Op-Ed: You can smell the cholera at Beit Bridge between Zimbabwe and S.Africa

Zimbabwean resident Margaret Kriel reports from the Beit-Bridge river crossing between Zimbabwe and South Africa that thousands of famished, cholera-stricken Zimbabweans now are leaving their country.

Kriel makes a weekly 300km pilgrimage from Bulawayo in Zimbabwe to the South African town of Mussina to haul food supplies for 75 frail elderly, white residents of the Edith Duly nursing home. Without her, these residents would starve -- because the Zimbabwean supermarkets are empty. She also maintains a diary of the steady collapse of Zimbabwe in her blog, She writes this week that she 'could smell the cholera' while crossing the border with thousands of other Zimbabweans. See: Morning Mirror. NOV 24 2008 -- "We heard it every few kilometers, it was not consistent but very strange and very loud.... at first we thought, with dread that there was something wrong with the car and we were all alone on the very quiet BeitBridge to Bulawayo road. It was after all, 5 a.m. and we had been up since two am, so nervously we tried to pretend it was not happening. A silent line of border-crossers: 'The border crossing had been particularly stressful, we had thought that arriving at the Beit bridge border post at 2.30 in the morning, would ensure we avoided the endless queues, but we were seriously mistaken.There were literally dozens of buses and the silent line of border crossers wound its way for hundreds of meters nearly to the gate. A seething mass of humanity: Eventually, curiosity got the better of my bad temper and I wandered off to investigate and chat with the populace. I had my camera, as always, but was too nervous to take pictures of the horrendous mishmash at the border post. There were people sleeping in every nook and cranny, blankets spread out in full view of the "authorities". Every pavement was covered in goods, chattels and a seething mass of humanity, it is after all, a 24 hour border post, and people have 24 hour needs. I could almost smell the cholera boiling underneath the surface... However it was amazingly quiet, we Zimbos are an exceptionally peaceful people except for the likes of me, and apart from the occasional murmur when the queue jumpers were just too brazen, conversation was limited and it was quite cool, thank goodness. Beit bridge at midday is hell on earth, but as the dawn broke, it had an appeal all of its own... but I could almost smell the cholera boiling under the surface of it all .... 'Previously I have made a point of being positive about Zim for the sake of the few tourists who might possibly still come and visit our beleaguered country, but right at the moment I am ashamed of my country and I would not want you to see just how dreadfully it has deteriorated. If the world does not help us somehow, there is going to be an humanitarian tragedy of hideous proportions. One could develop cholera just standing in that line for so jolly long:' We got through in record time, only two whole hours. It is actually not the Zim side that is the problem, it is the South African side "going slow in solidarity with their Zimbabwe brothers". I hope not, because one could develop cholera just standing in that line for so jolly long. 'Do us a favor, we are hungry, that's why we are crossing the border in such vast numbers, there is nothing, nothing, nothing to eat in Zimbabwe, at least nothing we can afford, as we have no money to buy it with. Anyhow, back to that strange noise, it was like a continuous, deafening, harsh, singing sound. Whenever we heard it, we would open the window to listen, but the strange sound would suddenly retreat into the distance. Maybe the wheel was rubbing on something ?

Food for 75 elderly at Edith Duly Nursing Home... Maybe the engine was about to seize, maybe the canopy of the truck that we were driving, (packed full of essential staple foods for the 75 elderly residents of the Edith Duly Nursing Home) was lifting somehow, and making this strange, discordant harshness ? Eventually we could ignore it no more. We stopped, got out, and the sound hit us like a brick wall. It was shrill, screeching, massive, unending, a cacophony of gigantic proportions, it was on one side of the road only, although the sound echoed on the other, absolutely deafening. It was of course, the call of the Christmas Beetle, the African Cicada, Albanycada albigera ...... It is a sound so familiar to all of us Africans but we had never ever heard it so loud and so unending. Beit bridge had just received its first rains, tinges of green were creeping through the packed hard earth, early-bird goats were tugging frantically at the first real food they had seen in many months, and the Cicadas were multiplying by their millions, by the second. What an amazing sound, we stood in awed silence devouring the most poignant of all African sounds, memorizing each sacred minute, savouring the cool ethereal dampness of a land so beautiful and yet so desolate, so deserted, so incredibly sad. The sun was still way down on the horizon but it was already scorching, another day had started in Zimbabwe, where body and soul has to fight every moment of every day to stay alive. Dante's Inferno has nothing on life in Zim at this moment in time...