The Twala Trust Animal Sanctuary

30 12 2018

No animals are turned away from the Twala Trust Animal Sanctuary. Yesterday I rescued a battered malachite kingfisher from the garden. It was in its prime and beautiful but sadly was missing crucial primary wing feathers from a collision with our electric fence which is difficult to see (I didn’t photograph it – it went straight into a cardboard box to reduce the stress that so often proves fatal to small birds). Fortuitously we were already booked to go to the Twala Trust 40 km to the east of Harare so as it was still alive this morning we took it along. Colin the senior caretaker there greeted us and we passed the box over to him and he said they would do their best.

All manner of animals find refuge there; dogs, donkeys, horses, cats, birds and a variety of other animals. They do try and return animals to the wild where possible but some are hand reared and would not survive, others are permanently disabled and others have become too habituated to humans. It was an entertaining and fun visit and after a picnic we visited the kingfisher who’d already managed to eat (an excellent sing according to Colin) and made our way back to town.

This is a worthy charity for your support. You do need to book your visits. It’s a great educational opportunity for children with guided tours and there’s a swimming pool and reservoir to paddle around on. Take a picnic and enjoy the day.


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Categories : Environment, nature, Pets, photography

Two nights at Hippo Pools

29 12 2018

The Hippo Pools wilderness area is in the Umfurudzi National Park some 140km north east of Harare. Located on the banks of the Mazowe River it is hot and humid in summer. That did not deter my brother and I and apparently enough other people to ensure the lodges and chalets were full (I would guess the camp site was one third full) so we managed to book a permanent tent and settled for “glamping”. It suited our purposes fine and we followed the standard practice of game drives in the early morning and evening and just dozing during the heat of the day.

The road from Harare is fine until the mining town of Shamva then has some very bad stretches until the turnoff into the park at Madziwa Mine which appears derelict. Then one has to slow down. It’s still passable to passenger cars but once in the wilderness area the roads preclude low clearance vehicle. For the energetic that’s not an issue as the area has no dangerous animals (apart from crocodiles and hippos) and walking and cycling is encouraged. At this time of year the horse flies are a problem to the extent that we had the windows up and air-conditioning on to keep them out but once we got out the blood-letting started. They were absent from the camp region.

We enjoyed our time there even though I feel certain areas could be improved. For the hard core game watcher there are better parks but they are further away from Harare so this one is convenient. Would I go back? Probably, but not in summer.

Glamping = glamorous camping

 


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A trip to Imire Rhino and Wildlife Conservation park

25 12 2018

My brother, Duncan, is out from the UK for two weeks so we planned an overnight trip to Imire Rhino and Wildlife Conservation park an hour and three quarters from Harare to the the east. The road from Marondera was surprisingly good and we managed to get there on time for the 10 a.m. game drive. The park comprises 4,500 ha and has a thriving population of small game, elephants, a rhino breeding programme and a lion – conventional farming is also practiced. There are no leopard as far as anyone can ascertain. It was a great visit with excellent guides and food. Strongly recommended for a night though they cater for day visits too.

 

 

 


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Roses don’t like rain

19 12 2018

Raindrops on roses are – damaging (and kitsch)

Rain is not good for roses, well not on the petals. The leaves tend to get black spot at this time of year too. To say they don’t like it is, of course, a bit of an anthropomorphism – it would imply they have feelings and I don’t think they do have any.

The rains started a bit late this year. The first rain recorded at the nursery was on the 23rd November when the middle of the month is considered normal. So far we have had 192mm which is almost double the  97mm recorded for the same period last year. This does not mean we are in for a normal to good rainy season. An el Niño event remains possible in the Pacific so anything could happen from now on. It usually means we are in for a very patchy distribution of rain though in the past this has also been true for a la Nina event which should mean heavier than usual rain.

It’s easy to be critical of the weather forecasting system but it is much more accurate of late than say 10 years ago. I use The Weather Channel and last year it predicted the start of the rains accurate to the day. That’s a massively useful tool for farmers who generally

Reasonably accurate

plant their maize in Zimbabwe to take advantage of the rains. While some do make use of supplemental irrigation it is generally too expensive. This afternoon thunderstorms were predicted with 100% certainty over Harare at 17h00 and a small one has just passed overhead at 15h00. That’s impressive forecasting though last Monday was also predicted to have a 100% chance of rain and it was bone dry.

The government has, so far, been totally predictable in it’s mismanagement of the economy. We are still floundering hopelessly in a morass of confusion with the currency. Some German friends have just visited in their overland vehicle from Namibia – they park it in Windhoek during European summer. They managed to grasp the absurd situation of having an ersatz local currency officially pegged at 1:1 with the US dollar but accepted by nobody, including the government, at that value (duty on imported cars must be paid in US dollars). Most foreigners I meet remain puzzled even after I’ve given my best explanation.

I really don’t need the rain for my business. The groundwater of course needs to be replenished as we are dependent on two rather mediocre boreholes for all our water but rain on the seedlings promotes leaf disease that I can do without. Most seedlings are under plastic which protects them from the worst of the weather but the high humidity is still a factor. A lot of the plastic needs replacing now but as a totally imported product it will need to be paid for in US dollars that I just don’t have.

Quite a few businesses will now only accept US dollars for payment. That’s doable if one has a near monopoly but I don’t have that luxury. As a result I am charging less than what it will cost to replace my raw materials but I need the cash flow.

Along with the rains comes the power cuts. We’ve already had one of +48 hours. Normally the batteries and solar panels would cope but the the former are now tired after 3 years of use and last two hours just powering the lights, never mind the fridge, freezer and borehole pump. Replacing them is a daunting prospect requiring digging into our real money resources. The power cuts are not nearly as bad as they were when I bought the system – how badly do we want the peace of mind? Can we last out the worst of the rains when the faults mostly occur? Should we save our money for the inevitably rocky ride ahead as the economy is likely to get much worse before it gets better? Decisions. In the meantime my brother arrives from the UK in two days for the Christmas season. Not surprisingly he is not that keen on the rain either but at least it will be warm – of that we are certain. Let’s hope the rains are good and the flowers will just have to deal with it and look a bit tatty.

Frangipani – not normally this tatty


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The Zimbabwe economy beetle

1 12 2018

The economy beetle

The Zimbabwe economy and this beetle have more in common than one might think.

They are both lying flat on their back.  Fuel queues have returned with a vengeance just 2 weeks after the last episode faded away and we breathe a sigh of relief. It turned out to be a temporary respite. Talking to a customer this morning he said that he’d pulled into a local filling station to be told that they were only accepting real US dollars (our local version is now known as “bond”) and that would be as international credit cards not cash, thank you.

The government insists that the local bond and the US dollar are still equal value but anyone, or should I say  everyone, knows that it is around 3:1. In a curious twist the local tax/revenue authority has announced that all taxes on revenue earned in US dollars must be paid in the same – even thought they are both officially valued the same. The accounting sector is flummoxed.

Neither has any idea how to get back on their feet.  President ED Mnangagwa’s international charm offensive prior to the recent general election was “Zimbabwe is open for business”. It drew a lot of interest as Zimbabwe is resource rich and potentially attractive to investors – an obvious way to get the economy going again. That all crashed in a bloody mess this past August when soldiers opened fire on protestors at a rally called by the opposition MDC Alliance to give vent at the blatantly fiddled results.

Both are hoping someone will be kind enough to help.  The beetle is pathetically waving its legs in the air, trying to get some purchase on the cement –  it has little chance of success. I don’t see any solution for the Zimbabwe economy either. The finance minister, Mthuli Ncube, has the dubious distinction of being in charge of the local Barbican Bank which collapsed a few years ago. He is also being advised by local economist Eddie Cross. Cross was a vocal supporter of the opposition MDC but now is a ruling party apologist. I have yet to hear him speak any sense. Back in 2016 when the local bond currency (so called because it was said by the government to be backed by a bond from the Afrexim Bank in Egypt) was introduced he predicted that the supermarket shelves would be empty within 2 weeks. They are not.

Everything is very expensive but Marianne (my wife) found Belgian butter on Tuesday at less the the price of local butter and half the price of a South African brand. At the time the Afrexim Bank would not provide details on the purported bond which was later discovered to be non-existent. The currency is based on an illusion. No-one can fathom why it still has any value at all. Perhaps the government is hoping it will collapse and then they won’t have to bother with it. Those people lucky enough to have an essential business with little or no competition are managing to successfully demand payment in US dollars and will likely survive. They are also taking the opportunity for a bit of price gouging.

My business is not one of these. I have a lot of competitors who are charging less in bond currency than I was charging in real US dollars 8 years ago. Given that fertilizer and chemical costs have more than doubled in the last 2 months I have no idea how they are going to replace them. I have had to slash my prices to compete and hopefully out-last them. I have enough raw materials and inputs for another 6 months or so – it’s going to be a nerve wracking process.

I picked up the beetle and put it on a patch of lawn where it quickly scuttled off. The Zimbabwe economy will not be so lucky.

 

 

 

 


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