Zimbabwe Absurdity

Sunday – endure 15 hour power cut.

Monday – get up at 5 a.m. to use power thinking it will last long enough to at least get the washing done. Load the machine and turn on. Power goes off at 5.15 a.m. Power comes back on at 7.45 a.m. Get washing done while I should be at work, but, what the hell I am the boss. Power goes off again at 5 p.m. and remains off for 5 hours. Having learnt that the power can go off at any time I do more washing. Get to bed at 12 midnight.

Tuesday – don’t need to do washing but I do need money so go to the bank to draw the maximum $100m. The bank has no power (generator not working) so cannot give out money. Power goes off at 4 p.m. and comes on sometime in the night.

Wednesday – get up early to do some ironing but the power is already off at 5.30 a.m. It comes back on at 11.00 a.m. allowing us to save a bit of diesel (we have a diesel pump at the nursery). It is still on as I type this (4.00 p.m.)

Notes: There are still queues at the bank and the new notes seem to have run out already (wonder who might have them?). We are just getting back the old 200 000 notes wrapped in “bricks” of 100m.

I gave a lift to my “next door” neighbour’s niece yesterday. A pleasant girl she is under the illusion that all will come right after the election. I pressed her as to why she thought so but she could not give me a sensible reply. Her uncle is a once head of the Reserve Bank and has built himself a large house within sight of mine (if you have Google Earth check out 17deg 41’46.71 South, 31deg 03’37.04 East). Maybe this has something to do with her business exploits into Zambia “trading”, though what we have to trade I cannot think. People of his stature in the government often have access to real money at the “official” rate of 30000 Zim dollars to the US. A friend of mine knows a minister (he won’t say whom) who sent his daughter to university in the UK for the princely sum of GBP1000. The university costs 40000 p.a. All done through “official” channels of course.