Hope is the reason we made a plan when we lived with the highest inflation rates in the world for over a decade – inflation rates that before our currency collapsed went to 5.9 trillion percent – and which made the Weimar Republic wheelbarrows of money where 4.2 trillion Marks bought a US$ look tame.[Hyperinflation period of 1921-1923]. In Zimbabwe, eventually, with 100 trillion dollar notes even after 24 zeros had been taken off the currency, we could not buy a loaf of bread.
Hope is the reason we managed to make a plan when we could not buy anything in the shops and every shelf in every supermarket was completely bare, and every fuel station was completely dry.
Hope is the reason we make another plan when we have no electricity to give us light or power in our houses or in our businesses. This can happen for weeks at a time – or in some instances I know – years.
Hope is the reason we make another plan when we have no water coming out of our taps – for years on end in some of our suburbs.
Hope is the reason for making a plan when parents can no longer send their children to school or buy new clothes for them because they have no money.
It is hope that kept us going when we had the fastest shrinking economy in recorded world economic history – in a peace time situation.
It is hope that keeps us in Zimbabwe striving for a future when so many have left – and hope that keeps those dynamic pro-Zimbabwe people outside Zimbabwe – fighting for Zimbabwe…..
To read the full speech, visit the Mike Campbell Foundation website:
http://www.mikecampbellfoundation.com/page/courageous-hope-in-zimbabwe
Post published in: News