March 30, ____.

Today I called home and spoke to my friend Elizabeth. We talked for about an hour. We last spoke seven months ago.

She says Zimbabwe is still in turmoil. The two main political parties, the United Nationalist Alliance and the Congress for Democratic Reform, are still causing chaos. UNA is doing everything it can to stay in power and the CDR is doing all it can to get into power. In the process, people are being picked up by the police and the CIO. Some are being detained. Many are being tortured. Some are being killed. Others are vanishing.

Elizabeth says agents of the ruling party invaded her house again last week and clubbed her dogs to death. They told her they knew she was in contact with a number of agents of regime change. They wanted names, addresses and contact details.

When Elizabeth and her husband protested that they didn’t know anything, they were beaten up.

Pete had to get two stitches above his eye and six on his shin. A bone in Elizabeth’s right forearm was broken, and she had to wear a cast for a week. Elizabeth is a teacher. The money she paid for the cast was equivalent to five months’ wages. She had to borrow most of the money from friends and relatives. She says she does not know how or when she is going to pay them back.

Even though they doubt that his presence will make a real difference, Elizabeth and Pete have been hiring a security guard every night since this last attack.

Elizabeth says she can no longer bear the terror and trauma of being confronted and beaten up by armed teenagers. She says she is devastated by the lives that are being lost everyday across the country. She says she is devastated by her dogs’ deaths.

She wanted me to tell her something to cheer her up. She wanted me to give her some good news. She wanted me to tell her that this abuse she was living with, was going to stop. She wanted me to tell her that I was OK and that everything was going to be OK.

I couldn’t tell her that in this country, as at home, I was living in a constant state of terror. I couldn’t tell her that my asylum application had been rejected and that there was a possibility I could be deported any day from now.