Just when we thought we were having a strangely warm winter with blue sky sunny days and cold nights, an icy blast blew in the back door.  White frost spread its frozen crystals everywhere and daytime temperatures dropped to 19 degrees and 5 degrees at night. A slender mongoose came up the steps to my front door, stopped, looked straight at me reading my new book and then ran across the lawn, fur fluffed up, looking for a little spot in the sun. But it isn’t only winter that’s giving Zimbabwe an icy blast this July.

Since my last Letter, while our attention was on thousands of Zimbabweans being deported and repatriated from South Africa, President Mnangagwa was signing the controversial Constitutional Amendments into law. The Act was published in the government Gazette on the 7^th July 2026 and Zimbabweans were not given their right to vote in a Referendum.

These are dark days in Zimbabwe. Under the new Constitutional Amendments, the President will no longer be elected by the people but by Parliament. Presidential and parliamentary terms have increased from five to seven years leaving the current President, MPs and Senators in office until 2030. Senate will be expanded from 80 to 90 members with the 10 new Senators being appointed by the President. Public interviews for Judges have been scrapped and they will now, with consultation, be appointed by the President. The Zimbabwe Electoral Commission will no longer oversee voter registration, this will now be done by the Registrar-General and a new Delimitation Commission, appointed by the President, will take over the delimitation of constituencies and wards.

President Mnangagwa said  in the Sunday Mail that extending this second term by two years, from 2028 to 2030 was not his idea it was “a collective evolution of the political process.” A coalition of churches, labour unions, civic groups, war veterans and opposition political leaders say they are now planning peaceful mass action to challenge the Act.

Meanwhile we watched increasingly distressing video clips of people being deported and others who were ‘voluntarily repatriating’ from South Africa to escape harassment and persecution from protestors in South Africa who were going door to door chasing them out. Two weeks ago, the number was 29,000 deported and repatriating. This week the government said that between the 28^th of May and 10^th of July 99,418 Zimbabweans have been repatriated. A staggering number in just 6 weeks.

Watching for the return of the mongoose, I paged through the proof copy of my beautiful new photobook which has just arrived.  Despite everything, from power hungry politicians to the anguish of 100,000 people coming home in an icy winter, every year I publish my annual photobook to highlight the other face of Zimbabwe, beautiful, diverse and always welcoming.

This year my new photobook has pictures and stories from Chimanimani, Nyanga, Mavhuradonha, Gonarezhou, Umfurudzi ,Marondera, Darwendale, Mazowe and others. From the beautiful winged antlion on my back door to the huge elephants going for an afternoon swim in the river, this is our beautiful country. Thank you all for your support of my photobooks over the last five years, the everyday, off the beaten track memories that make us so love this country.  “Zimbabwe’s Timeless Beauty The 2026 Collection” is available now in hardback or paperback from https://cathybuckle.co.zw/  or  https://www.lulu.com/spotlight/cathybuckle2018

There is no charge for this Letter From Zimbabwe but if you would like to support my writing 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 17^rd July 2026. Copyright © Cathy Buckle  https://cathybuckle.co.zw/ 

Please visit my website to see all my Books, Photobooks and Calendars https://cathybuckle.co.zw/  

Long time readers of my Letters From Zimbabwe and followers of events here, will know that South Africa has long been our safe haven.

Thank you, South Africa, you have been our comfort, our refuge and our safety. For the last 25 years you were a safe place for us to run to when things were at their worst here. A country we went to when violent land invaders were evicting farmers and their workers and burning and looting our farms. A place we could go to when we were escaping political persecution, brutality, violence and torture before, during and after every rigged, contested election. When there was literally no food to buy in our shops we came to South Africa and bought our groceries there and you welcomed us. When there were, and still are, no jobs with livable wages in Zimbabwe and we could not survive, you gave us work so that we could send money home to our families in Zimbabwe to buy food and medicine, pay rent and school fees.

This week everything changed.

It has been unbearably painful watching our best friends turning against us this week. Not the South African government or their officials or even the police but protestors. Black South Africans attacking black people from other African countries they accuse of being undocumented. But it is not just undocumented African migrants who are running for their lives and the fear is everywhere. Many legally documented Zimbabweans have also been targeted, threatened, intimidated, attacked and had their property taken. Hearing snatches of scared, desperate voices of Zimbabweans in long queues at ‘holding centers’ trying to get away from the place that has been their home, their safety and their sanctuary for years has been heartbreaking: “They just came and chased us out of our homes;” “they didn’t even ask if we had papers;” “we were so scared, we had to run for our lives;” “we are no longer wanted here;” “I had to run, I have papers but they didn’t care,” “I had to leave all my property, I am going home with nothing.”

Leaving that behind is one thing but this is what Zimbabweans are coming home to:

A government that has just passed a Bill to change the Constitution which enables the President to stay in power for an extra two years and takes away the people’s right to elect a President of their choice.  

They are coming back to a country where the minimum monthly wage has just been raised to  US$90 for Gardeners and yard workers; US$99 for Cooks and Housekeepers;  US$108 for Child minders and Caregivers. Nurses will be coming home to a base salary of $250-320 a month. Teachers and public service workers to base level salaries of US$320 a month. Pensioners will be coming to a base level pension of US$70 a month if they paid into the government’s Social Security Scheme. The simple fact is that you can’t survive on these amounts in Zimbabwe and jobs are very hard to find.

To put those numbers in context: Rent is US$50-75 a month for one room, without bathroom.  Rent in a small cottage in someone else’s garden is US$300 – 500 a month and in a 3 bed house in Harare it is $850-1,400 a month, at least.

A single person’s monthly groceries are around $120 -$150 for the basics. A family of four needs $400 -$500 a month for food. Utilities and services are: Municipality US$40 – 100 a month; Electricity US$40 a month; internet & phone US$40 a month. Go anywhere by road: Fuel is US$ 2.02 a litre, compared to $1.58 in South Africa; $1.54 in Zambia; $1.53 in Botswana and $1.47 in Mozambique.

All this is what awaits Zimbabweans who are coming home. The effect of their lost jobs and incomes on the people they were supporting back in Zimbabwe is incalculable. Their remittances to Zimbabwe have been paying for school fees, medicines, groceries, rent and so much more. Zimbabweans in South Africa send home roughly US$58 – 62 million every month through formal channels alone. (Bloomberg) Their remittances are so important to the Zimbabwe government that they are even factored into our national annual budget.

There are a hundred opinions about the events in South Africa this week; about thousands and thousands of people desperately trying to escape South Africa, about who is to blame, about the ordinary, good, kind, decent South Africans who have only ever been our friends and tried to help us. But most importantly the question on everybody’s lips is why didn’t South Africa enforce their own regulations about undocumented migrants but instead leave it to protestors.

Despite all the questions, the why’s and what ifs, our hearts are breaking for our Zimbabweans. They made the supreme sacrifice of going to the Diaspora to support their families back in Zimbabwe and this is how it ends, at the hands of men carrying sticks and running through the streets.

In May and June 2026 over 29,000 Zimbabweans have been deported or have voluntarily repatriated from South Africa. More will follow. After it all, one image haunts me: a brief video clip yesterday of young men climbing out of windows on the top floor of a multi storey hostel and sliding down drainpipes to get away from protestors who were going door to door attacking ‘migrants’ in the building. A young boy in brown shorts and a red and white striped shirt climbed out of the window. He reached for the drain pipe but could not hold on. Every time I close my eyes I see that little boy in the red and white striped shirt falling and I am bereft.

There is no charge for this Letter From Zimbabwe but if you would like to support my writing 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 3^rd July 2026. Copyright © Cathy Buckle  https://cathybuckle.co.zw/ 

Please visit my website to see all my Books, Photobooks and Calendars https://cathybuckle.co.zw/  

Driving behind a commuter kombi (minibus) on a road littered with potholes and humps, the kombi kept cutting in front of me, stopping to pick up more passengers, overtaking me and then cutting me off again. The kombi’s back window was completely covered with a poster supporting Zimbabwe’s Constitutional Amendment Bill Number 3. ‘Building our Future without Interruptions,’ the poster said and I felt a deep ache in my heart. For weeks we have watched as every trick in the book has been used to silence opponents including violence, beatings, intimidation and harassment and then, at the last minute, reducing the submission time from 20 to 10 minutes for opposing MPs to voice their opinions. Zimbabwe’s parliament, which has a two thirds Zanu PF majority, yesterday passed Constitution Amendment Bill Number 3 with 216 votes in favour and 42 against.  The Senate will now debate and vote on the Bill before it goes to the President for assent.  

Trying to clear my head while this process went on, I headed for the wilderness, looking for solace and peace. Walking along the narrow path in the dense thickets along the river, hope begins to return. This is the place where the trees are immense, said to be 500 years old, towering 40-50 to metres high. Even their names are intoxicating: Poison Pod Albizia, Red Mahogany, Apple Leaf Rain tree, Fever tree, Monkey Bread and as I pass each one, I touch their trunks and feel the beauty of Zimbabwe seeping back into my heart. This is the place where vines and creepers coil and curl, twist and bend, looping into branches and hanging in thick ropes. It’s the place where you have to step over big exposed roots and walk around spectacular prop roots. You have to duck your head to miss low hanging branches and I stop to look at a giant Sycamore Fig tree growing half in and half out of the river. A little Vervet monkey is hanging precariously from a thin leafy branch just a few centimetres above the water, desperate to reach that one yummy berry that it can see. The branch bends more, the monkey is almost upside down now and then with a long stretch and a quick snatch it gets the berry, pops it into its mouth and climbs back to safety. Ahead on the path is a pile of buffalo droppings and my eyes are peeled now and my heart rushes at the sound of rustling but it’s just a big leguaan (water monitor) skittering down into the safety of the water.

Little black and white spotted feathers litter the ground here and I reach an impenetrable thicket and look up. What must live there in those dark thick branches adorned with thick creeping vines, I wonder, and then I look down at my feet and see a tail lying in the leaves. Thick and fluffy, about 30 centimetres long, it is newly fallen there, but how or at whose hand or teeth is unknown. Look but don’t touch, I think. Further along I bend down to pick up what I think is a plastic bag only to discover it’s actually a fat, inside out snake skin.

Things out here in the wilderness are not at first what they seem and I watch a fearsome column of big black ants, six across, marching in a long line across the path. Life in Zimbabwe is like the ants on the trail: follow, obey, don’t step out of line or you too may end up being a tail lying in the leaves. Don’t let democracy interrupt the future of the already rich and powerful.  

When time comes for me to leave the wilderness it’s hard to say goodbye to the guardians of this place, men and women working so hard for so little, far from their families, often in dangerous situations. They are ever smiling, ever thankful and I give what little I can, encouraging them to keep believing in the good, keep protecting Zimbabwe’s wild places. It’s a touching farewell. “Come back soon,” they say and I swallow a lump in my throat as I head out into the approaching dawn. The following day a message comes on my phone asking if I had a safe trip home and thanking me for staying at their camp. This is the real heart of Zimbabwe.

There is no charge for this Letter From Zimbabwe but if you would like to support my writing 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 June 2026. Copyright © Cathy Buckle  https://cathybuckle.co.zw/ 

Please visit my website to see all my Books, Photobooks and Calendars https://cathybuckle.co.zw/

It’s that gorgeous time of year when the colours of winter are stunning in Zimbabwe. Bright orange flowers on creepers and aloes attracting sunbirds with emerald green, crimson, blue and bright yellow plumage. Under the deep blue sky sunbirds are feasting on nectar, sipping and flicking from one long thin flower to another, hanging upside down with wings that apparently beat 50 or more times a second. The Msasa trees are covered in pods this year, more than we’ve had for a few years, the pods thick and leathery, olive green and light brown, waiting to shed their bounty at the end of winter while termites climb high up into the trees, leaving their red soil pathways all the way up.  

This early winter in Zimbabwe it’s gone quiet in residential neighbourhoods. Up until a couple of weeks ago people were bent over and chattering, busy harvesting their maize on self- apportioned roadside plots, snapping cobs off brown stalks and throwing them into piles, later filling bags and carrying their precious food home. Where yesterday the maize plants were tall and golden, now the remnants lie in heaps waiting to be burnt before the next planting season comes. Wasted food, I think, as I remember what a vital resource maize residue, called mashanga, was when I was farming.

Memories come flooding back of reaping the maize and carrying it back to dry on the racks on the farm. We never burnt the crop residue, always collecting and storing it to feed to sheep and cattle through winter and the dry season, a precious resource until the green grass came back. There was always lots left on the fields though and there was nothing nicer than watching the cattle crowding at the gate in the mornings after harvesting, shoving and pushing, wanting to be first in the field. Their breath would rise in a white mist above them as they crowded at the gate, mooing and bellowing, drooling and dribbling. When the big gate swung open on those cold winter mornings you had to get out the way of the big push and after the stampede the only view was of heads down everywhere, munching, crunching, satisfied.  

These memories were particularly poignant this week when I heard that local authorities have now started selling the land on my farm to individuals and are evicting the people who were resettled there by the government after they evicted me. “Go back where you came from,” the settlers are being told.

Selling contested land, telling people who they resettled there that they must go, it’s all just unthinkable, unbelievable. Hurt after hurt after hurt, worthless contracts, documents and Deeds, empty promises and repeated cycles of evictions.

While this is going on the World Food Programme said it urgently requires US$36,5 million to sustain food assistance programmes in Zimbabwe over the next six months. The WFP said they assisted 161,000 people in April, distributing 2,890 tonnes of food and providing US$67,400 in cash transfers to vulnerable households.  Meanwhile the South African press said Zimbabwe was the major buyer of South African maize during the 2025/26 season, purchasing 780,770 tonnes. But we are confused because Zimbabwe boasted about a bumper harvest in the 2025/26 season and now we just try and make sense of it all: the World Food Programme feeding Zimbabweans, a bumper harvest, authorities selling contested land, evicting resettled farmers. This is the face of farming in Zimbabwe in 2026.

Meeting a friend this week we talked about what’s happening on farms and then reminisced about those winter mornings when we had stood at the farm gate together watching the cows when they had just been let out into a newly harvested field. Guinea fowl and francolins running in the stubble finding dropped maize pips, cows lifting their heads with their mouths full of brown maize leaves, saliva hanging from their lips, bellies fat and round, coats shiny and glistening. “There will never be farming there again now,” my friend said and I had to turn my head away.

There is no charge for this Letter From Zimbabwe but if you would like to support my writing 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 30th May 2026. Copyright © Cathy Buckle  https://cathybuckle.co.zw/ 

Please visit my website to see all my Books, Photobooks and Calendars https://cathybuckle.co.zw/ 

On a cool May morning with pink clouds in the dawn sky, I looked up at the waning crescent of the Moon and thought about this Letter From Zimbabwe that I’ve been writing and sending to people around the world every fortnight for 26 years. It started with men at my farm gate throwing bricks and rocks as they began what became an eight-month road to hell as they seized the farm and everything on it and devastated the lives of everyone who lived and worked there. It was not an inherited farm, it had been legally bought and paid for 10 years after Independence with government approval but that made no difference to the men at the gate or the Zimbabwe Government. 26 years later the headlines this week are: ‘WE ARE NOT GIVING LAND BACK TO WHITE FARMERS.’ Those were the words of the Minister of Agriculture, Anxious Masuka who was apparently clarifying widespread reports of a land reform reversal. What followed was as clear as mud.

67 farms that were protected by BIPPA’s (Bilateral Investment Promotion and Protection Agreements) including from Denmark, Germany, the Netherlands and Switzerland would have their farms returned to them.

840 indigenous farms that were wrongly gazetted at the height of the land reform programme would be returned to their black Zimbabwean owners.

409 white Zimbabwean farmers who the Minister said have been ‘peacefully co-existing with local land reform beneficiaries’ would be allowed to purchase the farms they are now occupying, with a ‘set-off mechanism.’  A ‘set-off mechanism,’ is explained like this:  if the government owes a farmer whose land they seized $500,000 in infrastructure compensation, and the purchase price of the land now is $500,000, the debts are cancelled out to facilitate ownership. “The land itself is being sold, not returned for free,” the Minister said.

I can’t tell you how many times I’ve read this bizarre story which surely requires a comprehensive and clear policy paper for the future of agriculture and food security in Zimbabwe, not to mention property rights, Title Deeds that are worth the paper they are written on and good race relations.  

So far it’s all as clear as mud and aside from the 409 white farmers, the rest of us, around 4,000 ‘dispossessed’ farmers, continue to wait for our compensation. It’s been 26 years now.  It begs this question though: if I go back and ‘occupy’ my own farm and ‘peacefully co-exist’ with the people who know they are living on contested land, will I be allowed to buy my own farm back again, the farm I’ve already paid for and whose Title Deeds I have? Why would I do that? 

All of this is morally incomprehensible whichever way you interpret it.

I end this Letter with an extract from a Letter From Zimbabwe that I wrote 26 years ago in May 2000:  The letter was called ‘Sacrificial Lambs’ and explained how 67 Marondera farmers were called to an emergency meeting held in the Ruzawi Club. I was there and we were told that in order to prevent 2000 farms from being seized by the government we had to decide who was prepared to sell their farms, who had had enough of land invasions and who was ready to give up. 26 years ago I described what happened: “It was all about who’s prepared to be a sacrificial lamb. It’s all a farce really because although 35% of farmers in one small area of Marondera said they would give up their farms, it’s got to be done with compensation. Compensation, we were told, is not an issue that’s been discussed yet because there isn’t any money. What the government have suggested is that farmers would be given an I.O.U. and then, funds permitting, they would pay us out over a five or ten year period.  These comments were met with the scorn and disgust that they deserve. What hope would any of us have of ever being paid and how the hell would we survive in the interim.”

That was 26 years ago. We are still waiting. Nothing has changed. Trust remains elusive.  

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

My books “African Tears,” “Beyond Tears,” and “Can You Hear the Drums” tell the story of the invasion of my farm and others and the events that unfolded throughout Zimbabwe in the early years of farm seizures. These books are available from https://www.lulu.com/spotlight/cathybuckle2018

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 14^th May 2026. Copyright © Cathy Buckle  https://cathybuckle.co.zw/ 

Please visit my website to see all my Books, Photobooks and Calendars https://cathybuckle.co.zw/ 

As winter fast approaches and the first orange aloes come into flower, there’s a cool wind tugging at the banners that have been hung across the highways in our towns. Winter is not the only thing sending a chill to our bones this May 2026.

The banners are promoting the ruling political party’s proposed Amendments to the Constitution. The banners are not saying: Protect our Constitution, Protect one man one vote, Protect democracy or Protect referendums, instead they are saying: ‘Constitutional Amendment Bill No 3. Putting development ahead of politics.’

‘Development ahead of politics’ they say, not mentioning they want to increase Presidential terms to 7 years and take away the right of 16 million people to vote for the President and give it to 300 MPs and Senators in parliament instead.

‘Development ahead of politics’ they say, while we say what about putting people ahead of politics. What about putting nurses ahead of politics, nurses who earn less than US$390 a month and are enduring chronic staff shortages which leaves them with a nurse to patient ratio of 1:20 or even 1:30 patients in some wards. Recommended nurse to patient ratios are 1:5 patients.  

‘Development ahead of politics,’ they say while we say what about putting teachers ahead of politics, teachers who are earning salaries from US$320- 480 a month. Teachers who can’t even afford public transport to get to work. Teachers who are struggling with a teacher to pupil ratio of 1:45 children when the recommended rate is 1:25 students.  

‘Development ahead of politics’ they say while we say what about putting ordinary people ahead of politics; people who still live in dusty villages without water or electricity 46 years after independence and still use donkey and ox carts for transport.

Ordinary people in urban and rural areas are struggling to find enough money for school fees when term opens in a week’s time. One Dad told me such a sad story this week. His son had done so well that he’d been chosen to be a School Captain, but with that honour came the need for a new school uniform. New colour trousers and shirt, new colour blazer and that was before the school fees. “I am so proud of my first born,” the Dad said to me, angrily wiping a tear from his eye, “but I don’t know how to afford it.”

The closing date for submissions on the proposed Constitutional Amendment is the 15^th May 2026. The government say they don’t need a Referendum but still they put up banners and they arrest, beat, intimidate and threaten those who dare to differ.  

Please don’t forget about Zimbabwe and the ordinary people. Don’t forget about a nurse trying to look after 20 patients. A teacher trying to teach a class of 45 students. A Dad so proud of his first born son.

There is no charge for this Letter From Zimbabwe but if you would like to support my writing 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 1^st May 2026. Copyright © Cathy Buckle  https://cathybuckle.co.zw/ 

Please visit my website to see all my Books, Photobooks and Calendars https://cathybuckle.co.zw/ 

These early mornings as summer draws to an end, the mist hangs in our gardens and somewhere in the branches of a tree the eerie drawn-out whistle of a ghost bird (Grey-headed Bushshrike) is a reminder that the seasons are changing. The summer birds have gone and at night and in the early mornings there is a chill in the air. Out of nowhere an unexpected late rain storm lashed my home area last night. Half a dozen sausage flies and a handful of crickets appeared and a little reed frog climbed up the kitchen wall, a beautiful little creature with a green back, cream stripes, red blotches and reddish pink toes. You couldn’t make up these colours I thought while another 25mm (one inch) of rain pounded down. With so much variety and beauty all around it’s hard to watch the other side of the story about events in Zimbabwe as we approach our 46^th anniversary of Independence.   

The Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe just introduced new ZiG banknotes. They say these notes are more durable, convenient and secure than the ones they originally released only 2 years ago. The new ZiG bank notes have such miniscule exchange values to the US dollar, that frankly we are bemused at the expense of it all. Only 3 denominations of the new notes have been released, the $10 ZiG note which is worth less than 50 US cents; the $20 ZiG note worth less than one US dollar and the $50 ZiG note which is worth less than two US dollars. The highest bank note available today in Zimbabwe isn’t even worth two US dollars. As it has been for 25 years, Zimbabwe’s rapidly changing, short-lived bank notes are worth more as collectors’ items than as money in our pockets.      

Zimbabwe’s new bank notes were just a momentary distraction from the latest events in the final 30 days of the public consultation period about the ruling party’s proposed amendments to the Constitution.

In the past 60 days we’ve seen opponents to the amendments being beaten, arrested, attacked and threatened. In the past week the Zimbabwe Human Rights Commission was in the firing line. ZHRC Chairperson, lawyer Jessie Majome, released a statement about the Constitutional Amendments saying that the public hearings had been marred by the systematic suppression of dissenting voices. The ZHRC said that some venues for the hearings had been controlled by youths, with vetting at entry points restricting access.  Ms Majome said that in Mashonaland West, “men holding whips were involved in vetting participants in Mhondoro-Ngezi.” The ZHRC said: “The Commission observed instances where participants with divergent views to the proposed amendments were threatened, silenced, denied opportunities to contribute and in some instances physically attacked.”

Three days after releasing the ZHRC report Ms Majome was fired from her post by President Mnangagawa and reassigned to the Public Services Commission. Lawyers immediately said that it was unconstitutional for the President to have removed Ms Majome from her position. Lawyer David Coltart said a Commissioner can only be removed for incapacity, gross incompetence, or gross misconduct and only the Judicial Services Commission is empowered to initiate those proceedings. David Coltart said “None of this has happened in Ms Majome’s case. She clearly isn’t incapacitated and clearly isn’t incompetent. There has been no allegation of misconduct. This was a brazen breach of the Constitution.”

Hearts are heavy in Zimbabwe the day before our 46^th anniversary of Independence. In the past two months we have again become a nation that whispers and looks over its shoulder. It feels exactly like the build up to an election and the tactics to silence voices and instill fear are the same as always. Those awful words that we know so well have again become everyday vocabulary: abduction, beating, threatened, silenced, attacked, blindfolds, whips and batons.

Please don’t forget about Zimbabwe as we walk this treacherous path paved by people who want to stay in power. 

There is no charge for this Letter From Zimbabwe but if you would like to support my writing 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 17th April 2026. Copyright © Cathy Buckle  https://cathybuckle.co.zw/ 

Please visit my website to see all my Books, Photobooks and Calendars https://cathybuckle.co.zw/ 

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