by Annelle Carter

Created on: April 25, 2008

DID WE MISS THE GIANT'S AWAKENING?

As Zimbabwe, slides quickly into more chaos, poverty, food shortages and further human right abuse and corruption, the sleeping giant, China, has been at work.The world always said that the sleeping giant would one day awake.Well, it has, yawned, opened its eyes, thrown back the bed covers, and put its feet firmly on the ground. It's dressed and ready to go. And we missed it. So it seems too, did the USA and the UN.

As I write, there is a ship, carrying arms, sailing up the coast of Africa, looking for a Port to unload more deadly weapons, to help President Mugabe, carry on his tyrannical role, and delay the outcome of the Elections, which he clearly lost.

Last February I was there for a month, in the Bulawayo region, and I was taken to places in the African bush, where the people were dispersed, after unannounced dawn raids, by bulldozers, demolishing their homes. They fled, with just the clothes on their backs. Some transported, and dumped, miles from anywhere. Some running with just the clothes on their backs. But all, to places out in the vast African veld, with nothing but trees, bush and sand.

In their fight for survival, they built makeshift homes from clay, cardboard, pieces of tin, and anything else, that would give them shelter. The person who took me to these camps', (I'll call him Peter), was later jailed for providing black tarpaulins to help them cover their shacks.

For most of these small communities I visited, and took photographs, the nearest water was more than five Kilometers away. And as we travelled down dusty sand roads, you would hardly know that anyone was living there. The children no longer went to school, save for a few, who had to walk miles to the nearest school. At one settlement, they were getting their water from an old mine shaft (I have the photograph). At another they had an outbreak of chicken pox, with no medical help, save for Peter getting up at dawn, every Wednesday, and visiting these remote communities, and collecting the sick, and taking them to the Clinic in Bulawayo.

Peter also brought them flour and maize. And we used to send seeds in birthday cards, to help them plant vegetables. But Zimbabwe was experiencing it's worst drought in 100 years, and how can you dig with no shovels, how can you water, when it is a ten kilometer hike, and you need the water to drink? And to have an occasional wash.

These people, formerly owned small homes, with a kitchen, bathroom, small living area and

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