Welcome to Limbabwe

　
There’s nothing like the sounds of a sultry Bulawayo night….as a thousand generators kick in all over the city, signalling yet another power cut.

Such is life in Zimbabwe’s second city, whose basic infrastructure has crumbled under Mugabe’s crashed economy. The roads are full of potholes, the traffic lights don’t work, and the electricity is more off than on. But apparently, things not as bad as they were. (My hosts, tell me that six months ago there was no water supply and they had to drink from their swimming pool for a week!)

Thanks to the recent introduction of stable currencies (US dollars and the South African Rand) , replacing the inflationary, sky-rocketing Zimbabwe dollar, things do seem on the surface, to be looking up. The petrol stations now have fuel and the shop shelves are full for the first time in years. (Up to very recently TM, the Zimbabwe equivalent of Tesco’s, was jokingly renamed MT because it generally was.)

The only problem seems to be lack of customers. I had the supermarket to myself this morning which made me feel a bit like Michael Jackson. After, several minutes I realised if I was going to buy anything, I would also need his wallet. (A medium size bottle of Head and Shoulders shampoo was price marked US $9.50 which is about £5.80!)

Talk to anyone and there does seem to be a tangible positivity in the air. But Zimbabweans have been here before and one wonders is it yet another false dawn in the country's attempts to revitalise its ailing economy. The newly appointed unity government is struggling, as the opposition Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) try to broker deals with a belligerent President Mugabe and his hostile, infighting ZANU PF party. More discord than unity, it seems.

Politically the country is in limbo which means its difficult to see which ways things are going to go. Maybe they could start with changing the name to Limbabwe?