Lazarus Sauti

Lazarus Sauti After returning from a village meeting, Maneta plucks Musasa leaves from their stems and picks up stray logs to make fire and prepare for dinner. She and her two children, Taurai and Chiedza, gather on a dirt floor in a shed-like structure next to their house in Goromonzi District, in Mashonaland East province. Wisps of smoke rise from their choto , the Shona name given to a traditional cooking-stove, sculpted out of clay, and fuelled by wood and other organic matter. Maneta, sadly, does not worry much about the dark and heavy smoke. “The pollution does not bother me at all. It just goes up and away,” she said, piling roughly chopped logs into the stove. This simple daily act is replicated in the homes of more than 70 per cent of Zimbabweans, who depend on solid fuels such as wood, charcoal, crops or other agricultural waste, animal dung, shrubs and straw, saw dust, gel and coal for their cooking and heating needs. According to the Multiple Indicat...

Lazarus Sauti Tichakunda Muzire, a cotton farmer for many years in Gokwe south district in the Midlands Province of Zimbabwe, is fast losing his interest in cotton growing due to poor pricing and alleged manipulation by buyers. “My brother, for so many years I survived growing cotton, but it is useless to continue when buyers are ripping us off. “The price of cotton no longer motivates us. In fact, I am opting for more lucrative crops such as tobacco,” he says. Muzire adds: “Imagine we are even forced to sell cotton by-products, which we should retain. Is this fair?” Another cotton farmer from the hot and semi-arid marginalised area, Grace Ndongwe, says the crop, once referred to as Zimbabwe’s white gold, has suffered from low intake as ginners as well as textile companies are facing increasing pressure from cheap imported fabrics and clothes mainly from China. “Cotton used to be a lucrative cash crop, but we are now forced to sell it for 30c/kg. “To make matters...

Lazarus Sauti Books have become cheaper for most Zimbabweans, but authors and publishers are not benefiting due to escalating piracy. Street pavements in Harare are full of pirated books, reproduced illegally by printers who feed the informal market at cheap prices. Most parents find prices of these books tempting, often opting for them as opposed to the few remaining formal bookstores such as Innov8, Mambo Press, Kingstons and Baroda among others. Shepherd Matsvimbo, a street vendor, is aware that piracy is a crime, but to him it is a matter of survival. “I know that selling pirated books, CDs and DVDs is a crime in this country, but for me it is a way of earning a living,” he said, adding that his customers are parents looking for school textbooks. Besides street vending, National Arts Council of Zimbabwe director Elvis Mari singles out educational institutions as the major perpetrators of book piracy. “Ironically, educational institutions from early childhood ...

Lazarus Sauti Heroes are never perfect. But, they are brave. They are authentic, they are courageous, determined, discreet and they’ve got grit. These are the words of Wade Davis, a Canadian anthropologist, ethnobotanist, author and photographer. As the whole country celebrates the contribution of fallen combatants who risked their lives to protect our country, let us not forget our everyday heroes and heroines – ordinary people who daily perform simple acts of valor not to become great, but simply to improve the lives of others. Although Zimbabwe is in a dire economic situation characterised by high unemployment and massive job retrenchments, these heroes are among many ordinary Zimbabweans who have dedicated themselves to making a difference to their communities. Everyday many brave the cold weather and harsh municipal police selling fruit and vegetables, airtime and consumables simply to put food on the table, a roof over their heads as well as to send children to scho...

Lazarus Sauti Every day, Ashlar, a 32 year-old mother of two from Ngwazani Village in Buhera North, walks three hours in the scorching heat to fetch water for cooking, cleaning, bathing, washing, food production and waste disposal. “When it comes to water, we face many challenges here. We wake up before sunrise and travel many kilometres to fetch water from unprotected wells,” she said. Like most villages in Buhera, the area’s rainfall level is relatively low and erratic. It is also characterised by frequent droughts. Other factors affecting water supply in the area and most parts of the country include, poor resource management, inadequate infrastructure and inefficient use of water resources. Sadly, Ashlar and the other women in rural and urban Zimbabwe bear the brunt of water shortages and are exposed to water-borne illnesses due to social and cultural inequality. The Multiple Indicator Survey (2014) says that access to safe drinking water may be particularly important f...