– Please may I have time off tomorrow to go to court.
– Why do you have to go to court Gladys.
– Because I was caught chopping (down) wood.
– On ART Farm?
– Yes.
– That was stupid!
– But I was not the only one!
P.S. Gladys is my domestic servant (labour is relatively cheap in the Third World). To me this incident was symptomatic of the Zimbabwe malaise; if someone else is behaving badly it’s OK for me to do so too.
Zimbabwe Absurdity 
Maybe the electriclty was off?
You’re right, all hope IS lost. Good old Gladys.
It’s comforting to know that the legal system in Zimbabwe still works, but disquieting that it works best against the least powerful citizens. What else did I expect? In Gladys’s place I would tend to believe that all hope is lost.