orphans, child headed families, elderly, disabled and chronically ill people.

Operating through a company called Blackdeck, the two men were given advance payments totaling US$7.7 million to start sourcing and distributing the goats. The two men delivered 4,208 goats and the remaining US$7,381,000 of the advance money disappeared. The whereabouts of 93,711 goats remains unknown.

The contract was later cancelled for non-delivery but by then other scandals and whispers surrounding the two businessmen swirled, big names were dropped and more dirt was dug up and for a while the goats story got lost in the quagmire. When the issue finally got to court the two businessmen, Moses Mpofu and Mike Chimombe, were in the dock and all eyes were on them and the missing goats.

Prosecutor Whisper Mabhaudhi said: “This offence shocks the conscience. They stole from the poorest of the poor.” The Prosecutor said Mr Mpofu had never accounted for the missing US$7.7 million but talked about how he had upgraded, roads, a dam and his farm. The Prosecutor said that there was “never any genuine remorse.”  Mpofu admitted the offence was serious but said: “It hurts me because I did not do it. It was Blackdeck.” (his company) He said he didn’t personally have the money to make restitution and that his US$1.5 million house in Borrowdale was in a family trust. He said he has nine children, eight of whom are still in school.

Mr Chimombe’s lawyer said that his client was a “rags to riches” businessman and was ready to make restitution. He said Chimombe owned two properties, a house in Borrowdale worth US$800,000 and another in Chinhoyi worth US$120,000 and vehicles worth US$200,000. Pleading for leniency Mr Chimombe said he has three wives and 15 minor children.   

Mr Mpofu (50) and Mr Chimombe (44), were this week sentenced to 22 and 17 years respectively, with portions of their sentences suspended on condition that they pay restitution.  On sentencing, the Judge said: “This crime was not only a theft of public funds, it was a theft of hope for the poorest members of our society.”  

The conviction and now incarceration of Zimbabwe’s infamous goat fraudsters has surprised us. Many before them have got away with much, much more than seven million dollars but in this case, in the end, it was more about the swirling whispers and the people behind them, than the goats. 

There is no charge for this Letter From Zimbabwe but if you would like to donate please visit my website.

Until next time, thanks for reading this Letter From Zimbabwe now in its 25th year, and my books about life in Zimbabwe, a country in waiting.

Ndini shamwari yenyu (I am your friend)

Love Cathy 9^th December 2025. Copyright © Cathy Buckle  https://cathybuckle.co.zw/ 

My new Photobook “Zimbabwe’s Timeless Beauty The 2025 Collection” and my Beautiful Zimbabwe 2026 Calendar are now available.  They can both be ordered from my website or from LULU. Click here to order www.lulu.com/spotlight/cathybuckle2018