Bank withdrawal limits

In the essay I wrote for Spencer's class I mainly focused on the dropping economy of Zimbabwe. When I researched it I learned a lot about how bad the economy was, however it is hard to actually figure out what it means. My confusion came from how expensive things were in Zimbabwe. Sure there currency is not worth much compared to other currencies, but are things lower priced to compensate for that? An example is that pesos are worth less than U.S. Dollars, but then the price is lowered. I knew that 30,000 Zimbabwean dollars equaled roughly one U.S. dollar in 2007, but then what was actually required to buy the required things to survival? I found a website that helped me connect all the questions, and the results were astonishing. The site said that 1,000 Zimbabwean dollars was barely enough to cover the cost of transportation to and from work. 1,000 dollars to get to work, we complain about gas here. The banks just changed the withdrawal limit from 1,000 dollars per day to 20,000 dollars per day. This means that before this change they had almost no money left to buy food and other necessities. All of this info I found shocking, and if you dont believe me check it out for yourself at: http://www.voanews.com/english/Africa/Zimbabwe/2008-09-26-voa44.cfm

Great resource for independence facts

As I was doing research on Zimbabwe's independence history I came across on excellent site. It is only about the Independence and gives good but simple information. It is a fairly fast read but gives all of the main points and dates, even talks briefly about the womens role in the rebellions. It explains the British rule, the organizations against them, negotiations and dates. Here are some of the important things that I picked up.

1. It was first colonized in 1890 and named Rhodesia after the man who colonized it, Cecil Rhodes.

2. It was only in the 1960's when organizations were formed to overthrow the British.

3. The first organization formed was the NDP, National Democratic Party.

4. Members of this group would riot and burn down white farmers land.

5. In 1961 the British banned this group, but it was reformed as Zimbabwe African People's Union (ZAPU) in 1962.

6. In 1963 this group was also banned, but went underground.

7. When it went underground it split into two groups because of different interests. One group remained ZAPU and the other became ZANU, Zimbabwe African National Union. Robert Mugabe was the main leader of this group.

If you want to read more the link is http://www.english.emory.edu/Bahri/Zimb.html

Alfredo's Blog

Today I reviewed Alfredo's blog (partly because I could not access Allan's) and found some things that were good and bad. In the blog "Zimbabwe" he talks about how he had to research and then goes on explaining what exactly he found. Then he gave the more interesting facts from the site to engage the reader. This was a good thing because I knew exactly what was happening and was amazed at the facts. After he was finished he also gave the site URL which was useful, but it should have been made a link. In the blog "second week" he explains that Zimbabwe is in a bad water situation but does not make it too fancy. Just plain and simple, they are low on water. Somethings that he needs to watch is his spelling and grammar. If you read this Alfredo try just copying and pasting into word to fix the problems Also try to give some detailed facts. Thats it have a nice 3 day weekend

Killer weed

After a long time spent searching I finally found a site that explained the problems with Zimbabwe's water supply. I had already known that there was a weed in it that was causing problems, but I did not know what exactly this weed was. http://www.scienceinafrica.co.za is the site that I got the information about. (full hyperlink at end) It explains about what water hyacinth is and how it is assumed to have been started. Water hyacinth is an underwater weed that grows at an abnormally high rate. It grows to about one meter long and floats on the surface of the body of water it may be occupying. "Environmentalists in Harare blame the spread of the weed on the discharge of effluent, particularly raw sewage, into lake Chivero." This was a useful statement because I could connect the economy to the weeds. Without money for proper sewage treatment it gets disposed of improperly and this leads to the rest of the problems. Environmentalist groups are trying different ways to kill the weed but no ways prove to be very effective.

If anybody is interested this is the link to the site page: http://www.scienceinafrica.co.za/2005/april/hararewater.htm

Zimbabwe News

Today (Sunday September 14) a yahoo news article was released about Mugabe and Tsvangirai's deal to share power. Mugabe will retain military power and keep ruling Zimbabwe. He has been ruling since 1980 when Zimbabwe got it's independence from Britain. Tsvangirai will now control the Zimbabwe police and will also become prime minister. Zimbabweans now have new hope for solving the economy crash. Inflation has increased to over 11 million percent leaving Zimbabwe far behind in economic development. To avoid this, millions of residents have fled to other countries in the South African region.

The article mentions the support of western countries in this paragraph, "Analysts say the power-sharing deal is fragile and will require former enemies to put aside their differences and work closely to overcome skepticism, especially from Western powers whose financial support will be vital for recovery."(http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20080914/wl_nm/zimbabwe_crisis_dc_1) I found that this was an interesting thing to mention because it does not seem like the U.S. is trying very hard to help anyway.

If you want to read the article the URL is
http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20080914/wl_nm/zimbabwe_crisis_dc_1

Interview Reflection

For our interview Allan and I called a woman named Nisha who works at the Museum of Contemporary Art. She lived in Zimbabwe as a child which made her a good interviewee for us. She told us that she moved there at about 2 and stayed there until she went to study in England at 18. Her family had enough money to have food on the table all the time but she said it wasn't the same for most people there. She said that she did not like living there and would probably not go back, but then she also told about some of the less seen beauty of Zimbabwe. It was nice to see some of the good things instead of simply bad things. We asked her if she thought more wealthy countries were doing what they could to help, or just enough to not get criticized by the rest of the world. She said that she did not think they were doing much at all and that they were not getting criticized because no one else was either. Then she told us of how she wanted to help because she was from there, but did not know how. She said that she felt almost helpless because she could not really change anything. To try and get a better feel for what they did I asked about where they went as kids. In America you typically hear that as kids’ people liked going to the park or an ice cream shop, but she said that people just went over to each other's houses and swam in pools. Some of the questions got her talking for a bit but she said she was trying to keep it simple, or else she'd go forever. She told us that if we needed anymore information we could just call her and she gave us her mobile number, which will hopefully help us. It was nice to get an inside view of Zimbabwe and get a feel for what it is really like, but I would like to have gotten more information.

At about 8:00 today Zimbabwe presidential candidate Morgan Tsvangirai asked for a new elections where they would be supervised internationally. Tsvangirai is part of a Zimbabwe move for a Democratic change and wants help against Robert Mugabe. Mugabe is likely to lose the election but wants to keep control of the security forces. This will most likely cause more problems for Zimbabwe.

If my group members are looking for good information, yahoo news gives extremely current news updates. The information I got was 2 hours after it happened.