A NEW DAY FOR ZIMBABWE?
On a winter MORNING ON ZIMBABWE’S westernmost stretch of the Zambezi River, the dawn air seems to hum. The flood of water over Victoria Falls, the world’s largest waterfall, is so powerful and constant that it reverberates in my chest. Though I can’t see the cascades from where I’m staying a couple kilometers downstream at the venerable Victoria Falls Hotel, the tentacles of mist writhing above the distant tree line make it obvious that the crashing water is raising the din. And yet the deep, dull tremor—locals call the falls Mosi-oa-Tunya, or “the smoke that thunders”—almost feels like the collective, expectant trembling of an entire downpressed nation.
It’s June of 2018, and I’ve come to Zimbabwe at a momentous and delicate juncture in the country’s history. Just seven months earlier, the military suddenly and unexpectedly deposed Robert Mugabe, the infamous strongman whose 37-year rule is said to have cost Zimbabwe US$38 billion in lost growth and the lives of three million people. “For us, who never knew any president other than Mugabe, we thought his death was the only thing that could ever rid us of him,” a Zimbabwean national wishing to remain anonymous will tell me during my trip. “It was impossible to believe he would ever step down or be ousted. And then it happened.” Hopes are higher than they have been in decades, but there’s also uneasiness about the future, a flicker of the past that touches the corner of every optimistic smile.
Zimbabwe never should have come to this. At its independence in 1980, the country formerly known as Rhodesia had a diversified economy and was considered one of the shining lights of Africa. Beyond its agricultural and mining establishment, it has 11 national parks and a
