Fond Memories Dissipate in Zimbabwe Haze

"Is that the bad guy?" asks Chipo, the Zimbabwean-born adopted daughter of journalist Neely Tucker, watching Robert Mugabe on TV. She is a constant reminder of life a decade ago in the African nation, he writes in the Washington Post. "Mostly I miss the way it was then only because it looks good by comparison," Tucker writes.

Zimbabwe in 1997 was surely no paradise, but one could still find joy, Now "every day is a real battle … but I haven't been in jail for two years," as one native reporter describes the nation where Tucker says Mugabe "will kill any number of people … so that he can spend the few years he has left in a deranged version of comfort."