Living off rats to survive in Zimbabwe

[Assasin]

<DIV id=cnnSCLeftColumn><DIV id=cnnSCHeadlineArea><A name=ContentArea></A><H1>Living off rats to survive in Zimbabwe</H1><H5><SCRIPT language=JavaScript type=text/javascript> </SCRIPT>POSTED: 1:45 p.m. EST, December 19, 2006 </H5></DIV><DIV id=cnnSCContentColumn><SCRIPT language=JavaScript type=text/javascript>var clickExpire = "-1";</SCRIPT><DIV id=cnnSCHighlightsBox><H4><SPAN>Story Highlights</SPAN></H4>• Zimbabwe ambassador to U.S. calls eating rodents "a delicacy"
• Resident: "There's no relief in sight"
• Critics blame President Robert Mugabe for deteriorating conditions
• Archbishops says if Mugabe stays in power, country will head into "abyss"
</DIV><DIV id=cnnSCFontButtons><DIV id=cnnSCByLine>By Jeff Koinange
CNN</DIV><DIV id=cnnSCFontLabel>Adjust font size:</DIV><DIV id=cnnSCFontMinusBtn &#111;nclick="setActiveStyleSheet('default'); return false;"></DIV><DIV id=cnnSCFontPlusBtn &#111;nclick="setActiveStyleSheet('LargeFont'); return false;"></DIV></DIV>

(CNN) -- Twelve-year-old Beatrice returns from the fields with small animals she's caught for dinner.

Her mother, Elizabeth, prepares the meat and cooks it on a grill made of three stones supporting a wood fire. It's just enough food, she says, to feed her starving family of six.

Tonight, they dine on rats.

"Look what we've been reduced to eating?" she said. "How can my children eat rats in a country that used to export food? This is a tragedy."

This is a story about how Zimbabwe, once dubbed southern Africa's bread basket, has in six short years become a basket case. It is about a country that once exported surplus food now apparently falling apart, with many residents scrounging for rodents to survive.

According to the CIA fact book, which profiles the countries of the world, the Zimbabwean economy is crashing -- inflation was at least 585 percent by the end of 2005 -- and the nation now must import food.

Zimbabwe's ambassador to United States, Machivenyika Mapuranga, told CNN on Tuesday that reports of people eating rats unfairly represented the situation, adding that at times while he grew up his family ate rodents.

"The eating of the field mice -- Zimbabweans do that. It is a delicacy," he said. "It is misleading to portray the eating of field mice as an act of desperation. It is not."

Western journalists aren't allowed in Zimbabwe. CNN gained access via a cameraman who operated under the radar of the Zimbabwean government. Mapuranga said that there are news agencies allowed to fil

[Islandman]

RE: Living off rats to survive in Zimbabwe

But Mugabe chased the white man off the farms, so it the eyes of some he must be doing the right thing. Its all Bush and Tony Blairs fault.

Ah bwoy, the white racists who said that all hell would break lose if the blacks were running the place must be grinning from ear to ear now.

What a letdown this man has become. He has managed to go from near- Mandela status 25 years ago to Idi Amin statustoday as an African leader.

Zimbabwe was the breadbasket of Southern Africa. Now its people starve to death.

[Lazie]

RE: Living off rats to survive in Zimbabwe

Islandman (12/19/2006)But Mugabe chased the white man off the farms, so it the eyes of some he must be doing the right thing. Its all Bush and Tony Blairs fault.

Ah bwoy, the white racists who said that all hell would break lose if the blacks were running the place must be grinning from ear to ear now.

What a letdown this man has become. He has managed to go from near- Mandela status 25 years ago to Idi Amin statustoday as an African leader.

Zimbabwe was the breadbasket of Southern Africa. Now its people starve to death.

personally, i was awaiting the RACE FIRST crew fi say something, but now yuh guh point this out this forum will be ignore for a while.

[Hortical]

RE: Living off rats to survive in Zimbabwe

Hugo Chavez referred to George Bush as the devil at the UN. Chavez misspoke, as the real devil on earth is John Mugabe.



This reminds of the desperate sh!tuation in North Korea expressed by a brethren from Seoul. He states that people are eating tree bark and insects in North Korea to survive.

[MdmeX]

RE: Living off rats to survive in Zimbabwe

I have a past Principal and his wife who have exiled themselves there for years now. They keep encouraging me to visit, but although MdmeX love to travel - she ain't going there. They'll see me only on Jamaican or American soil!!

[Sickko]

RE: Living off rats to survive in Zimbabwe

FACT is when the white men had the massive farms, not just Zimbabweans but other countries were able to eat well from what was produced in the former Rhodesia.



Mogabe, he of the Hitler styled moustache, took away the lands and farms and gave them to his friends who have left them idle....is this liberation???



Marley must be rolling in his grave...wait Neville will fill him in when them buck up later