The situation in Zimbabwe is not a funny one - and sometimes it can overburden the people, or the commentators (like me) and it becomes a chore. And that burden can sometimes be more than the average person can handle.

But then we are blessed with the Zimbabwean sense of humour - or senzayuma as my mother is heard to have said.

Just last evening I had cause to laugh out loud at the writings of another blogger. He was writing about the very probable chance that Mugabe was wearing a bullet proof vest when he accompanied his wife - Amazing (Dis)Grace - and Vice President Joyce Mujuru to the Avenues Clinic in Harare to visit injured Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai following the road accident that killed his wife, Susan.

Deford Magora writes: “If you go back to the footage of Mugabe visiting with Tsvangirai, now armed with this new insight, you will notice that Mugabe’s suit bulges out and is straighter than normal, almost as if a cushion of air is sewn into its lining.

Grace apparently did not get a bullet-proof vest. Maybe they did not think anyone would want to harm her, they would go for the big fish instead. Or perhaps she just could not find the shoes to go with a bullet-proof vest.”

I threw my head back and roared with laughter.

Only in Zimbabwe would you find or experience such dry humour.

Then there was the joke that was doing the rounds about a year ago.

Apparently Mugabe was throwing his toys out of his pram - BIG time! He had demanded foreign currency from the Central Bank Governor, Gideon Gono, who told him there was none.

Mugabe apparently told Gono to find some or he would be forced to dowse himself in petrol and set light to himself in First Street.

Gono immediately sent out his minions to try and get the foreign currency from the people. There they were, running up and down the street, banging on vehicle windows begging the occupants of the car to donate.

They were offered anything up to three litres per vehicle!

Then there was a member of the public who tired of standing in a line each day to draw the pitiful cash limit of his own money, so he decided that he would put an end to all and go a take Mugabe out.

And found an even longer queue of people there!

I do not know where they all come from, but I do know that without our particular brand of humour, life in Zimbabwe would be no laughing matter…

Robb WJ Ellis
The Bearded Man