Dear Family and Friends,

As we stand exhausted and betrayed at this critical moment in Zimbabwe's crisis, it seems pertinent to look back over the last few days and record who said what.

Dear Family and Friends,

It has been an excruciating three and a half days waiting for the Zimbabwe Electoral Commission to announce the results of the March 29th elections. At the time of writing this letter at 3.30 pm on the 2nd April 2008, the full parliamentary results have not yet been announced. None of the figures for the Presidential, Senate and Local Council elections have been announced at all.

Dear Family and Friends,

We finally arrived at the March 29th elections in typical Zimbabwean splendour. It was a glorious day with a clear, bright blue sky, a warm sun and everywhere an overwhelmingly positive feeling. The mood was one of anticipation and relief that at last this momentous day had arrived and it would surely mark the turning point and define the future of Zimbabwe.

Dear Family and Friends,

When Mr Mugabe and Zanu PF came to power in April 1980, inflation in the newly named Zimbabwe was 7%.

Twenty years later, Mr Mugabe and Zanu PF were still in power and in June 2000 Parliamentary elections were held in the country. Farm invasions had been underway for nearly four months and inflation was at 59,3%. A standard loaf of bread cost sixteen dollars, a single banana was four dollars and a dozen eggs were thirty five dollars. Zanu PF retained power in the elections.

Dear Family and Friends,

A Zimbabwean in the Diaspora phoned me this week and told me how desperately she longs to come home. She misses everything so much: familiar faces and beautiful places, old friends and casual acquaintances, the overwhelming friendliness of people and of course the glorious climate and magnificent countryside. She asked me how things were now in Zimbabwe and I replied that they are very bad, and still getting worse. You cannot really describe what a hundred thousand percent inflation looks like, or shops without food or hospitals without medicine. My friend, like so many others that have been struggling to survive these years in exile in foreign countries, wonders when she will be able to come home. She says she meets Zimbabweans all the time and always the talk is of home and plans for the day when they can return. Everyone wonders if it will be soon, asks if March 2008 will finally see an end to the need for exile.

Dear Family and Friends,

It's hard to believe that in three weeks time Zimbabwe will have staggered to another election and will have the capacity to put a stop to the most shocking state of affairs in our country.  Despite all the criticism, insults and condemnation from outsiders, we have turned the other cheek again and again as one abuse after another has been laid upon us these last nine years. None have been spared, no sector is unscathed, everyone has horror stories to tell, losses to enumerate, abuses to relate.