Letters from the farm
On the surface it’s a thoughtful offer from another country, but perhaps it should be questioned. We’re talking, of course, about Zimbabwe’s latest fund-raising program, designed to lure U.S. tourists with weight problems. According to the London Sun Times, the plan promises to be a win-win situation for both Zimbabwe’s floundering economy and overweight Americans. One Zimbabwean bureaucrat explains it this way — "Since Americans are so fat, let’s set up tours from the U.S. so that people can pay us money to come here and work off their pounds by laboring on our farms." The CIA reports that under Robert Mugabe, the country’s apparent president-for-life, a chaotic land redistribution program begun in 2000, "caused an exodus of white farm owners, crippled the economy, and ushered in widespread shortages of basic commodities." That’s not the stuff of vacation brochures. Even though the Zimbabwe unemployment rate is 70 percent, the farms, now owned by people with little or no knowledge of farming, are in dire need of trained workers. Overweight Americans would ostensibly raise the country’s corn, cotton, wheat, coffee, sugarcane, peanuts, sheep, goats and pigs because the Zimbabweans are too busy suffering, starving and dodging illegal drug traffic. If we stop to think about the proposal, there might be certain advantages, other than losing weight, with taking a work vacation in the southern Africa country. For one thing, we wouldn’t have to bother with losing weight so we’ll look good in bathing suits at some tropical beach or pool area. With all of the fieldwork ahead of us, we might actually want to beef up a little by grabbing second or third helpings of whatever meals we happen to be eating now. It might be refreshing to spend time in an unusual vacation climate. What Zimbabwe lacks in beaches and palm trees, it more than makes up with recurring droughts, floods and life-threatening storms. The country is roughly the size of Montana, but because only eight percent of the land is suitable for farming, we would have plenty of opportunities to mix with other Americans as they rake coffee beans under the burning sun, shear sheep and harvest sugarcane with long machete knives. Incidentally, the remainder of the land is classified as "other", as in sand, sand and more sand. By working while we’re vacationing, we would experience less guilt about abandoning our regular workplaces and families at home. Feel like something is missing from your life now that our own presidential election is over? Immersion in Zimbabwean politics might be just what the doctor ordered. Get right back on that political bandwagon with the country’s rigged elections, general strikes, political violence, human rights violations and general economic collapse. Another advantage to working on a farm and burning off calories at the same time would be the freedom from having to buy postcards ("Working up a good sweat — wish you were here") and having to send them to everyone you know back home. No economy, no stores. No stores, no postcards. It’s as simple as that. Finally, any child back home would be proud to wear a shirt which reads, "My parents picked cotton in Zimbabwe and all I got was this lousy t-shirt."