Woman's Story About Zimbabawe

I met a woman from Zimbabawe this morning. She told me her entire family is still there, and they tell her not to go back. It's one thing to read the news about Mugabe, and the massacres, and another thing to speak with someone whose family is in the thick of it.

Hearing the message in colloquial terms sometimes has more of an impact than when it's expressed in political verse and essay. She said they cannot get bread from a store. People are having to buy a loaf of bread on the black market. Bread.

She said inflation is so bad, that for awhile, everyone was a "trillionaire" but because the money was worth nothing, something like thousands equaled one U.S. dollar, their government or treasury took a bunch of zeroes off of the currency. Overnight, she said, people went from being a trillionaire to having $50 in the bank.

She said it's mainly the activists who are massacred, and anyone who speaks up. But, she says, her family doesn't even vote, because to vote one way or the other is to invite trouble, one way or the other.

We exchanged phone numbers and she said she'd like to tell me more, from her family's perspective, and her own perspective. So if we do, and when I get to hear the story, I'll write about it here.

She's studying international affairs or politics at Georgetown.