Bleakness reigns in Zimbabwe

Thousands of Zimbabweans waited for hours to get scarce currency from the banks so they could buy food and board buses on Monday for Christmas trips to their home villages.

"We call this the festive season but where is there any joy?" said housewife and mother Mildred Chikutu, who got into a line before dawn to withdraw the maximum allowed in a day, 50 million Zimbabwe dollars — 25 U.S. dollars at the dominant black market rate — enough to buy a hamburger.

"You queue for money, and that's only the beginning of the queuing," she said, heading into a nearby supermarket where many shelves were bare of basic goods. A line had formed at the bakery counter.

Inflation_ the world's highest — was about 8,000 percent officially in September, but independent estimates put it nearer 100,000 percent.

With cash itself in short supply, the central bank has supplied new high denomination notes, the largest worth 750,000 Zimbabwe dollars — about 37 U.S. cents at the black market rate. Banks still could not cope with the demand for cash after six weeks of acute shortages, and stayed open throughout Sunday to deal with withdrawal requests.

Power cuts, a continuing problem in Zimbabwe, added to the holiday misery.

Several suburbs in Harare, the capital, entered a 17th day without power, and large areas of the downtown business district, including the state power utility's headquarters, suffered intermittent outages. Officials at the main blood bank said some stocks were thrown away after a refrigeration generator broke down.

Even President Robert Mugabe's official residence went without power from the city power grid for more than a week before it was restored. But he also has a private mansion on the outskirts of the capital.

The internationally known Harare Club canceled its Christmas lunch during a six-day power outage.

Cars snaked around a gas station a block away awaiting a fuel delivery.

Dampened by overnight rains at the main Mbare long-distance bus terminal in the capital, thousands waited for buses to their villages. But the lines were smaller than in the past, as fares soared and acute shortages of food and gasoline continued.

Townspeople take chicken, sugar and other scarce commodities to rural relatives for the holidays.

Power and water outages occur daily across the country, blamed on shortages of spare parts, equipment and hard currency for electricity imports.

Zimbabwe was the breadbasket of the region and one of the world's top exporters of tobacco until the government seized white farmlands that were given mainly to cronies of Mugabe and his entourage, creating food shortages and a crisis that led a third of the population to flee the country.