When Money Destroys Nations by Philip Haslam

Author:Philip Haslam
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 978-0-143-53163-0
Publisher: Penguin Random House South Africa
Published: 2015-10-15T04:00:00+00:00

Shortages of ground maize became acute. Known locally as sadza, it is the staple diet of most Zimbabweans. Deprived of staple foods, people in rural areas turned to hunting. Wild game that used to be abundant in the wilderness areas was all but eradicated.

We had both cats and dogs. It was difficult to get ordinary food for us, but next to impossible to find any pet food. We fed the dogs with sadza but the cats wouldn’t touch it. Instead, my husband would shoot pigeons to feed them!

– Counsellor and mother of two

Shopping alternatives

Those who had foreign currency would often ‘pop over the border for their monthly shop’, which became good business for retailers in neighbouring South Africa and Botswana. It was the last source of quality retail goods that most city dwellers had become so accustomed to.

In Woodmead, Johannesburg, a large retail discount store called Makro saw the opportunity and set up an entire section of its store for Zimbabwean shoppers. It was hugely successful, selling Zimbabweans specially stacked pallets of bulk goods. Back in Zimbabwe, this option became so popular that business deals were often quoted in Woodmead Makro Pallets, the equivalent of a standard pallet of goods from the store.

Once goods had been purchased and stacked on a pallet, they needed to be transported. A transport network developed with numerous couriers specialising in moving Makro pallets across the border.

This developed into an online system where Zimbabweans could order directly on the Internet, pay in foreign currency and have delivery made to their houses. However, this option was only available to those who had offshore bank accounts denominated in South African rand.

Bartering

Those who didn’t have access to food from abroad had to source locally from others within their community. Most of this was by barter. Each individual had to become a specialist provider of a particular food or good in his or her community.

Since we had to source food through our relational networks, there was simply no access to luxuries such as soft drinks, chips or other fast food. Sugar was so precious that few people consumed it in unhealthy quantities.

Apart from the politicians who were all tubby, we had few overweight people about.

The only food we could get was locally grown vegetables that were absolutely organic and grown in backyards – no one had money for fertilisers or pesticides; and certainly no one could get expensive genetically engineered seeds.

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