At around 08:00 on Monday, 5 January, Danai (not her real name), a 30-year-old woman from Harare, left her bags behind in the long queue at the Beitbridge border post on the South African side.
Looking visibly tired, she said she could no longer stand in the snaking queue, which she had joined at around 05:45. Danai went to look for a place to sit nearby while waiting for her travel documents to be processed.
Like me, Danai was one of hundreds of travellers from Zimbabwe returning...