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A Long, Hard Slog in Zimbabwe
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Chitau closes in on a group of women carrying empty bags and baskets. They, too, are coming from Epworth, but their destination, the bustling Mbare market near downtown Harare, is even farther than Chitau's lumber yard.
They earn the equivalent of two or three U.S. dollars a day, the women explain, by buying vegetables at Mbare, then carrying them back to Epworth to sell. The bus would cut their profits by half or more.
A few minutes later, Chitau indulges his one daily luxury, buying a cigarette from a street vendor squatting by the side of the street. The cost is 400,000 Zimbabwean dollars, or about 7 cents.
"By smoking, I can't feel as hungry," Chitau explains as he inhales deeply from the cigarette and briefly slackens his pace.
A few steps later, he tosses the burned-out butt. Tea is still four hours away. It will be seven hours until lunch, when a plate of sadza -- the snow-white cornmeal mush that is southern Africa's staple food -- will be his first meal since last night, he says. His pace quickens again.
The sun is up now, casting long shadows as Chitau passes the two-hour mark in his journey. He crosses an intersection where the traffic light, like most in Harare, is not working.
A passing van -- such vehicles are used almost universally as taxis here -- slows to let out a passenger. Its radio is tuned to the 7 a.m. newscast, which like all radio and television reports in Zimbabwe carries only government propaganda. The announcer complains that sanctions imposed on Mugabe's government by the United States and European countries are undermining Zimbabwe.
As the van pulls off, Chitau bears left from Chiremba Road onto Robert Mugabe Road, a commercial strip where businesses are struggling to stay open. Among the estimated 20 percent of Zimbabweans who have jobs, many have simply stopped coming to work now that the value of their salaries has fallen below the cost of commuting.
Chitau arrives at his lumber yard at 7:13 a.m., after 166 minutes of nearly continuous walking. As often happens on rainless mornings such as this, he is early. Chitau can savor the next 47 minutes until his workday begins.
He says, "Now I must rest."
