Zimbabwe Absurdity

I’ve always wanted to use money as toilet paper and this lunchtime I got my wish. I was having lunch at a local coffee shop with June who is down from Mutare for the weekend on school business. Needing to go to the toilet I did not notice the absence of toilet paper until too late. Oh well, nothing for it but to have a look through my wallet.  A ZW$50 did the trick and it was certainly cheaper than a square of toilet paper. Not quite as effective though…

I have been going through a bad patch recently; the multiple stresses of living in Zimbabwe coupled with a disastrous personal life have led me to “lean on” various friends. I have always got on better with women than men and no, I am not gay either, it’s just the way it is. Men have been better friends in the sense that I know that I can ask them for any type of non-emotional help. Women have been closer friends; I can share my emotional problems with them that I would never dream of taking to my male friends.

Stef lives in Bonn, Germany and I have known her ever since she was a back packer here in 2000 and I looked after her for two weeks while she recovered from malaria. Debbi is the wife of Austin, the sports doctor and together they run my local gym. I am vaguely related to her; one of my cousins is married to her sister. On hearing of my troubles, Stef offered me written comfort and offered to send me some chocolate. At the gym this lunchtime, Debbi saw my long face and offered me a chocolate biscuit. I do like chocolate but have never believed it to be mentally uplifting. Is this a girl thing?

I was driving past the president’s official residence in town yesterday when I spotted a particularly silly hat. It was perched on top of a soldier in full camouflage uniform apparently guarding the premises.  I think he was trying to look intimidating with fixed bayonet (not a lot of good against bullets) and a helmet stuffed full of vegetation that may or may not have been acquired from the surrounding shrubbery. To me at least he looked very silly though I was not tempted to stop and tell him that.

There are a number of guards surrounding Bob’s town house even though he rarely stays there, preferring his probably grander palace, built by state coffers, overlooking the Borrowdale Brook golf course. Some of the guards are resplendent in dress green uniform with the mustard coloured beret of the presidential guard and white gloves. A while back I drove past while one was studiously scratching his bottom with an immaculate white glove. Not Buckingham palace guards these.

Yesterday we had one of our longest power breaks ever; 16 hours. Most of the northern area of town was out and a visit to the bank to draw cash was er, illuminating.
– Are you online?
– No. We have no power.
(Like I had not noticed)
– So what has happened to your backup?
– The generator has no fuel.
(I bank with these people?)
– So may I draw some cash.
– Oh yes.
So I go up to the teller and give her the cheque. She gathers a few more cheques from customers in the queue and disappears.
– Where has that teller gone?
– To check on the accounts.
The teller comes back without the cheques.
– What is happening now?
– Oh, someone is phoning through to another branch to check if those accounts have enough money.
– Why don’t you use a laptop and inverter for these emergencies? (Or just ensure that someone remembers to buy diesel).
Mumbles.
– I see. (I don’t  see of  course but  I do see that this  conversation  is  going  nowhere).
I eventually get my cash.

Oh, but when the power comes back we are so  GRATEFUL! I was so happy last night when I could actually see to do something. Daft, we should be furious at the incompetence and greed that has caused the whole damn mess.

On Friday night I went to a party at the local gym. They happen a couple of times a year in an attempt to keep stiff upper lips, foster good morale etc. I am not a great party goer being short on social skills but this one was OK. In an attempt to generate a bit of humour one was supposed to bring along a piece of paper and write on it why it was still a good idea to be  in Zimbabwe. These were then read out aloud by Debbi, my cousin-by-marriage and a mindless optimist.  One of the more memorable ones was: “Having lights and water is better than having an orgasm”. I did ask who’d written that as I was prepared to trade lights and water (and no male would make a statement like that) which I have (had) in plenty, but no-one owned up.

Winter is a bit late this year in Zimbabwe but that seems to be the trend the world over. Last night seemed a bit cooler than most, prompting me to get up and put on a T shirt which was easier than finding a blanket. I don’t bother putting on pyjamas to go to bed, I really cannot see the point of getting dressed to go to bed and then having to get dressed again in the morning, unless of course you are a teenage male but I haven’t been that for many years. Lately though, I have had second thoughts on this; there is a spider in this country, I believe it is called a yellow harp spider, that likes to hang out in linen. Its bite is not painful but the venom is cytotoxic and the result is VERY messy if you don’t excise the affected tissue straight away. Jenni, my dog, got bitten on an inner thigh some months back (probably while sleeping on my bed) and it did not make too much mess but then dogs have a pretty robust immune system and I have seen the result of a bite on a human leg. Yuck! What if I got bitten on….? Never mind, just enjoy life and react quickly!

This all got me thinking on what people do wear to bed and why. The obvious thing for any male to wonder about is what women wear to bed (hey, I have not slept well – never go straight to bed with brain in turbo mode from late night programming). Well, if one believes the adverts (I don’t have a lot of personal experience in this field) in the glossy ladies magazines (I learnt my sex education from Cosmopolitan after all), it’s nothing much at all. Really what is the point? It’s all so diaphanous that it:

• does not hide anything so cannot possibly be used for “modesty”so
• it is probably designed to be taken off anyway so
• cannot be designed for comfort

Many years ago I remember asking my mother (I got precious little of my sex education from her but in all other respects she was marvellous) why women wore such frilly little bits of nylon underwear as panties that were certainly not designed for practical purposes – they could only be designed to be seen and most of the time they were the only ones seeing them. She just giggled and did not answer. Note that in this part of the world they are called “panties”, “knickers” seems to be a British thing. Well, fashions change as they are bound to and it seems that now it is “in” to show off your panties, especially if it is a G-string (or thong – apparently there IS a difference according to Wikipedia). I see women of all ages wearing hipster jeans that inevitably show off a G-string when they sit down and we are not talking about a subtle panty line here. I have distinctly mixed feelings about G-strings, yes they are sexy but I can’t help thinking of the alternative, less polite name; anal floss.

They have also got to be made from the most expensive material on the planet. I don’t have a sample to work with but with a ruler and a bit of guesstimation there is all of about 150 sq. cm in an average pair (pair of what?). That works out to about US$1000 a square metre of material (taking an average price of $15 and you can get them a lot more expensive than that). So what are you paying for? Labour? I have no idea how many a skilled seamstress could make, 3 an hour? How ever you look at it someone is making good money so maybe that’s why you can even find software that helps you set up an on-line lingerie store! No, I cannot for the life of me remember where I saw that one but just Google “lingerie” for a bit of entertainment. Oh, and you can also get thongs for men. I will definitely pass on those!

And for even more entertainment you can try www.google.com/trends which will give you the search trends on any topic (or group of) by city, region or language. France is by FAR the biggest searcher for lingerie (closely followed by Belgium) with very distinct peaks of activity in February! Oh, les Francais, ils sont trops romantique!

I don’t know if it is the same barn owl that I “rescued” in “Rats, bees & barn owls” but there is definitely another barn owl in the chimney this morning. There was the usual metallic scuffling sound and as usual I thought it was a rat or lizard somewhere. Closer inspection of the fireplace revealed a tell-tale feather and all became clear. Remove the draught control, get stung by the resident bees three times and wait for the owl to appear. Well, I might have to wait for night fall for that as “he” shows no inclination to come down now. How he survives getting past a well established bee hive is beyond my understanding. Anyway, I have taken advantage of digital wizardry to get proof of the situation though it took several attempts.

I was wrong; it is 13h00 and the owl has just come down the chimney and been successfully released! I was fortunately at my desk in the dining room when the scrabbling intensified and I looked into the lounge to see the owl winging across the floor (at about 30 cm up) and it landed just behind my chair. Incredibly it looked up at me for about 15 seconds with inscrutable black eyes – I would like to think it was saying thank you but I know that is rather fanciful. My camera was on the desk but I knew that if I moved the owl would be gone so I just savoured the moment before it took off down the passage and into the first bedroom. It quickly got trapped behind bags of dog food but careful removal and it was back at the window again where I easily picked it up by the shoulders and released it outside. It touched briefly on the verandah before getting its bearings and winged low and silently across the lawn to a group of trees. I will still be smiling tonight!