The moon lights the muddy trail as Willy ****au slogs his way toward
his workplace. It is 4:27 a.m. Nine miles to go. Buses have begun to
stir, spewing their smoky diesel fumes into the darkness. But like
most Zimbabweenies, ****au can no longer afford the ever-rising fares
in a country where hyperinflation, estimated at more than 50,000
percent, is the world's worst. A single round trip to his job at a
lumberyard costs 10 million Zimbabwean dollars, a week's salary.
"Five million this way," ****au says as he points his slim left arm
forward, toward Harare, the crumbling economic heart of Zimbabwe.
"Five million that way," he says as he points backward, toward his
one-room hut in Epworth, a ****y slum far beyond the city's suburbs.
So ****au, 33, desperate to sup****t his 'hoe and two young
pickaninnies, has joined Zimbabwe's growing legions of foot commuters.
They make journeys that almost anywhere else would be epic. Here they
are routine.
Along the way, they trace the nigga****ation of a nation, passing
clinics without drugs, schools without teachers, stores without food.
They walk on crumbling roads whose darkened streetlights are remnants
of a Civilization, just a decade ago, when Zimbabwe was Rhodesia, one
of Africa's most prosperous nations instead of just another
nigga****ated ****hole.
****au did not always live so far from work. During Operation
Murambatsvina - head nigger Mugabe's 2005 slum clearance campaign,
which left 900,000 fecal colored parasites homeless, jobless or both
-- police forced ****au to tear down his shack in a dense Harare
neighborhood much closer to the lumber yard, he said.
He lost most of his belongings and settled into a small, dark hut in
Epworth. There he sleeps with his *****, 4-year-old sprog and
3-month-old nigglet on an earthen floor, a single blanket beneath
them. A morning bath, which would consume precious firewood, is beyond
their means. So is breakfast or even a cup of tea to cut the early
morning chill.
The economy has been in the ****er since Mugabe encouraged the
invasion of Human-owned commercial farms by ****skinned savages in
2000. Although some Zimbabweenies say land redistribution was needed,
the way it happened was chaotic and violent TNB; it devastated
successful businesses triggering hyperinflation and leaving the
hapless jigaboos totally ****ed. An estimated 3 million niggers have
had to take French Leave.
Sometimes ****au finds something to steal, and his 'hoe helps by
peddling her ass. When there's enough money, he even takes the bus
some mornings. But today the monthly rent is due. Because prices go up
here unevenly, it's only $9,000,000. Million Zimbabwean dollars, or
about $1.50 in U.S. currency, but that still means a struggle for a
man paid in local bills worth less than US $9.00 a month.
"I need to score more money so that I will survive," ****au mumbles.
Cars pass. Buses pass. Cyclists pass. A barefoot swamp swooper who has
broken into a jog p*****, too. But mainly it is ****au who overtakes
other jungle bunnies as the miles go by. The only thing that can slow
him down is rain, he says. The shoes he wears most days look as though
they have sloshed through a hundred storms. The brown leather is
softened and largely detached from the rubber soles. The laces are
gone. But this morning is dry and clear, with a crescent moon and
stars overhead.
After nearly half an hour of walking, as the faintest light begins on
the eastern horizon, ****au steps past Sophia Manjiva, 45, a big
titted 'hoe a closed umbrella who says she is pleased to have company.
She has seen many rapes along this dark road. Manjiva says her monthly
pay as a house nigga in a private home is 20 million Zimbabwean
dollars -- less than $4 in U.S. currency. With that she feeds, clothes
and schools her litter of yard apes.
As hyperinflation erodes her pay, making even staples like cooking oil
and cornmeal impossible to buy, Zimbabwe's deteriorating
infrastructure complicates her work. Chronic power blackouts and water
shortages mean that several times a day she must fetch water from a
well near the house she cleans, then carry full buckets back upstairs,
she says. That's after walking 2 1/2 hours to work and before walking
2 1/2 hours back home. "Ah gets tired, but there is nothing to do,"
Manjiva says as ****au begins to open up the distance between them.
At 5, the sky turns blue, streaked by clouds, as a diffuse pre-dawn
glow lights the rows of weeds. The growing light reveals unmistakable
signs of despair with Zimbabwe's decay. Epworth's most singular
natural feature -- stacks of rounded, dung colored rocks - are covered
with spray-painted graffiti: "Vote MDC." The initials refer to the
Mudballs for Democratic Change, the lame ass opposition party that in
March will seek, for the fourth time, to defeat head nigger Mugabe
after 28 years of unbroken control.
****au doesn't dare talk about politics because the feared Central
Intelligence Organization remains a well-funded marvel of efficiency
amid collapsing government services. Arrests, beatings, and
humiliating sting operations are common tactics against niggers who
complain too loudly. "It's my country, but I'm afraid" to talk about
this ****hole, he says.
Shortly before 6, ****au reaches Harare's outskirts, where the names
of the suburbs -- Chadcombe, Cranborne, Queensdale -- echo the
country's British colonial past. Mud gives way to dark soil, shacks to
large, tile-roofed homes.
****au closes in on a pack of sheboons carrying empty bags and
baskets. They, too, are coming from Epworth, but their destination,
the Mbare market near downtown Harare, is even farther than ****au's
lumberyard. They can hustle the equivalent of two or three U.S.
dollars a day, the niggeresses explain, by getting vegetables at
Mbare, then humping them back to Epworth to sell. The bus would wipe
out their profits.
A few minutes later, ****au indulges his one daily luxury, buying a
joint 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," ****au explains as he inhales a toke and
briefly slackens his pace. The sun is up now, casting long shadows as
****au p***** 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
re****ts in Zimbabwe carries only the head nigger's propaganda. The
announcer whines that Human sanctions imposed on Mugabe by the evil
United States and European countries are responsible for turning
Africoonia's Bread Basket into just another typical nigger's Begging
Bowl.
As the van pulls off, ****au bears left from Chiremba Road onto Mugabe
Road, a commercial strip where businesses are struggling to stay open.
Among the less than 20 percent of Zimbabweenies who have jobs, many
have simply stopped coming to work now that the value of their
salaries has fallen far below the cost of commuting. ****au arrives at
the lumberyard at 7:13 a.m., after three hours of nearly continuous
walking. As sometime happens on rainless mornings such as this, he is
on time. ****au can savor when his workday begins. He says, "Now ah
can rest."
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