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Zimbabweans, I've come to believe, we are very passive-aggressive people. We don't like conflict; we don't like confrontation, so we find all sorts of ways of avoiding that conflict and confrontation. We are not allowed to talk about bad things that go on in families.

The economic and social decline of Zimbabwe is shocking and appalling. Life there is unrecognisable from that of the recent past. Each day is a struggle for basic survival.

When I first worked in Zimbabwe, I was a complete novice. I was doing a study, and I continued to learn more and more through the years. And where I have learned most is in the village, from the communities.

I always say to people that Zimbabweans are the funniest people in Africa; we even laugh at funerals. And it's true. I mean, there are so many jokes about funerals. There are so many jokes about AIDS. We find ways of coping with pain by laughing at it and by laughing at ourselves.

These are the kinds of names that Zimbabweans like: names that have positive qualities. Like, Praise is a very popular name; Loveness is a very popular name.

I don't think we will ever go the way of Zimbabwe, but people are concerned.

I learned so much in Zimbabwe, in particular about the need for humility in our ambition to extend mental health care in countries where there were very few psychiatrists and where the local culture harboured very different views about mental illness and healing. These experiences have profoundly influenced my thinking.

The people of Zimbabwe have a responsibility to ensure that the government that they elected behaves properly.

The economic dynamic in Zimbabwe is perversely robust: while ordinary people suffer, black-market dealers and people with foreign bank accounts prosper, making them powerful stakeholders in the perpetuation of devastating economic policies.