Divine Grace – Zimbabwe Vigil Diary
With her magical spiritual powers (full marks to Zimbabwe’s top university for spotting this so quickly) Amai Grace Mugabe PhD miraculously manifested herself at the Vigil in London to mark her 50th birthday.
Asked how she had transported herself here while simultaneously gracing a glittering dinner / dance at her Borrowdale Brook mansion, the First Lady simply pointed to the full-colour advertisement sponsored by Air Zimbabwe in a 14-page birthday supplement in the Herald. We understood immediately what she meant as we all know that the bankrupt airline is capable of miracles or it would have stopped flapping its wings a long timeago.
State-owned organisations and government ministries paid megabucks to advertise their praise of the philanthropy of the ‘mother of the nation’. They included Hwange Colliery, which has not paid its workers’ salaries for years, the Premier Service Medical Aid Society, which can’t pay providers. And the Zimbabwe National Water Authority, which declared Amai to be ‘Our Saving Grace’. Its advertisement said ‘Like water on parched ground, you give life to everything you touch’ – something it has signally failed to do itself.
But the tribute that mattered most was from the University of Zimbabwe which last year awarded her a doctorate after a few weeks’ study. The University said: ‘Your Excellency, the university admires your tremendous skills of intellectual intelligence, spiritual intelligence and emotional intelligency, including empathy, compassion, love and grace.’
The Vigil apologised to Dr Grace for our failure to match the lavish hospitality of the Borrowdale Brook shindig where guests stumped up $2,000 each to enjoy unlimited food and drink on the house ‘including expensive whiskeys and wines’.
Dr Amai Grace Mugabe PhD graciously accepted our apologies, saying she understood the straitened circumstances of the exploited Zimbabwean bottom wipers in the UK. And with a typically generous gift of a 100 trillion Zimbabwean dollars, she ascended majestically into the sky to be teleported by Air Zimbabwe back to the more comfortable environment of Borrowdale Brook.
Other points
· Thanks to Deborah Harry for donning our Mugabe mask to play Amai Grace (or am I not) in her impressive academicgown.
· Lazarus Matiyenga caused much amusement with his declamation: ‘Ndinotenda mese mawungana, kubva kucentral committee, maprovince, women’s league vakuru vedu kusanganisa maservice chiefs edu nemi imi veyouth league. Tatenda zvikuru nekuwungana kwamaita mukupembera zuva guru ranhasi raamai, kusvitsa makore makumi mashanu. Tino daira mwari vanoramba vachiti chengeta tigokwanisa kucherechedza zvakare, this 25th movement mugore rinowuya neachatevera zvekare ndatenda.’
· The Vigil is sorry to hear from our friends in Itai Dzamara’s Occupy Africa Unity Square movement that – instead of investigating his abduction – the authorities are arresting their members.
· Our supporter Martin Chinyanga is calling for a protest for Dzamara and against the second Murambatsvina outside the Embassy at 10,30 on Friday 7th August. Please join him if you can. The Vigil will be observing 5 months since Itai Dzamara was abducted on Saturday 8th August.
· Thanks to those who came early to help: Patricia Masamba, Henrietta Mlambo, Pearl Shambare, Netsayi Elizabeth, Madzadzavara and Charity Jere. Thanks to Patricia, Henrietta and Esther Nyambi for looking after the front table. Thanks also to Nqobizitha Moyo for his gift of useful stationery for the Vigil
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FOR THE RECORD: 51 signed the register.
