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Mabasa Sasa in Minsk, Belarus
THE last time President Emmerson Mnangagwa was in Belarus was in 2015, a visit he says he recalls was “under different circumstances, but nonetheless very memorable”.

Much has changed for President Mnangagwa in the intervening period, most notable being that then he was Vice-President and today he is Head of State and Government and Commander-in-Chief of the Zimbabwe Defence Forces.

What has not changed is the work ethic.

Those who accompanied him to Minsk in 2015 returned with tales of early mornings and late nights, all in the service of country and countryman.

And no, Cde Mnangagwa was not taking it easy or treating the trip like an informal vacation while the foot soldiers laboured away.

He led from the front, demonstrating by example the kind of hard, selfless work required to turn Zimbabwe around.

It was no shopping jaunt. It was no stroll through Minsk for undeserved allowances. It was brutal, demanding work.

When they returned to Harare, you could sense — through their weariness — the smile of satisfaction that said it was all worth it.

Hard work, one could say, is its own reward.

President Mnangagwa is back in Minsk. The work ethic has not changed. The long, hard hours have not changed. And the gratification of achievement is once again the reward.

Some people have derided President Mnangagwa’s four-nation tour of Eurasia.

They talk of “little known” Azerbaijan. They smirk at “poor” Belarus. They make jokes about how their uninformed tongues cannot get around “Kazakhstan”. They say Russia is a poor imitation of the United States they hold as the paragon of a nation state.

It is said you are what you eat. These naysayers have been fed a diet of self-defeating propaganda. And so they are self-defeating.

The cynics have not given thought to the fact that Russia is a veritable world power. They have not paused to ponder the oil and gas in Azerbaijan and Kazakhstan.

They have not had time to ask our own preening mining companies what they think about the machinery and equipment that Belarus has supplied them with.

The visit to tiny, poor Belarus is showing those who — as President Mnangagwa would say — do not have their heads in the sand how to find solutions and opportunities where others only see obstacles and excuses to gripe and feed their own self-defeat.

The Belarus national development experience teaches any Zimbabwean who cares about his/her country that economic growth and development are all about hard work, thinking outside the box, trying new things and pushing the boundaries.

President Mnangagwa warned that the road to rebuilding Zimbabwe would be tough. His Finance and Economic Development Minister Professor Mthuli Ncube – who is part of the delegation in Eurasia – cautioned that there would be pain.

There is no other way. There are no quick solutions. There is no magic bullet.

There is only hard, honest work.