I again asked Abraham why the govt felt they needed to do anything to woo over voters, seeing as they use intimidation tactics, etc. to get their way and rig the elections. He said that in the cities, the opposition rules- the people are against Mugabi. But in the rural areas, they can intimidate and manipulate the people. The party gets the chief on board. He then lines everyone up and tells them how to vote. They even tell people there are cameras in the voting booths; a idea that the city people know not to be true.
There are even people in Mugabi's party that know change is needed. But, if he thinks they are getting to popular, he gets rid of them. He dismissed the VP and 100+ of her support group.
Mugabi is now in NY at the Ebola conference because he is the head of the African Union. Due to US sanctions, he is only allowed to be in a 25 mi radius of the UN. The president's wife is known as Grace Gucci because everytime she goes abroad, she changes all her wardrobe and furniture. Luckily for the stores that are located near the UN!
The country is in dire straits, so how does the country pay salaries? They go to companies and say- give us $1M or something- we need to pay salaries. Abraham said they have been doing this for months. Before govt workers knew they would be paid by the 25th of the month, now there is no set pay date. Today I am going to visit the home village of my friend, Getrude. Her sister is taking me, but asked that I pay the gas because she has not been paid. I really need to be so conscious of everthing that I do with others- to be sure that I pay my way.
I said to Abraham- taking profits from companies is not a sustainable model! No wonder companies are pulling out of the country. I commented that people are driving nice cars. He said it is because of the underground economy. A tax collector can come to a company and give them the bill. If the company bribes the collector, they pay less. Same with a traffic stop.
A hope for the people is that election monitors will come for the election. The problem is that the neighboring heads of state support M. because they want to stay in power also.
Peace and Justice
Thanks to contacts via the chaplain at Emory, I contacted Rev. Washington. I was told he was involved in peace and justice work. He has a Methodist church and town and a school in the suburbs. He is concerned with the orphans, of which there are many due to the AIDS crisis. Children are left alone because their relatives cannot afford to help them. The girls can be exploited. He is building a science lab at the school, they have no library. I was thinking he was involved in this big organization doing Peace & Justice when in fact he works day and night to help these poor kids. I said I would give him the 6 books that I brought with me. When we said good-bye and I hope we would meet again- his reply, "Yes, I will come to get the books." My plan is to visit the school one morning.
Preparing for Class
We'll see if any librarian registers for my class, but I am preparing. I am doing a Google exercise so they can learn to evaluate credible sources. I needed to think of some relevant topics, so I asked Tari- the young woman who cleans the guest house. Her suggestions:
- Using brown sugar and olive oil to exfoliate your skin
- Using rose water to tone your skin
- the benefits of Dead Sea minerals
- Using curry leaves to promote hair growth/give volume
- Moisturizing your hair with avocado
- scrubbing skin with mealie (the cornmeal mush)
- aerobics for shapely legs
- whitening teeth- she was not familiar with dental floss
- the effects of medicine
- buying a car
when I showed the topics to my colleague, he thought they were good. Interesting that I just assumed my class of librarians would be women, but he informed me the class would be 50/50.
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