– By Busani Bafana Naively
I have often found solace in the saying that, “good things come to those who wait”, but I have ran out of patience and all good things to describe the state of our economy. The only exception is that our economy has helped Zimbabweans to grow skins thicker than those of an elephant and a hippo combined. Despite the yo-yo behaviour of the economy that has earned Zimbabwe a bad name, it is an economy for the braves and I mean brave brains. A few days ago I woke up to newspaper headlines that now we can withdraw $1 billion dollars ($1 000 000 000) from an Automated Teller Machine (ATM). Hold it, before any of you think of visiting, I need to mention, $1 billion Zimbabwe dollars which on the official bank rate is worth about US$33 000 but on the parallel rate – which is considered the real rate here – a mere US$21 Welcome to Zimbabwe’s numerology class and remember to carry your scientific calculator next time you are planning a holiday this side of the equator. We have numbers for those with sore eyes but definitely not the faint hearted. Our financial numbers, not to mention political numbers, may drive you nuts if not knock you numb. Ask my psychiatrist and math teacher. What about denomination notes with a face value of $25 million and $50 million. Image if those notes were in US dollars and British pounds. I would not be talking to Warren Buffet or Bill Gates; they will be making a beeline to my door for advice on money matters. A quadrillion national budget, a trillion dollar house, a multi-billion dollar car and wait for it – a twenty million dollar loaf of bread. If these numbers fail to knock you out numb, then you need more. You will have to pay a whooping $400 million for a litre of petrol, $20 000 000 for a pint of milk, $70 million for 2 kg of sugar. Hearing the price of a pint of beer will get you sober anytime. I make it a habit not to look at the price tags on food items each time I am lucky to find something in the shops because that makes me hungry more and that’s something you do not want to do in a food shop. Luxuries such as baked beans, cheese, eggs, ice cream are only for seeing, and not for touching lest you damage them. They are too dear to think of; only on pay day can you risk being divorced by your spouse after buying them instead of essential commodities. Next time you visit the bank, take along one of those sizeable bags, the bigger the amount of cash you want to withdraw, the bigger the bag. In Zimbabwe numbers should be taken at face value. Purses and wallets have been ditched in favour of all shapes and sizes of bags as Zimbabweans battle with one of the evil children of inflation – a low value currency. Before, the currency crisis set in some people carried calculators with them each time they went out shopping, but what kind of calculator do you need to add million, billions and trillions which are now used to describe our every day transactions. The government will soon run into quadrillions. To the spend thrift, Zimbabweans fit the label of unrepentant splurgers yet in reality many are practically millionaires, if not a billionaires but poor ones at that. 30 million Zimbabwean dollars is enough for a public taxi ride from home to town and back. It will also buy you an airtime recharge card for your mobile phone enough for a few minutes of a local call. It best to SMS, it is cheaper. I have stopped paying insurance on some assets because I am unable to keep up with the increase in premiums, besides I do not want to have a heart attack should I unfortunately have to make a claim because I know not afford to replace those assets. Early this year, when I turned 37, I should have thrown the mother of all parties, more like the ones people throw when they hit the big 40! You know why, life expectancy for men has fallen from 60 in 1999 to 37 in 2007 and more women from 60 in 1999 to 34 in 2007. You see why I had every reason to be on top of the world. I have lived to a ripe old age in Zimbabwean terms that is. What more, the cost of a funeral alone is enough to kill. A standard coffin at $5 billion dollars and a designer casket costs enough to buy you third-hand car who wants to die. At times I wonder if numbers are just a game. Take the unemployment figure of 80%, which is hard and cold to fathom. How many people are out of a job in my country? It boggles the mind. I have heard stories about people pouring onto to the street in some countries when unemployment goes up by a percentage point and governments are rattled if not changed. I cannot afford to think deeply about our situation, I have been to a shrink three times this week. I could not pay him so I asked the specialist to amputate a few limbs as a warning to other defaulters. That visit cost me an arm and a leg.