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March 31, 2008
Posted: 1509 GMT
BEIT BRIDGE, South Africa-Zimbabwe border – Zimbabwean English has always been wonderfully inventive. The country itself is fondly nicknamed "Zim", a beer is a "shumba" after one of the most popular brands "Lion" beer, and a crocodile is a "flatdog."
CNN correspondent Robyn Curnow reports from the border between South Africa and Zimbabwe.
But now, it is something called "the Zek" that is consuming most Zimbabweans’ lives. "I wonder why it is," one man asked me early this morning on the South African-Zimbabwe border post, "that the Zek is taking so long." "The Zek??" I replied, mystified. "Yes," he said emphatically, "the Zek is really taking its time now. I wonder what it means? Maybe the government is not doing so well after all. If they were winning the Zek would be doing its work more speedily." "What," I pleaded with him, ‘is the Zek?" "The Zimbabwe Electoral Commission," he told me. ZEC are its initials - so, of course, "the ZEK." What else could it be called? With the opposition MDC claiming to lead the polls and Robert Mugabe’s ZANU-PF party trailing in the count at this stage, many people here at Beit Bridge on the border are beginning to hope - for what they are not quite sure yet. There is still much fear in Zimbabwe. Those who have crossed the border from Zimbabwe tell us that police are patrolling the major cities and that the army has been called back to barracks to wait in readiness. As the slow vote counting continues, this is the time of rumor. We hear from a number of credible sources that the generals met for hours last night and then again with President Mugabe this morning. Then there are the unfounded stories. "The borders are closed!" someone says to me on my cellphone - when it is clear to me, standing on the very border that they are open. Callers to the morning radio talk shows in Johannesburg were claiming that Robert Mugabe had fled to Malaysia last night!Where do these rumours come from? It is impossible to tell, but one thing is clear. People, at last, are expecting something. Do they yet dare hope for a change? "I would caution them," another Zimbabwean man said to me at a gas station. "That old man has cheated many elections before this one. We will have to see what he does." Posted by: CNN Producer, Hamilton Wende
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