Zimbabwe Update for Learn2: Bread for Gold?

My older brother sent me an email about Zimbabwe's financial situation last year. I don't know the latest on this, but I saw a video that really affected me. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7ubJp6rmUYM

What our quest in areas of food shortage doesn't emphasize is the relationship between agriculture and economics in Zimbabwe.

Can you imagine spending ten hours a day with a hand-sized hoe or a small basket searching for gold flakes in a muddy river? Watch the video and see what it looks like. When I saw it I was literally dumbfounded.

I posted the video on my Facebook page in November 2009, asking for help in simply interpreting what I was seeing. Now I'll post the video on Evoke and hope that our wise sages can update my understanding of Zimbabwe's situation.

"Look at this. 0.1 grams of gold for a loaf of bread. How can we survive?"

Sure, you can grow your own grains, your own corn, et cetera, on your private acreage. But this is an entire country we're talking about! If gold were trading at 1000 dollars an ounce, 0.1 grams of gold would be like 5.4 dollars. For Americans it seems about right to pay 5.40 for a loaf of bread. But then, you get paid maybe 7 dollars an hour, or 10, or 20. These people don't have wages coming in like that. They work 10 hours in the field -- back-breaking work -- for maybe .4 grams of gold. If there are elderly folks in their house, and an average number of children, this will do for a day's worth of food. But 10 hours a day, seven days a week, mining for gold with a hand-sized hoe and a sifting basket?

"The gold traders are demanding four times the going rate from people who are too hungry and too desperate to refuse them." We're talking about determining a fair market price for goods. The government of Zimbabwe is a mystery to me, I have no idea what their views on market mechanisms are. I don't know what their relationship with the World Bank is. Zimbabwe had a hyperinflated currency and suddenly if you didn't have actual gold, you couldn't buy soap.

"I worked hard for this gold, digging in the mountains. I struggle and do whatever I can to survive." If you don't have a farm to work at, a family plot, or a work-trade, like the rest of you rely upon the marketplace. Maybe you grow sprouts and make kombucha. It's true your body can get the 8 amino acids it can't make on its own by simply eating corn and beans. So you search for a source of corn and beans. Every day, corn and beans, corn and beans. Bread, and corn, and maybe some chicken. Always there is this question of food. If you can grow it, great. Grow a bunch. If you can't, perhaps you can barter. There is a premium on communication skills in this system. But there's also a premium on firearms.

The systems of exchange are a shambles. The gold traders have decided that one tin of grain is worth 0.1 grams of gold. They have guns in their truck. They will accept gold, and only gold. Perhaps you can trade your extra bar of soap for a half loaf of bread -- that could be arranged by the gold traders, or with your neighbor. But your chess set isn't worth an ounce of concrete.

"This is my village. This year we will have nothing to harvest. The seed stores are empty. The farmers are killing and eating the livestock they need to keep their farms going." ..."There's nothing in the granaries. And there's no help from the government."

I can see why Alchemy keeps his whereabouts secret. Not all governments are friendly.

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So what can we do? I did some research on Zimbabwe and found that their government officials have plenty of gold to buy food. They've centralized gold mining for decades. Private mining operations have no incentive to distribute gold to the people; and who knows if they did that they wouldn't get pounded by the military?

I thought about Paul Stametz at the TED conference, who developed these little packages for enriching soil by promoting mushroom growth. I dreamed about dropping hundreds of thousands of these onto the ground in Zimbabwe with little video instruction manuals attached to the packaging. Needless to say, I was desperately groping for some way of dealing with what I was seeing and reading.

After awhile, like the waning effects of a drug, my memory of watching the Gold for Bread video grew distant. The video went farther and farther down on my Facebook page, until it disappeared from view. My brother had no answers and didn't respond to my email. In fact, no one had anything to say about Zimbabwe.

Even now, what can I say? I'm searching your blog posts for inspiration, Evoke members -- I'm searching for some assurance that it's taken care of. I want to know what I could do to help, as well. I'm certainly willing -- I'm convinced that I am. Why do I want a complete survey of the situation? So I can do apply energy close to the crux point, in a hope of tipping something over. My investigation of food shortage in Zimbabwe and the food shortage map, combined with your blog posts on permaculture, alternative energy, and social innovation through technologically-empowered education really get me going. I get energized and then send emails, search websites, wash my car, clean my room, talk with my girlfriend, tell people at work about Urgent Evoke; I daydream about accomplishing, and I focus on an overarching calm. Can I call on Alchemy to give me the scoop here? I'm daydreaming about the intricate insides of the Evoke Network in Africa. What knowledge databases are they mining? How do they search for data, and how do they navigate information? Does it matter? How does Alchemy identify experts? Who does he talk to and did he make a list of contacts I could borrow for my own research? How does he organize his own thoughts concerning the nested interactions in a place like Zimbabwe? Perhaps I've got a bit of Citizen X in me -- I don't know. I just want accurate knowledge, and one of my Evoke Powers requires that I find the person who's best at what I'm trying to do and ask that person. Well, Alchemy, I found you. What's going on with Zimbabwe, brother? peace // cameron