The second largest ZiG note is worth just a little bit less than the US$2
Zimbabwe is in the process of getting a new currency of its own. This process has been going on for quite some time and unlike the multi-trillion dollars of old that were based on nothing of consequence, this one is based on gold. The name, ZiG for Zimbabwe Gold, says it all. The official abbreviation for ISO standards has now become ZWG, which is used on government websites, though everybody I have come across refers to it as ZiG which rolls off the tongue easier and is more like the cartoon character we expect it to become. This time it’s serious, though very obviously a vanity project.
Rumours of ZiG notes circulating have been around for some time and a recent trip to the bank to pay tax (my account was no available online) revealed that they actually had some in stock. I had a vision of getting some Reserve Bank issued mint bundles for possible collectors’ value resale but the only new ones they had were two 50s (above). People have obviously been using them and everywhere I went and offered to pay for purchases they were viewed with curiosity. They are of course legal tender and as such cannot be refused if you insist on using them but, with one exception, everyone was relieved when I said “No, just joking” and hauled out the greenbacks from my wallet.
There’s a well-stocked (by Zimbabwe standards) hardware store just five minutes from where I live. I use it enough that I am recognized by the staff. The till operator didn’t hesitate when I asked if they would take ZiG as payment but was surprised when I showed her the notes instead of a debit card.
A few weeks earlier I’d been standing in the same spot waiting for an assistant to come back with my order. There were two young girls lookin bored whilst they waited at the checkout for their parents. One of them, blond, blue-eyed and about six or seven years old walked up to me and said “So what happened to you then?” (my disability is very evident – a walking stick, a crutch and bent-knee posture).
“When I was a young man I broke my neck” I replied. “Oooo, ouch!” she exclaimed and grimaced. “Where was that?” “On the South African coast at a place called Uvongo. I dived under a wave and hit the sand” I replied. “Ooo, owww!” came the reply, with another grimace, and with that she turned and went back to her sister.
I am often asked if I need help, usually by older people who are patients at the same medical practice I am visiting. What they are going to do if I say yes is unclear. It is unusual to be asked what happened to me. I don’t mind, I’d far rather people got the correct story than, out of perceived politeness, guessed and got it completely wrong. I have never said “mind your own business”.
I was quite surprised when at the same hardware store on a recent visit a young black store employee (with a “Trainee” tag on his shirt pocket) asked me what had happened. I could see he was genuinely curious so I told him, this time not leaving out the war injury. He didn’t blink and I could see that it meant nothing; I doubt if his parents were more than young children at the time.
We got chatting and I could tell by his accent that he’d had a good private school education. He was 24, his name was Bryson, was still living at home and his parents were starting to indicate that he should be thinking about moving out. “Hopefully in about eight months time in this job I’ll have enough money to get a room of my own”. He carried my purchases to my pickup truck and said goodbye. What an amiable young man (oh dear, am I THAT old?) and I wish him well.
Do I wish the future of the ZiG well? No, not really. The exchange rate with the US dollar is officially fixed at the pain of a US$10,000 fine so it’s unlikely to run to the stratospheric exchange rates of previous attempts to get our own currency. The political elite view the ZiG with disdain. At a recent high profile wedding at the local polo grounds a few months back the press, (including the government owned and sycophantic The Herald), breathlessly gushed that gifts totaling some US$19 million were given to the newly weds. No mention was made of any ZiG.
I have heard it said that the ZiG will only really gain traction when the fuel stations accept it as payment. Asking if one can pay with the ZiG gets a very unambiguous no.
It’s not nearly so lush on the ground – looks really can be deceptive
Harare is running out of water. Municipal water supply in the suburbs is a best sporadic and a trickle. We leave a pipe from the lonely municipal supply tap into the swimming pool and it trickles in and just about keeps pace with evaporation. While it isn’t obviously polluted I wouldn’t be tempted to use it for anything except the pool and the garden.
Five years ago we got the water diviner in to site another borehole. The original hole had eventually run dry and buying in 5,000 litres of water twice a week was expensive. To be fair the diviner used both his bent brazing rods to divine then the science (electrodes and a sensor) and both indicated a new site which would not be prolific but should be reliable. The decision to go ahead was made and the drilling started. Breaks (water sources) were hit in three places around 40m and we told them to keep drilling. At 100m we called it a day – no more breaks had been found but what we had yielded at 1,000 litres per hour. Good enough for domestic purposes and keeping the flower beds and pots going. The lawn would have to look after itself.
The last two rainy seasons in Harare have been under the average despite being la Niña years. Parts of Zimbabwe did get heavy rains but they were very patchy. The borehole yield started to drop. We know this because the amps on the pump control box drops below six after an hour or so pumping, indicating the pump is starting to suck air.
We cannot just blame the sub-normal rains. There has been a lot of wetland development over the past several years. What rain falls now largely runs off instead of soaking in and replenishing the ground water. Whilst there are laws regulating development on wetlands they are now routinely flouted with the help of backhanders to the licensing authorities. It doesn’t help that there is now an official policy of condensing the urban population so formerly spacious one acre (and smaller) plots are being bought up and developed into high density cluster homes. Chinese are frequently behind this and will pay in cash – who in their right minds would refuse a suitcase of US$100 notes? Whilst the suburb in which we live has largely been spared, developers are starting to turn their attention to it and already construction has started on a plot five away from us.
We got into a routine of running the borehole for an hour in the morning and another in the afternoon. It seemed to cope. One morning last week I turned it on for an hour at breakfast time and then the gardener turned it on again without asking at 11. When I chanced to look at the amps when passing it read zero! Panic, the pump had run dry and over-heated the motor – it had cooked. A borehole specialist was called in. The good news was the motor was OK but the pipe in the hole had split due to being the wrong gauge and the power cable was too light for the power of the motor – 750W. It would all need replacing and in the meantime we only had the swimming pool as a supply.
Back in the early 1990s when working as a farm manager in the Chinhoyi area north west of Harare I was warned that a great way to start a nasty fight was to dispute water rights. Family, best friends – it could all turn nasty if water was at stake. Zimbabwe even has a water court to settle disputes and determine water rights.
The tenant in our cottage is not an easy person to get along with. We started out well so Marianne gave her a three year lease but since then she has become very demanding despite the lease agreement being specific on issues such as water usage. She is also a self-proclaimed expert on just about everything including solar power and, of course, boreholes. This means that I’ve been told that there’s plenty of water in the borehole, we won’t have to buy in water and the borehole will recover in the rains. This despite the presence of one of the strongest el Niños on record which inevitably means poor rains! Our relationship is fractious at best.
The borehole motor, pump and pipe (we used a smaller motor so the cable was still good to use) have been replaced and a smart controller installed that lets us calculate water flow into the hole – it’s about 80 litres an hour. It’s just a case of when it will run dry, not if. Then, like the majority of households in this city, we will have to rely on bought water of unknown quality – at the beginning of the year I spotted a water tanker filling from a roadside puddle. Quite where it will all come from I have no idea. Of course the current price of US$60 for 5,000 litres will soar and a sizeable proportion of those with good boreholes will continue to advertise it by watering the grass verges outside their property. The City Council has stated that this is illegal but who cares? Nobody seems to be checking and after all, they can be “persuaded” to turn a blind eye.
The family (L to R) – Cruiser, Tia with her back to the camera, me, Marianne, Themba and Tara.
Maybe it’s the age I’ve reached when you try not to look forward to the future and the inevitable decline and would rather concentrate on nostalgia of years past. I have to admit that I’ve become sentimental about my old Toyota Land Cruiser. Yes, Marianne is also sentimental about her but for different reasons – she likes the respect she gets from Honda Fits! They definitely don’t cut her up.
We have decided to sell the old girl and the old Mazda pickup and get a second hand Japanese import, a Nissan X-Trail. It makes sense – the Cruiser (we never had a name for her – she was just “the Cruiser”) is used for little more than shopping and the Mazda is used only to keep the battery charged. I can import an automatic vehicle every five years duty-free on my disability allowance and the Ford pickup is 10 years old so we can get the Nissan for pretty much the sale of the Cruiser and Mazda. The Nissan is nine years old
I bought the Cruiser in the mid 2000s – I think. I needed a vehicle for my paragliding trips and I wanted to improve my mechanic skills which up until that stage had been limited to oil changes and brake maintenance. The Cruiser fit the bill on all counts. Being a station-wagon, a 1989 HJ60 model, she could carry lots of kit and people in reasonable comfort and she was certainly in need of some TLC. I ended up learning a lot more than I’d intended to.
The engine, a 2HZ 3.98 litre diesel was in poor shape so the bonnet went up and out it came. The cylinder head was overhauled with valves being reseated and lapped-in. The head was skimmed, new cylinder liners purchased and put in by what was, I was assured, a reliable machine shop. Then it all went back together courtesy of a how-to-do it book copied off a friend and lots of asking around – remember the days before Google? I did buy a lot of tools and Jenni, my Rhodesian Ridgeback, helped by getting in the way when I was under the vehicle.
Made for the purpose – dogs, people and mud. L to R: Zak enjoying the scenery, Florian driving, Kharma in her rightful place on the back seat and Ute holding Tiger. One of the few times the 4×4 facility was actually used!
She started a bit rough, but after the timing was sorted out and feeling rather pleased with myself I took her for a drive on the farm. It was the rainy season and I needed to test my idea that one couldn’t get a Land Cruiser stuck so I went down a road that I knew was particularly muddy. Nervous moments were had as I realized there was a good reason that the tractors avoided that area in the rainy season. I retreated more than a little cowed and covered in mud and disengaged the four wheel drive.
Just when I was getting pleased with myself (about 2,000 km later) the engine stopped. Something was badly wrong so the cylinder head was removed again and the damage assessed. The machine shop that I was assured was good hadn’t bothered to tell me that the cylinder liners I’d bought were too small and every single one was cracked around the rim, except for the sixth which had been pulled down onto the crankshaft. It took two years for my sense of humour to recover enough to start the search for another engine. It turned out to be a fortuitous wait.
I asked Mark in the 4×4 Club to ask around for a replacement engine. Some time later he contacted me: “I have someone wanting to sell two engines that came from Dubai” he said. “One is a 2H like yours, the other is a 12HT which is the same engine but turbo charged”. I dithered and decided on the 2H which was the cheaper of the two. “It’s already sold” he replied. So I stumped up the cash for the turbo version. It was a good choice.
Once Mark had fitted the engine – he’s a better mechanic than me and there were a few modifications that I was prepared to let someone else do – the adventures began. There was a trip to Ghona-re-Zhou in the south east of Zimbabwe. Several to Mana Pools Game Reserve on the Zambezi and lots to Nyanga. Being a big station wagon there was always plenty of room for friends, dogs and paragliders and she could go almost anywhere. The big diesel would reassuringly rumble from Harare to Nyanga in the eastern highlands without having to change gear for any hills and she could easily stay on the speed limit. There is one hill near Juliasdale that I would really look forward to. A steep descent to a 90 degree right hand bend followed by a long curving uphill. No problem, put the foot down and purr up to the top without a gear change.
She also had some extras added after the engine was replaced. I had her resprayed to a two tone white and maroon. A bull bar was added to the front on a new heavy steel bumper – fortunately I never needed to find out how well they worked. A heavy steel rear bumper was attached and a long range fuel tank replaced the original. That was well put to use. Spot lights were added as the original lights were poor. Back then it was still ok to drive at night. Now we avoid it if at all possible.
On the weekends I’d often go out flying model radio-controlled aircraft or my paraglider and I’d leave the ‘Cruiser by the back door whilst I had lunch and got ready. If the door was open Jenni knew she was coming and would climb in and wait. It could be more than two hours but she was as patient as she was determined. After Jenni there was Zak and Kharma – also Rhodesian Ridgebacks. Once I had to keep them in the ‘Cruiser whilst aircraft took off at the airfield where we flew. Zak showed his displeasure by chewing a seatbelt.
I haven’t driven her for quite a few years now – as my disability has increased my feet have become too slow on the pedals. Marianne does drive her and likes the sense of respect she gets from other vehicles, especially Honda Fits but I think I have already mentioned that. Anyway, tomorrow she goes to her new owner in Kariba who has promised to look after her. Doing the final checks this afternoon and pumping up the tyres I couldn’t resist one last listen to that big diesel. She started easily as always. I couldn’t get my right foot to the accelerator pedal so I used the hand throttle. I gave it a good pull and the engine roared and as it slowed there was that beautiful turbocharger whistle. Perfect! I know one shouldn’t get sentimental about vehicles but I guess it’s the memories they invoke. Farewell old friend.
Earlier this year the Zimbabwe government decided to update the list of goods that required an import licence when brought into the country for commercial purposes. There is a fair bit of latitude on goods imported for personal use. The resulting document is the Control of Goods (Import and Export) (Commerce) (Amendment) Regulations, 2026 (No.15). The rationale behind the update is to put it simply trade protection, stimulation of local businesses and the saving of foreign currencies (they could start on the latter by not stealing so much themselves). There is a condensation of the rationale here but for those who insist on reading the original document you can download it here.
The document is mostly mundane but there are a few items that are quite unusual. Let’s start with the toilet paper.
Yes, we are protecting the local toilet paper industry. I cannot say I’ve had much in the way of first hand experience of using local toilet paper but I strongly suspect that the occasional roll of single ply that I’ve experienced in toilets attached to customers’ waiting rooms has been the local stuff. In this household it’s strictly multi ply.
Most serious toilet paper is double ply though I have come across triple ply. Single ply is in its own league. Whilst not useless there are challenges involved. Using it single is not an option for obvious reasons so it is sensible to double it up. Even that is risky so fold again to get four layers – economising is not wise. By now you might have realized that it would be cheaper to have used regular double ply in the first place. Will local manufacturers step up to the plate and produce decent quality now that they are protected? We’ll see.
Then we come to the nukes. Yes, you read that correctly.
I have to admit I have no idea what they mean by this. We have no locally produced nuclear reactors and no money to import one either. The government is heavily in debt and looking to China to help us out with our “$34 billion infrastructure challenge” in exchange for mineral deals. So I guess we won’t be needing import licences for “Parts of nuclear reactors” either.
Then we go from the absurd to vague – “other”.
Other what? Again this is more than a bit vague and gives the customs officials overseeing the import more than a bit of latitude. It appears in a few other places in the document as well. That could be intentional.
Some of it is quite reasonable – no importation of second-hand underwear at all. Not sure why anyone would want to wear used undies even if they had been washed. What will hurt is the importation of bales of second-hand clothes that is big business. It’s all very well encouraging people to “buy Zimbabwean” but if they cannot afford new clothes, as is evidently the case, what are their options?
The document is by no means an exhaustive list of items requiring an import licence. Last year I imported coir pith, from Sri Lanka, that we used in the nursery as a medium in which the seedlings are grown. It required in import licence and the requirements for that were onerous but I’ve done it for 11 years so it was tedious but expected. I do have to wonder how many people will not be familiar with the import requirements and will arrive at the border posts with items in commercial quantities that now require a licence only to have them impounded. I am fairly certain that nuclear reactors, tariff code 8401.10.00, won’t be among them.
My brother, Duncan, arrived from the UK on Good Friday for a three week holiday. Originally he’d booked on Emirates the day before the Gulf war started but took up the offer of a full refund rather than take a chance. Asked what he thought of his flight on Rwandair he replied that it was just fine and the planes were relatively new. I am not sure how he justifies a holiday given that he’s retired. Maybe it’s our weather that’s so attractive – which it is when compared with the English weather. I was especially pleased to see him as he’d brought me a mixed pack of cheeses which can be found in Zimbabwe but are notoriously expensive. Oh, yes, we do get along well too. Our sibling rivalries of our teenage years are long past.
Left to right: my aunt Helen (97), brother Duncan (70), self (66).
The following day was my aunt, on my mother’s side, 97th birthday party. She’s doing well for her age and still lives by herself albeit with a carer. Unlike me she doesn’t need to use a wheelchair, just two walking sticks. I also walk with two sticks but on occasions such as this find a wheelchair easier. Most of her family were in attendance as nobody can be certain how much longer she’ll be around.
My mother’s side of the family seemed to either live a long time – brother Anthony to 94, Helen 97 so far – or not. My mother died of melanoma at 67 and her other brother Steven died at 72 from prostate cancer. Not much is known about my father’s family. He was an only child and no father is listed on his birth certificate. A scandal in our family – quelle horreur! Us siblings were delighted and my sister Diana, who died at 62 from breast cancer, noticed this and asked my mother about it but the curtains came down. The man whose surname my father inherited died on the Somme in 1918 and my father was born in 1925. It’s not that my mother was prudish but she was born in 1925 and some things were not up for discussion. She once asked me if I would consider marrying a woman who’d lived with someone else. I replied that I’d be seriously restricting my choice if I were to apply that criterion. She looked thoughtful for a moment then said: “Yes, I suppose so”.
She was a strong woman my mother. My father was murdered in 1978 and bled to death outside the front door within three metres of her (she was on the other side) and she could do nothing to help. It was near the peak of the Rhodesian bush war and civilians were fair targets for the combatants/terrorists of Robert Mugabe’s ZANLA and Joshua Nkomo’s ZIPRA. Understandably she didn’t talk much about it but did say that flying on the air force helicopter into Umtali (as Mutare was known then) she recalled that the countryside being beautiful by the light of the full moon.
The quintessential Zimbabwe bush scene – a sandy road, miombo bush.
We decided to take a trip to the Eastern Highlands of Zimbabwe. The district of Nyanga, where our parents had met in the early 1950s, was to be the first port-of-call, but Duncan wanted to call in and visit Kerry Stanger, near the small town of Rusape, who has a crowned eagle nesting in her garden. Some of her fantastic photos can be found here. Her husband John farms a variety of crops including tobacco and pecan nuts and is looking to put in chili peppers for export to China. Unusually for the area, he has managed to keep a fair proportion of his original farm and as a title deed holder is looking to invest in a solar farm with a Dutch company. He also has a dairy!
I couldn’t access the observation point where Kerry takes her photos of the chick that she calls JJ. He/she was not cooperating so they didn’t get a clear view anyway. We did enjoy the views of the unspoilt countryside of granite rock outcrops or “kopjes”, grasslands and bush-veld.
Straight on to Nyanga village, right to Troutbeck Hotel and up to World’s View.
The road from Rusape to Nyanga was quiet and all the potholes had been filled – with sand. It was a pleasant trip and we even saw a black mamba snake crossing the road. Fortunately it was close to a police roadblock and I was going slow enough to easily avoid it. This was a relatively small one at about 1.5m but they can often get to 3m or more. Duncan got out of the car to try and get a photo. He seemed to think that they would only attack if cornered. That maybe, but as Africa’s largest venomous snake I was pleased that it had quickly moved off.
The evening view from Venus Cottage where we stayed
The road from Troutbeck Hotel up to the Connemara lakes is in very poor shape. We arrived at Venus Cottage where we were staying just in time to capture the setting sun reflecting in the clouds covering Mt Nyangani, Zimbabwe’s highest peak. It was getting cold enough for a fleece (for me at least) and the fire was lit.
The World’s View range: background – Nyangui, middle ground – Rukotsu, right – World’s View
After my mother died in 1992 I moved back from the Chinhoyi (central west) area of Zimbabwe, where I was working on a flower farm, to her cottage in the mining village of Penhalonga on the Mozambique border about an hour south of Nyanga. I was keen to try to earn a living doing freelance programming for the agricultural sector. After a couple of years and merely subsisting I closed shop and moved to formal employment near Harare. I did however get hooked on paragliding whilst in Penhalonga.
Gary and his family lived at the top of the Penhalonga valley, close to the Mozambique border. One day he called past the cottage and said “I am going paragliding, come along, you might be interested”. On the local training hill I watched him lay out his wing, inflate it and step off the slope into the air. I was entranced. “I just have to do that!” I thought. I duly did a course and bought my own wing.
We had three flying sites in the area; Penhalonga, the Honde Valley to the north and then World’s View further north again. The World’s View takeoff, to the right of the picture above, faces west and when the wind blows from that direction can deliver extraordinary flying.
Not long after I learnt to fly I went with Barry, who’d taught me to fly, and others to World’s View. It looked good so we launched into what we found out later was convergence* and conditions were extraordinary. We didn’t have to look for thermals – the lift was everywhere, smooth and strong. We were carrying variometers (an instrument with audio and visual rate-of-climb and sink indicators and an altimeter) so we knew both how fast we were climbing and how high we were. At 1,000m above takeoff the terrain below looked completely flat. Barry had to go back to Harare so we landed and I went home to Penhalonga. We had many good flights at this site but none that quite matched that day. My love of paragliding never dimmed and I went on to fly in South Africa, France and the USA where I famously had to be rescued by a US Navy marines helicopter! *Convergence in meteorological terms is when two airmasses converge and the air is forced up. Conditions can be fantastic for soaring in dry weather but in summer storms often develop along the convergence line.
The view from the plot that my mother bought in the early 1950s. The mountains in the distance are in Mozambique.
The following day we took a trip to the plot that my mother had bought not long after my parents were married. The intention was that one day they’d retire there and relax and enjoy the view, which is fantastic. It was not to be. My father was murdered as a result of the bush war in 1978 and my mother died in 1992. She left the plot to both myself and Bridget Galloway (Hamilton) whose parents mine befriended in the area in the 1950s. I realized that I was never going to develop the land so sold my share to Bridget some years ago. She has built a very rustic cottage and lives there by herself with no apparent need for any sort of security – not even a fence around the cottage.
The road to the plot was awful. It took us an hour to cover the 13km and in two places we used four-wheel-drive. It probably wasn’t necessary but it made life easier. Bridget had told me earlier when I’d asked about the condition of it (she was working elsewhere when we arrived) that in March heavy rains had made the road impassable for three weeks. When at school in Mutare we used to make monthly trips to the plot and even then the road wasn’t great but still passable to any vehicle with reasonable clearance.
A bit of rudimentary transport taking a breather whilst we were blocked by a truck loaded poles. No doubt it could have negotiated the road when other transport found it impassable. The oxen looked in good condition.
On the way back from the plot we had to wait twenty minutes for a logging truck to finish loading with poles. Duncan, being an ex truck driver in the UK went to speak to the driver. He marveled how the truck managed to negotiate some of the tighter corners on the road and even had turned around.
Sometimes it’s easier to negotiate the tight bends with something more appropriate even if it doesn’t carry much.
We called in at the Troutbeck Resort on the way to see Barry (the one who taught me to paraglide) who was working there helping refurbish a conference room – he’s a professional carpenter. We reminisced about our paragliding days over tea and beers and came to the conclusion that our paragliding days were over – neither of us could afford a bad landing – but hell, we’d had a lot of fun. I still fly a paramotor on occasion but it doesn’t really compare with the thrill of catching a thermal and feeling the glider pitch into the lift and the variometer start to squeal. So far as I know there is nobody flying paragliders in the country. The World’s View takeoff is overgrown as is the Honde valley takeoff to the south. There is another site on the Zambezi Valley north of Harare and I had amazing cross country flights there but access was problematic even then.
Venus Cottage where we stayed, looking west. It’s comfortable and has been refurbished since we last stayed there.
The next day we left the cottage and headed back south to Mutare. On the way there we stopped off to see Sue in the Imbeza valley where she lives on a smallholding. Together with my mother, she was one of the founder teachers of Hillcrest Primary School closer to Mutare. She also lost her husband in the war in the Cashel valley south of Mutare where they were farming. Farmers were especially vulnerable and Tim was ambushed near the farm apparently in a case of mistaken identity. One of his sons found out many years later that the target was another farmer following behind him.
My brother Duncan and Sue. She’s a spry 80 year-old, still living by herself.
Then it was on to Mutare to meet up with Gary (the one who introduced me to paragliding) and his family. After a pleasant afternoon chatting and catching up (they don’t often come up to Harare) we headed into the nearby Bvumba mountains to the White Horse Inn for the night. On the way we passed through the centre of the city and I was pleasantly surprised at how clean it was.
Approaching the White Horse Inn in the Bvumba mountains close to MutareSorry no tie – me flouting the dress code. Marianne (my wife) recounted how many years ago the then manager, David Graham, had given her partner a tie to wear for the dining room as he wasn’t carrying one. They are much more relaxed now – we did ask – even shorts are permitted!
The decor of the inn is still very much as it was 50 years ago. Duncan sent photos to an old school mate who’d lived in the area and said it hadn’t changed since his youth. The staff were very pleasant, the food good even if the service was a little slow and the rooms comfortable. It scores a well-deserved 4.3 stars on Trip Advisor.
The next morning the mist was down as befitting the name Bvumba which refers to the “misty mountains” so we had a relaxed breakfast and started down the hill to Mutare.
“No one and no place left behind” says the slogan on the banner on the sports ground fence in Mutare. That’s Zimbabwe’s president. E.D. Mnangagwa on the left. The slogan is more than a bit ironic considering that a third of the population faces food insecurity but the ruling party (ZANU-PF) wants to increase the president’s term beyond the stipulated two of five years each. There’s a referendum coming up on this issue so the slogans abound as does the intimidation. Everyone expects the result to be fixed in favour of changing the constitution.
The drive back to Harare was uneventful with none of the heavy trucks forming nearly impossible to overtake informal convoys. Duncan drove like a good Zimbabwean driver – overtaking on solid white lines, pushing into small gaps in the left lane and cutting in front of a car in oncoming traffic in Harare. He needs to work on the speeding bit though. He kept to the 120 km/h limit all the way and even used cruise control so he only qualifies for a provisional licence! It was a good trip with plenty of time to reminisce about our distant youth and catch up with old friends.
The unstabilized power is frequently unusable. Just after this photo it spiked to 260 volts.
It became evident soon after we installed the solar panels and inverter that we were going to have to do something about the terrible power quality. Most of Zimbabwe has erratic power supplies. Called “load shedding” it’s really just a statement about the government’s ineptitude in supplying power to the nation. The national supplier, ZETDC (Zimbabwe Electricity Transmission and Distribution Company) is a subsidiary of Zimbabwe Electricity Supply Authority (ZESA) and is the sole distributor of power. Other subsidiaries, also government companies, are responsible for sourcing power. It’s a mess and a major driver of the private sector embracing solar power. We have a friend who works for a company that installs industrial sized solar systems and she tells us that they cannot keep up.
Our problem is not power supply per se, but a wildly fluctuating voltage. We have been told that we are on the same part of the power grid as a “person of influence”, i.e. a political fat cat, so we don’t often get intentional power cuts though faults are not uncommon especially during the rainy season.
We installed the voltage protection unit (VPU) pictured above to protect the solar inverter from the voltage which we have seen anywhere from 280 volts down to 160 volts. It simply disconnects the supply outside of the safe range of 190 volts to 240 volts. During the day the supply is often above this range and at night it falls below. We can hear the VPU switching on and off in the evening and the lights flicking as the inverter takes over. Most of the time it is merely tedious but on occasion the voltage goes low for so long that the solar battery goes flat and the lights go off. Especially in cloudy weather when the solar battery never fully charges.
Over the years I have acquired a reasonable collection of woodworking and other power tools. These are in the spare garage next to the cottage in the garden and most can run off the cottage solar system. The planer/thicknesser and it’s accompanying dust collector cannot as they draw too much power so must run off the mains supply and the voltage fluctuations would destroy the motors very quickly. The planer is a very useful machine and because I am so dependent on it very little happens in the woodworking sphere these days.
Whilst I knew that voltage regulation units (VRUs) that supply a constant voltage existed, I had researched them on the internet and found that they tended to be large and very expensive. I asked my friend Barry, who is a professional carpenter, what his solution would be. He has liquidated his company he has no large machines but I thought he might know someone who did. It turned out that he and his partner had just installed a relatively small VRU in a flat that they’d bought and were available locally for less than US$1,000. So I got hold of the company and started asking questions, lots of them.
Having ascertained that I would need a 15kVA regulator and that the warranty would be valid for a year they couldn’t give me a clear answer as to whether it would be valid, or what would happen to the unit, if the voltage went outside the maximum rated supply of 250 volts. Asking around led me to another hardware outlet but they were only interested in selling the VRU and had little backup and simply wouldn’t answer the voltage range issue. A chance conversation with one of my cousins and with an electrician that he knows led me to call Richard of ElectroTronics and he answered all my questions.
ElectroTronics is based in the Southerton industrial area of Harare. Once a bustling hub of industry it’s a lot quieter than I remembered (I had no reason to go there for quite a few years) but was surprisingly clean. The roads were mostly good though the one past ElectroTronics was in very poor shape.
Richard, owner of ElectroTronics in his warehouse
Richard is a very trim man, not looking at all like his 70 years and he assured us that he’d been in the business nearly 50 years. His small warehouse was impressively well stocked, indicating an active business, and he happily gave of his time explaining the principles of VRUs. The one we’d opted for was essentially a variable transformer. “Of course they are made in China” he responded to my inevitable question. “I could sell you that Italian-made one for 18 times the price but these work just fine” he added (we paid $900). He has sold VRUs to all manner of customers including hospitals, laboratories and factories. The biggest was 1,000 kVA. “I back up and repair everything I sell and if it’s a genuine part failure I will honour it outside the warranty”.
Richard showing off the finer details of a servo driven AVR – yes it was being repaired.
Having got the AVR home my brother Duncan noticed some cosmetic damage to the case. I sent in pictures to Richard and asked if it would jeopardize the warranty. He apologized, said no, and the machine was replaced that afternoon. I was VERY impressed!
The AVR is installed in our kitchen (the only place where it can be easily placed to supply regulated/stabilized power to the whole property) and my woodworking machines work just fine! However, a VRU can obviously only work when there’s power and the next day there was none. Fortunately a WhatsApp message to the local faults department led to a prompt replacement of the problem fuse in the nearby sub-station. We’re back in business!
A wheelbarrow of ornamental maize – a lot of genetics happened in there!
Rob Jarvis, then the manager of ART farm, gave me some cobs of ornamental maize (sometimes known as Indian corn to the Americans) some years ago. I was fascinated by all the colours and saw photographic potential. I grew a small plot of them in our garden two years ago and got the photos I wanted. The cobs were harvested, seeds sorted by colour and stored in an airtight container. There must have been weevils on the seed because they quickly got stuck into the seed. A spell in the freezer sorted them out and left the seed none the worse for wear and another plot was planted this year. The seeds were planted in rows of the same colour for what is called a “look see” experiment i.e. to see if a properly designed experiment is warranted. I have not the space for an experiment of this magnitude but was curious to see what would transpire.
Initially I was hoping to run a comparative taste test of the immature cobs but I soon realized that this would not be feasible due to the lack of uniformity in their maturity. Sorting them by colour whilst on the plant was also a non-starter. So I settled for harvesting at near full maturity before the rats caused too much damage and seeing what colour patterns I could identify.
I am no geneticist and my semester’s course at university on fundamental genetics was a very long time ago so I will share my observations and musings. After all, Barbara McClintock, who spent a lifetime studying the genetics of maize kernel colours and won numerous awards culminating in a Nobel Prize, ascertained that maize genetics is vastly complicated.
Some nomenclature: tassel – the male flower on top of the plant that sheds the pollen. Each pollen granule carries a single set of chromosomes that must combine with a single set of chromosomes carried by the ovule which will result in a kernel/seed developing. silk – the structures in the ear (female) that will collect pollen from the tassel and cause a seed/kernel to develop. There is one per ovule. cob/ear – the female flower that bears the seeds/kernels gene – a gene is a section of DNA that contains a specific instruction for an organism. This instruction provides information about it will develop, function or grow. recessive gene – a recessive gene requires 2 copies to be present in order to be expressed. If a recessive gene is inherited alongside a dominant gene, the recessive gene will be ‘masked’, but if it is inherited with another recessive copy, it will be expressed. e.g. A blue eyed person must have 2 blue genes present (one from each parent). dominant gene – if a gene is dominant, there only has to be one copy present in the pair for it to be expressed e.g. if a brown eyed human passes on a brown eye gene to a child it will override any blue eye gene present and the child will have brown eyes. monoecious – only one plant is necessary to set seed/fruit as in maize – a plant carries both male and female flowers. They can self-pollinate or cross-pollinate with another plant. imperfect flowers – as in maize which has both male and female flowers (separate) that need to pollinate. perfect flowers – have both male and female reproductive structures in one flower.
Plants usually yield pairs of cobs, one larger than the other. These cobs are all pairs from single plants.
Commercial maize plants are much more uniform in their yields for obvious reasons and inevitably bear two cobs. Sometimes there are three but the third is too small to be significant. In this trial most plants did not even produce two cobs but where they did there were interesting characteristics. Colours from any pair of cobs from a plant were very similar, even so far as distribution on the cob – see the pair of cobs in the bottom right row above that have mainly yellow and white seeds at their tips. This may even have extended to the number of seeds set (top left) but could just mean that the silks that weren’t pollinated due to mistiming with pollen shedding. Most cobs were not reasonably full i.e. had few seeds to the end of the cob. Commercially produced maize looks more like the cobs on the bottom right pair.
To me this suggests that somehow the colours of the cobs on a single plant can be linked. Having searched the internet this is suggested as being indicative of plants self-pollinating i.e. the cob is pollinated by the tassel on the same plant. So far as I have observed silks don’t emerge at the same time so self-pollination is unlikely to be the cause.
Most seed colours sown did not yield cobs of uniform colour. Is this due to the complex nature of maize genetics or something more prosaic such as cross-pollination with plants grown from other coloured seed?Cobs from white seeds were predominately white and yellow.
Interestingly, commercial maize is either yellow or white. In this part of the world white maize is favoured for human consumption and yellow for livestock. Yellow maize has higher carotenoid content which gives it the yellow colour and higher vitamin A precursor (beta carotene) than white and it causes yellower eggs and poultry skin. I think yellow has more flavour than the white which is often consumed here in the refined form as a staple carbohydrate. Corn on the cob is a popular snack in this part of the world and is sold by the roadside in the early summer. This often comes from illegal plantations in the areas close to streams in the suburbs and vacant plots.
Cobs sown from grey seed yielded predominately grey seed and, with one exception, no red
Does this imply that plants grown from grey seed are more homogenous than others or that they are more likely to self-pollinate or that the grey gene is dominant over other colours? This was also observed in cobs sown from red seed – there were a large number of red kernel cobs which were often entirely shades of red (as in the top right pair in the top picture). To me this suggests that the red gene is dominant.
Other peole have milled the coloured maize and eaten it. While most commented that it was tasty, the thicker seed coat (pericarp) than commercial maize make it a niche crop and it will mostly remain what it is – ornamental.
I have yet to decide what to do with the wheelbarrow of cobs that were harvested. I don’t have the means to mill the kernels and try a few internet recipes. It was an interesting little experiment but that’s about it and they will likely be consigned to the compost heap. Or just maybe I’ll try sowing a single coloured seed, say red, and see what happens…
The bad news on a local filling station prices board
On Wednesday morning the previous day’s rumour of fuel price increase was proven correct. Diesel price had gone up from $1.53 per litre to $1.77. Please note that is US dollars not the local ZWG dollar which despite being an official and rate-controlled currency nobody wants it, most certainly not the fuel stations.
The reason given for the price increase is the ongoing war in Iran. I suspect that it’s a convenient excuse to bleed the Zimbabwean public of yet more money. Yes, the increase in crude oil price is going to cause a knock-on effect to the pump prices but nearly 16%? What does the government think the knock on to cost of living is going to be? Do they care? Will it come down if or when the fuel prices are reduced? Not a chance!
Being a landlocked country all imports of consequence come in by road or rail. A telling exception is the fuel pipeline from the Mozambique port of Beira to Mutare, a city on the eastern border of Zimbabwe, which accounts for some 90% of fuel imports. This means that oil price increases are going to have a minimal effect on pump costs. This doesn’t seem to have been incorporated into the ZERA (Zimbabwe Energy Regulatory Authority) calculation of how the maximum allowable fuel price arrived at. ZERA is the government body that regulates maximum fuel prices – I am not sure what else it does if anything.
The ZERA attempt at legitimizing the fuel price increase falls short of convincing
More tellingly there is no indication of how much the source price has changed so it is effectively meaningless. The government has lost no time in telling us just how lucky we have been that it didn’t increase more (last paragraph in italics below):
“The petroleum prices are with immediate effect from 4 March 2026 for the next two weeks. In the meantime, ZERA will be closely monitoring the market developments to ensure that there is adequate supply in the market.
“The above prices are as a result of Government reducing some of its charges to cushion the consumers from astronomical increases that have happened from changes in the international market.
“Without Government cushioning, the actual prices would have been US$1.90/litre for diesel and US$1.81/litre for blend.”
This is from a government that has imposed taxes on bank transfers of 2% (some are exempt such as pensions), 2% tax on cash withdrawals from banks and a VAT of 15.5% that has just gone up from 15%. Income is taxed starting at $100 per month. Foreign currency transactions by debit card now attract a 15% tax. This is a government desperate for cash.
The shortage of cash is evident in the public sector. The road from Bulawayo to Victoria Falls is nearly impassable in places. There are lots of others. Talking to a friend who lives in the eastern highlands area of Nyanga she tells me that it takes her an hour to go 7km along a road that became impassable in January due to heavy rains and other stuck vehicles. Roads in our suburb of Mount Pleasant can require a good deal of patience to negotiate and the problem is widespread in Harare. Power outages and poor voltage are endemic and municipal water is erratic and at best a trickle (ours goes into the swimming pool for storage). What was once the pristine central business district of Harare is now the proverbial dog’s breakfast of rubbish, potholes, vendors and a bad smell to boot.
The tax department works! It’s had a complete makeover in the last year or so and nearly everything is doable online. That’s including the notorious QPDs (Quarterly Payment Due) whereby one has to estimate the company profit or loss four times a year with penalties enforced for being inaccurate. Yes, you got it – taxed in advance!
Businesses eligible to charge VAT have to have a computerised point-of-sale that is linked to the tax department’s computer system and every invoice or cash sale has a QR code on it. Scan the QR code and you can see a representation of the invoice. Try it on the example. I have to admit that I’m impressed.
A typical invoice from a VAT registered company
So when the government hikes the fuel price by nearly 16% and tells us that it could have been more I am sceptical (I am already cynical).
Postscript: In the time taken to write this blog fuel pump prices have rocketed the world over. The Zimbabwe government might just have to rescind its decision to “cushion” price increases. So far there haven’t been reports of fuel shortages but the bulk diesel price on the sign pictured is now zero – none to be had.
Doctor M is very definitely of the “new” school of surgeons – relatively young (late-forties perhaps) and easy to chat to. When I asked him if the second stage of the procedure to break up my kidney stone would take 15 minutes or so he smiled and said it would take a lot longer than that. “We have to make sure that the stone is broken into really small pieces that will easily pass down your ureter and that takes a while even with a laser. We have to retract the stent enough to expose the stone, insert the scope under active X-ray so we know exactly where we are and then blast the stone with the laser”.
When I was told a few weeks back that the kidney stone that was blocking my ureter could be removed by laser I was quite surprised. I’d assumed that it would be crushed and removed by a more basic endoscope but apparently we are more advanced than that in Zimbabwe. Perhaps it’s the dilapidated state of the nation that automatically primes one to expect that nearly all other aspects of life will be equally decrepit. Medicine has, to an extent, escaped this fate (if you have the means to afford it) though it is generally accepted that for advanced medical treatment it’s best to go to South Africa. Perhaps paradoxically it is often cheaper (it’s the competition thing).
The first stage of removal was to insert a JJ stent (so called for the shape of each end) past the stone which was partially blocking the ureter near my left kidney. This required day surgery and I had to report to the clinic in the Avenues area of Harare at seven a.m. I was checked in by pleasant and efficient staff, escorted up to a ward and then the waiting began.
At 10 o’clock my cellphone was taken away and I was told that I’d go to surgery “just now”. By noon I’d given up on the “just now” and dozed off. Around 3 o’clock I was loaded onto a gurney and moved off to the operating theatre where I was left outside. The paint was peeling off the passage walls opposite. The anaesthetist arrived and talked me through what she was going to be doing. She was young and chatty. She left, doctor M called past carrying a day pack and greeted me and then I was moved into the operating theatre and maneuvered onto the bed. The interior of the operating theatre was, to my untrained eye, modern though the overhead lights had different coloured elements that no-one could explain.
I was awake around 4.30 and the surgeon checked in on me at 5. Marianne picked me up at 7. A day spent waiting. Mostly.
Doctor M’s rooms are new, expansive and indicate a successful surgical practice. When I drove in this Friday past to have the consultation for the second phase of the kidney stone removal the car park was only half full. I was on time at 9.45 for the 10 o’clock appointment. I finally got to see him at 11.45 and yes, I fell asleep in the waiting room. When I left the car park and waiting room were full. Maybe I’d got off lightly.
I go back to the same clinic on Monday for the laser treatment. I won’t make the same mistake and will check up on the time I am expected though I suspect a fair bit of latitude will be built in to their answer. Unlike the last time I won’t be getting out the same day – apparently pain management will be required for at least one night. I guess that I will have to put up with it, hopefully I won’t have to wait too long for the analgesics!
Back to the future
4 11 2026Zimbabwe is in the process of getting a new currency of its own. This process has been going on for quite some time and unlike the multi-trillion dollars of old that were based on nothing of consequence, this one is based on gold. The name, ZiG for Zimbabwe Gold, says it all. The official abbreviation for ISO standards has now become ZWG, which is used on government websites, though everybody I have come across refers to it as ZiG which rolls off the tongue easier and is more like the cartoon character we expect it to become. This time it’s serious, though very obviously a vanity project.
Rumours of ZiG notes circulating have been around for some time and a recent trip to the bank to pay tax (my account was no available online) revealed that they actually had some in stock. I had a vision of getting some Reserve Bank issued mint bundles for possible collectors’ value resale but the only new ones they had were two 50s (above). People have obviously been using them and everywhere I went and offered to pay for purchases they were viewed with curiosity. They are of course legal tender and as such cannot be refused if you insist on using them but, with one exception, everyone was relieved when I said “No, just joking” and hauled out the greenbacks from my wallet.
There’s a well-stocked (by Zimbabwe standards) hardware store just five minutes from where I live. I use it enough that I am recognized by the staff. The till operator didn’t hesitate when I asked if they would take ZiG as payment but was surprised when I showed her the notes instead of a debit card.
A few weeks earlier I’d been standing in the same spot waiting for an assistant to come back with my order. There were two young girls lookin bored whilst they waited at the checkout for their parents. One of them, blond, blue-eyed and about six or seven years old walked up to me and said “So what happened to you then?” (my disability is very evident – a walking stick, a crutch and bent-knee posture).
“When I was a young man I broke my neck” I replied.
“Oooo, ouch!” she exclaimed and grimaced.
“Where was that?”
“On the South African coast at a place called Uvongo. I dived under a wave and hit the sand” I replied.
“Ooo, owww!” came the reply, with another grimace, and with that she turned and went back to her sister.
I am often asked if I need help, usually by older people who are patients at the same medical practice I am visiting. What they are going to do if I say yes is unclear. It is unusual to be asked what happened to me. I don’t mind, I’d far rather people got the correct story than, out of perceived politeness, guessed and got it completely wrong. I have never said “mind your own business”.
I was quite surprised when at the same hardware store on a recent visit a young black store employee (with a “Trainee” tag on his shirt pocket) asked me what had happened. I could see he was genuinely curious so I told him, this time not leaving out the war injury. He didn’t blink and I could see that it meant nothing; I doubt if his parents were more than young children at the time.
We got chatting and I could tell by his accent that he’d had a good private school education. He was 24, his name was Bryson, was still living at home and his parents were starting to indicate that he should be thinking about moving out. “Hopefully in about eight months time in this job I’ll have enough money to get a room of my own”. He carried my purchases to my pickup truck and said goodbye. What an amiable young man (oh dear, am I THAT old?) and I wish him well.
Do I wish the future of the ZiG well? No, not really. The exchange rate with the US dollar is officially fixed at the pain of a US$10,000 fine so it’s unlikely to run to the stratospheric exchange rates of previous attempts to get our own currency. The political elite view the ZiG with disdain. At a recent high profile wedding at the local polo grounds a few months back the press, (including the government owned and sycophantic The Herald), breathlessly gushed that gifts totaling some US$19 million were given to the newly weds. No mention was made of any ZiG.
I have heard it said that the ZiG will only really gain traction when the fuel stations accept it as payment. Asking if one can pay with the ZiG gets a very unambiguous no.
What Google said. I didn’t follow the links
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Tags: fuel, Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe, USD, ZiG, Zimbabwe Gold, ZWG
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