Average Joe's Blog

When police in Gweru found Charles Zulu’s body lying in a pool of his blood one morning in May last year, they might have sent out word about a gun-totting loose canon on the prowl. And, given the grisly nature with which Zulu was slain, the police might have warned the public not to approach the suspect, who must have been in the same league as the heartless Briton, Raoul Moat, who shot and killed his ex-girlfriend’s current partner the very day he was released from prison. Not once might the law agents have suspected that the killer could be a greedy, fresh-faced sixteen-year-old boy from Kwekwe who was supposed to be asleep the time Zulu met his fate. And, in their investigations and public warnings, nobody ever thought of leaking the same words of wisdom to ‘The Beast’ of Chivi. Zulu was a Gweru-based employee of the Zimbabwe Broadcasting Holdings. On the fateful night, the 58-year-old man was traveling towards Kwekwe when he picked up a teenager who had flagged for a lift. The t...

There is a small metal sign that welcomes all and sundry to Nembudziya Police Station, and a glance at the charge office from a distance indeed makes one feel welcome. But inside, trouble is brewing in the cauldron of ZRP Nembudziya in the Gokwe district of Midlands province. It is not the weather-beaten, partially burnt wooden modules that used to be sweet home for police officers deployed to the place when it was still a post for Gokwe police station. They are still standing and habitable – weather-beaten, but fine. Sadly, the same cannot be said for the brickwork erected when Nembudziya was upgraded to station status. On the face of it, Nembudziya is a very modern rural police station, with residential houses built along the lines of the famous Battlefields police camp – three bedrooms, a lounge, a pantry, bathroom and toilet. Going into the cells, you would wish to be arrested to spend just one night behind the immaculate bars and pump a few muscles in the cell birds’ exercise...

Masvingo province is mocked for suffering from drought every second rainy season, an unshakable joke since the problem of rain supply in the province is there for all to see – what with their wide tarred road network that is favourite home to almost every vehicle. But try to take a trip to Gokwe in the neighbouring province of Midlands, which – with its white gold known as cotton, and several mines – is virtually a land of plenty. But Gokwe’s envious riches are well and truly hidden, right beyond the back of Zimbawe's latent opulence. You will not get to Gokwe - not on their roads; hell no - not unless you are airborne; or otherwise made of some superman, batman, spiderman; or any such superhuman stuff. You could be asked to describe the road network of Gokwe district in a sentence; well, I have a tip: swabs of cotton hanging onto thorns and leaves attached to dusty trees either side of dusty, sandy and/or stony, sometimes fragmented bituminous strips on a treacherous terrain t...

These are the words of the provincial chairperson of the Matebeleland North chapter of the Zimbabwe Republic Police's new baby, the Women’s Network. She leads the Matebeleland North chapter of the ZRP Women’s Network and, under her leadership, the province has made tentative steps towards empowering the cause of the fairly skinned in the ZRP. It is not much really, and they do not gloat about it in the province. To the women in Matebeleland North, small things do matter in life. In their own small way, they have made a small contribution to the development of the girl child in the mineral and tourism stalwart. Their small tuck shop at the Eland Farm, 70km North of Bulawayo is a modest affair with small stock, like crates of beer, some groceries for the local populace. And the fairer sex in the province are sitting on a small golden handshake from the provincial fund – a $2000 loan, which they were forwarded to make their business venture, the only one in the area, a success. The...