At an electronics shop that we entered at noon, an assistant said she could count shoppers who had come in since morning. “Ga go tshwane le last year (It’s not the same as last year),” said the young woman who would not give her name. “They trickle in. I do not know why that is the case.” Vendors outside these Chinese shops traditionally make brisk business at this time of the year. Thirty-two year old Nancy Khuwa said she had sold only two pairs of P5 socks since morning. It was 10 minutes before noon when we spoke with her.

“Go thata tota (It’s really tough)”, she confirmed what was obvious. “Ever since the beginning of this month, I have not sold much. I am even thinking of closing my spaza shop. “It’s only that I do not know what I will give my children if I close down because what I sell here has helped put food on the table for me and my family.”

Even truck drivers who used to transport goods back to Zimbabwe on hire are feeling the pinch of no Zimbo in sight. Charles Dusai is one of them: “Things are looking much better back home in Zimbabwe,” he said. “People have money and shops are starting to fill up with goods and prices are not as bad as they used to be. “In the long run, there won’t be many Zimbabweans coming to Botswana to do shopping. Perhaps they will come as tourists?”

It is a bit of deja vu for the shopkeepers and vendors who suffered the same fate in 2009 when Zimbos did not descend on the city in large numbers. According to reports carried by Mmegi and the international media, there was relative silence then as the bustle of previous years was no more.

IRIN news agency reported a “marked shift in commercial activity” as hawkers at the bus terminus and Chinese shopkeepers sat twiddling their fingers because only a few Zimbabweans were coming into their businesses. “For the past decade, the town has been the first port of call for Zimbabweans who were unable to source necessities, from basic foodstuffs [sic] to petrol and even soap, in their own country and relied on their neighbour for most things,” IRIN said.

Zimbabweans literally swept everything off the shelves and the street, from groceries to hardware to clothing. “The formation of a unity government in February 2009 has not ended bitter rivalries between President Robert Mugabe’s ZANU-PF and Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai’s Movement for Democratic Change, but hyperinflation has ended and foodstuffs have again become available in Zimbabwe’s shops,” said IRIN.

Mmegi also reported of the anxiety that gnawed at the shopkeepers and vendors when Zimbabweans came in small numbers. Then, the streets of Francistown and its shopping malls were empty because of economic activity had returned to Zimbabwe following the formation of the inclusive government of Robert Mugabe’s ZANU PF and Morgan Tsvangirai’s MDC.

Botswana supermarket chain Choppies was monitoring the situation keenly as it unfolded in Francistown. Said its director of public relations, Ben Stegling, then: “We are paying attention to what is happening.”Choppies has since opened a new shop at Somerset East Extension where they are reportedly doing brisk business.

In 2009, it was double tragedy for Francistown which, besides a shortage of Zimbabwean shoppers, had to contend with mines that were winding down around the city, affecting the customer base of most retailers. Another manager, who spoke on condition of anonymity at the time, had this to say: “Yes, we have not been making much business lately. It is unlike late last year when there were hundreds of shoppers for days on end, mainly Zimbabweans.”She said there was a time when it did not matter whether it was month-end or mid-month as they were kept at the till until they knocked off.

To be sure, when I settled in Francistown in 2007, you could not land a foot down anywhere on the street without tripping over a Zimbabwean. The streets of city’s main business district were chock-a-block with Shonas and Ndebeles Botswana’s neighbour to the north.

Meriting Spar, below the three-storey Ngilichi House at the corner of Haskins and Blue Jacket streets, seemed to have been their rendezvous of Zimbabwean shoppers who converged there to take stock of their goods, count their change or just to wait for their companions.

The shoppers also converged on Shoprite and the neighbouring Spar at Nswazwi Mall, apparently after alighting from buses and kombis from Ramokgwebana border gate.

For days on end, the shoppers would clean the shelves bare of cooking oil, maize-meal, rice, sugar, bread flour, bread loaves, bath soap, washing detergent and other necessities.

Demand for these staples resulted in prices skyrocketing and a loaf of bread that in 2007 went for less than P5 rose to almost twice the price.

A bag of 10kg rice that before was less than P70 went for double the price by 2008. The same applied to cooking oil whose price also went through the ceiling as well as the hearts of Francistown’s citizen shoppers.

In shops like Spar, Shoprite and Pick ‘N Pay, Batswana started queuing up for bread, something that was unheard of a few years previously. But even then, loaves flew off the racks like frightened sparrows despite their steep price of P7.

The Chinese shops have certainly been making hay while it shone, their cheap electronic appliances and clothes becoming a hit with the Zimbabwean shoppers who could be seen heaving television sets, DVD players, music centres, satellite dishes, radio sets and microwave ovens on to waiting trucks every day. MNEGI

 Although there is still uncertainty about what will happen next year when Zimbabweans go to go the polls, at present there is every indication that things are looking up for Zimbabwe whose economy is certainly beginning to stabilise.

By Special correspondent