Dear Family and Friends,

On the roadsides between towns and cities the grass is nearly two metres tall and it is ripe: green at the base, yellow and golden above. As you travel along the roads the swaying and flowing of the grass is a calming, peaceful, almost mesmerising sight. The kilometres pass and the view doesn't change and it suddenly strikes you that something is wrong. This shouldn't be the view of Zimbabwe's farms in March and you wonder where everyone and everything is. For scores of kilometres passing prime roadside farms there are no workers in the fields, no great stands of ripening maize, no smoke coming from the flues of tobacco barns, no sign of life or production at all. There are no cattle or sheep getting fat on the grass - tons of free food for animals is standing on the roadsides and in the once fenced fields and paddocks just going to waste. When you ask Zimbabweans how often they eat meat, many will say once a fortnight, or once a week if they can afford it. Meat has become a luxury and yet there are no animals to eat the grass - how utterly absurd.

Dear Family and Friends,

For the last hour a steady trickle of people have walked past my home, in pairs and small groups. Many women are in bright red church uniforms, all have scarves covering their heads, some have shawls and blankets over their shoulders. They are going to the nearby cemetery. A small blue, dilapidated pick-up truck goes past, a red flag hanging sodden from a wing mirror. It is the only vehicle and is laden with mourners perched precariously on the edges of the back, the coffin lying in the middle, at their feet. It is raining intermittently, the wind is gusting and we are drawing breath from the advance storm winds of Cyclone Favio. There are leaves and branches strewn on the roads and between the blasts of wind come the sounds of the funeral. Singing, clapping, drumming, ululating and blowing of a horn. This is a very familiar picture of life in Zimbabwe this February 2007. It is a picture of real, ordinary people in the country with the highest inflation in the world and the lowest life expectancy.

Dear Family and Friends

Early these mornings the mist lies in thick blankets across the vleis, giving a surreal, dreamlike start to the February days. The tops of the Msasa trees with their twisting branches and low, spreading canopies are first to emerge from the mist as the sun comes up. Then the grassland, tall and gold now, with heavy, bursting seed heads comes into sight and the first birds appear. At this time of year the Paradise Whydahs are about early and the breeding males are wonderous to watch. Their flight is frantic and laboured, it has to be to carry their magnificent black tail feathers which are longer than their bodies. Tails which stream behind them in a spectacular display. Just spending a few minutes looking out at the beauty every morning has to be enough to give strength and courage to face another day in the disaster that has become life in Zimbabwe.

Dear Family and Friends,

Zimbabweans have lost count of how many times we have been told that the country's land reform programme is over. At least twice a year for the past three years the statement has been regurgitated that it's over, it's done and the land is now re-distributed. At every ruling party event for the last two years, from birthday party's to annual conferences and from state funerals to political rallies, the posters have been there for all to see.

Posters that say: "Now the land is ours!" or "The land is in our hands!"

Dear Family and Friends,

It took two hours this week for the Governor of the Reserve Bank to present a monetary policy for Zimbabwe to encompass the next few months. After speaking for an hour Dr Gideon Gono hadn't got to the financial plan yet.

He had spent the first sixty minutes exposing the corruption, scams, schemes, smuggling, wheeler dealering and the downright looting of the country by the elite. The audience were in their best bib and tucker, seated on padded chairs and with polished desk space in front of them.

Dear Family and Friends,

A large black snake showed up in my garden this week. I believe it was an Egyptian Cobra and it seemed to come from nowhere and without any warning.