Zimbabwe

Zimbabwe stunned the U.S. Davis Cup team by taking a two-matches-to-one lead with a grueling doubles victory yesterday, leaving the Americans one match from first-round elimination. Zimbabwean doubles partners Wayne Black and Kevin Ullyett battled back after being down two sets to one - including one in which they were scoreless - to beat Rick Leach and Alex O'Brien, 7-6 (7-4), 5-7, 0-6, 7-5, 7-5. Black and Ullyett were buoyed by a capacity crowd of 4,000 at the City Sports Center in Harare, Zimbabwe.

It has been a rough month for Evelyn Masaiti. Her house was destroyed, her car was burned, and she was jailed for two days, all because she had the audacity to run as an opposition candidate against Zimbabwe's ruling party. Undeterred by the intimidation, the former secondary-school teacher yesterday cast her ballot and then determinedly drove around her district to encourage voters to the polls in Zimbabwe's crucial parliamentary elections. "I never thought of giving up, because I know I have a lot of support," said Masaiti, 35, a candidate for the upstart Movement for Democratic Change, which is posing the most serious challenge in two decades of President Robert Mugabe's unbroken rule.

President Robert Mugabe's reelection in Zimbabwe last weekend was as crooked as they come. Mugabe's party threatened the opposition, jailed poll watchers, and excluded thousands of voters by dramatically reducing the polling places in opposition strongholds. The fraud was obvious to hundreds of foreign observers and millions of Zimbabweans. But most African nations sent warm congratulatory messages to Zimbabwe's capital, Harare, after Mugabe was declared the victor. "It is clear that the people of Zimbabwe have spoken with an unambiguous voice on their choice of leader," the Namibian Foreign Ministry said.

In her native Zimbabwe, her first name means hope. Now, Tariro Mupombwa wants to bring a brighter future to her troubled homeland through a simple project with simple means: sewing machines. The 21-year-old University of Pennsylvania junior has been in Philadelphia on a student visa since 2006, majoring in biochemistry with a minor in economics. Three days a week in a Penn medical school lab, the student whose adviser calls her "brilliant" does advanced research on tuberculosis and enzymes.

One limitation that churches in the United States have is that worshipers can't dance - the pews are too small to allow for much movement during hymn singing. That observation was one of several that the Rev. Majaha Nhliziyo of Zimbabwe shared with an adult Sunday school class during a recent visit to the Salem United Church of Christ. Church members invited Mr. Nhliziyo, a theology student at Andover-Newton Seminary in Newton, Mass., and his family to spend a weekend telling them about African life and worship styles as they begin a seven-year partnership with the Njube United Congregational Church of Southern Africa in Bulawayo, Zimbabwe.

A group from Bucks County was heading for Africa the other day, but not to go on safari or watch wild animals from the safety of a resort compound. These intrepid travelers will be hammering and nailing, sweating in the tropical heat and getting dirt under their fingernails as they help build a new church in Masvingo, Zimbabwe. "This is something God was leading me to do," said Chester Marshall, one of five members of Langhorne Presbyterian Church - three women and two men - who left for Zimbabwe Friday Langhorne Presbyterian already has a relationship with Masvingo Presbyterian, said its associate pastor, the Rev. Margaret G. Newswanger.

Behind the high, whitewashed walls of a secluded villa, the man once dubbed the "Stalin of Africa" lives in lonely exile. Former Ethiopian dictator Mengistu Haile Mariam spends his days in seclusion with his family at the government-owned home. Mengistu rarely receives visitors at the villa in the plush Harare suburb of Gun Hill, which is guarded by police patrols. Rumors abound about the reclusive former strongman, who fled Ethiopia in May 1991, just before rebel armies seized the capital of Addis Ababa.

Crispen Masuka and his family traveled 7,800 miles from their home in Zimbabwe to stand in the pulpits of U.S. congregations and tell their story. It is a sad account about a sister and her husband who died of AIDS, and a country and continent so ravaged by the disease that thousands die each day. Perhaps, Masuka says, if Americans who love God see him and hear him, in the flesh, they will want to help. "So many young families are dying and leaving small children with no one to care," said Masuka, 53. "It happened in my family, so I resolved that I should do something about it. " What Masuka has done, with the help of local sponsors, is to enroll as a psychology major at Immaculata College, studying to become a counselor qualified to work with AIDS families in his homeland.

Surprised and "a bit overwhelmed," University of Pennsylvania junior Tariro Mupombwa said yesterday she was stunned by the flood of 120 calls and e-mails supporting her plan to fashion a brighter future for her native Zimbabwe using sewing machines. An article Tuesday in The Inquirer described Mupombwa's proposal to collect donated sewing machines in America and export them to Zimbabwe to start a nonprofit business making school uniforms at a home for the elderly. Since then, the soft-spoken woman with the microbraids has been inundated by offers of used and new machines.

Lois Muchopa spent three hours on Thursday waiting in a mile-long line at a gasoline station. She got nothing for her time but disappointment. "In the end, they had no petrol," she said. On Friday, Muchopa was more cheerful as she inched her Mazda closer to the object of her quest, a Shell service-station pump in the suburbs of this southern African capital. She spent one hour in line to buy $8 in fuel - 3 1/2 gallons, the limit that the station set for individual purchases.