When you ask people how they've survived this dreadful decade in Zimbabwe, almost everyone mentions the name Gideon Gono (Governor of the Reserve Bank.) People say they would have been able to salvage something if it hadn't been for Gono's incessant printing of money - and bragging about it; for his inability and unwillingness to control government spending; for his looting of foreign currency from private bank accounts, and for his removal of zeroes from the currency: 3 were taken off in 2006 and 10 in 2008. It's hard to understand how any of us survived really and inevitable that we will feel the repercussions for a very long time to come.

For the first time in most people's lives we do not have savings to fall back on in case of accidents, illness or unemployment. Savings accounts we had in banks, post offices and investment centres have disappeared as each removal of zeroes literally stole our money away in front of our very eyes. You have to look at your bank balance, remove thirteen digits and then understand the state we are in here. Life insurance policies and pension funds have been similarly looted.

Anyone who held their assets in cash and savings and not in immovable property, has lost everything. Anyone who held their assets in land, livestock, crops or anything to do with farms and agriculture, has lost everything.

Trust funds established for disabled, sick and disadvantaged people have evaporated in the last decade. One friend told me how her parents had established a trust fund for their mentally handicapped son and built it up every month throughout their lives. When her parents died their assets were sold and also put into the Trust leaving enough money in the fund to support the disadvantaged man for the rest of his life. Thanks to the gross economic mismanagement of Zimbabwe, there is nothing left in the Trust Fund, in fact it ran dry four years ago and the handicapped man now lives entirely on charity in a dilapidated state institution.

Pensioners are in an equally perilous position, life savings lost in hyperinflation, assets sold and cash lost in repeated currency devaluations and no way to replace anything as their age forces them into a retirement of virtual penury.

Facing a future in such perilous conditions it brings little comfort to follow the ongoing seizure and auctioning of Reserve Bank assets. The Reserve Bank ordered and took possession of 60 tractors from Farmtec which they gave out to farmers in an attempt to persuade them to grow food on the farms seized by Zanu PF. Well, the food never got grown and the tractors never got paid for and now Farmtec want their money back - US 1,2 million dollars in fact! We follow the saga with interest as Reserve Bank assets get taken by Sherrifs and put up for auction. So far we've heard that some tractors have been repossessed along with chains, hoes, wheelbarrows, furniture, fridges and hundreds of generators. Hearing about the generators being auctioned brings back memories of Mr Mugabe dishing them out at every election rally in 2008 saying that every town would be electrified thanks to this Reserve Bank programme. Writing this letter by hand during another 16 hour power cut all I can say is : I don't think so!

Now we wait, holding our breath, to see if enough money will be raised through the sale of these movable assets to pay the Farmtec debt or if some of the lavish properties we've heard so much about will be next. Maybe it is true that what goes around comes around after all, albeit very slowly.