When I was there, in August of 2006, the black market exchange rate of the Zimbabwe dollar to the US dollar was 1,200 to one. As we all have read, hyperinflation has now pushed the rate to about 500 billion Zim dollars per US$1. There was food on the shelves and some traffic on the streets at the time, but petrol was very difficult to find, so I could stay in the country only as long as I had enough gas in the tank to get back to Botswana. I met a couple of white Zimbabweans (rare in Zimbabwe these days) who told me some pretty crazy stories. One guy’s father had worked for the government and had disappeared; another guy very came close to getting life imprisonment for homosexuality when the police caught him helping his drunk friend home – the friend did not remember the incident and no one knew this guy was in jail for three months; it took another two to get him out. Mugabe spies lurk at South African universities, waiting to overhear government criticism by a native Zimbabwean student so they can be convicted of treason upon return home. I’ll be glad when I read the news that Mugabe’s kleptocratic regime has finally crumbled. Zimbabwe was once an affluent nation and it contains huge copper reserves and fertile farmland.