It’s been a daunting year so far …

First,  an outbreak of scurvy at the Ingutsheni psychiatric hospital in Bulawayo. Scurvy is caused by vitamin and dietary deficiencies and can make teeth fall out, along with fatigue, skin sores and much other unpleasantness.

Way back in the 17th Century scurvy occurred among sailors on the galleons of the early explorers who later discovered it could be treated with citrus fruits and vegetables rich in vitamin C.

Seabord staging posts were created, including the Cape Colony, so that the ships could take on fresh food and veg. Now we have scurvy in Bulawayo; the state institution of Ingutsheni hasn’t got enough money to buy proper food for the patients. And this is while Mr Mugabe, his family and several of his ministers are away on their annual January holidays in luxury hotels overseas.

All the state hospitals have warned, too, that they are suffering extreme shortages of essential drugs in the current currency crisis brought on by utter mismanagement of the fiscus. Amid grinding poverty everywhere, the rains have brought avoidable typhoid and cholera outbreaks – and at this very time Mrs Grace Mugabe is in an ugly legal fight over possession of a diamond ring bought for $1.4 million by her husband as a gift for their 20th wedding anniversary last August.

Having been a pacifist in recent years, I am now so angry I want to go out and kill something – maybe the rats as large as cats that are running riot in our garden neighbourhoods where uncollected garbage is spilling into the streets, the greenbelts and the vleis.

So it’s fairly obvious what these people running away from across the Limpopo river into South Africa.

As well as this: No money but bond notes, or bollars. 200 in this fan of $2 bollar notes. And this: Unroadworthy police vehicle on the roads while ordinary motorists are harrassed multiple times a day.