While the outside world continues to speculate on Zimbabwe's future, it's just as difficult to predict the outcome from the inside.

Although flare-ups have been reported from all around the country, life in Harare generally seems calm. Here, everybody is still waiting for the results of the country's presidential elections two weeks ago.

Nearly everyone I talk to is anxious, frustrated and in many cases angry over the lack of an announcement. But nobody wants violence. The worry, however, is that the longer the wait goes on, the more upset people will become and the more potential there is for unrest.

Rumours circulate wildly, and it's often impossible to separate bread-queue speculation from fact. But what can be verified right now is that people want the results so they can get on with their lives and so children can back to school.

Many of our staff have been called back to Harare while we await the political results, bringing with them the latest news from where we work in the Zambezi Valley, one of Zimbabwe's poorest and driest regions.

Because food is now so short there, many children are forced to eat wild fruits that are so bitter they mix them with ash to make them palatable.

Families are now also cooking any leaves they can find, including one plant that was previously considered poisonous. They've found a way of draining it that makes it safer, but people still get sick after eating.

At the moment, Save the Children, like several other aid agencies, has had to reduce operations in both the rural and urban areas where we run programmes. Much of our work involves workshops with communities, families and children, and at such a politically sensitive time, such meetings are discouraged.

We have in the past been accused by both parties of supporting the other side, when in fact we are an apolitical, humanitarian organisation. Our only concern is getting help quickly to the children and families struggling to survive Zimbabwe's economic meltdown.

But at the moment that is proving hard. Without access to our communities, we can't deliver the large stocks of mosquito nets we have to families in the north, where malaria is rife.

Nor can we buy up the stocks of seed we need to distribute to families so they can start to prepare for next year's harvest, as there's no seed to be found here.

While families are not yet starving to death, this year's harvest was again bad, and in the poorest areas the food they have isn't likely to last more than four months.

With the highest number of orphans per capita in the world - 1.8 million - there are a lot of children out there who need our support. But the longer the wait goes on for the results, the longer we have to sit on our hands watching the humanitarian situation get worse.

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