Backward picture

I live in South Africa and I am very upset when people talk down on my country. I work with other Zimbabweans who have been in S.A for six years now and the picture they have about our country is backward. They still think of that time when there was nothing in the shops where basic food commodities were unavailable in Zim.

When the locals here talk of our country as struggling and going down the drain they agree to that and fail to paint the positive picture there is. Well, with the South Africans the ignorance is even worse, they don’t even think there are big supermarkets like Spar where people may shop to get all they need. Their imagination of Harare is of a small town like Chegutu. I am drowning in depressive arguments each day. How can I get these people to know Zim as I do? – Tonde

Dear Tonde

I understand how you feel, it is the kind of frustration one gets when one travels to America or Europe and hear people talking about Africa like some sort of jungle where we actually pass through wild animals every day.

But sometimes it is difficult to try and explain and have them convinced just by word of mouth that things are not the way they imagine. Sometimes it takes them experiencing it to believe in what they are told. Right now, it seems your colleagues are determined to believe in what they know and to them you are just one defensive Zimbabwean trying to defend the indefensible.

Advise your fellow countrymen to pay a visit home, challenge them to go back and see if their perceptions of their homeland are true. If they are convinced that there is hope for a better future in Zimbabwe then they can spread it to the rest of others with the same thinking.

Zimbabwe is not as bad as people out there think it is, they need to at least visit and know what is on the ground. There have been some tough times for the country but things have become a bit stable. We have such great potential for development in all sectors of the economy. – Aunty Lisa