The long day

22 08 2012

It was not a good start. I lay on the highly polished, dusty and therefore treacherous floor and wondered if I’d broken my arm. I hadn’t but there was a bit of a haematoma on the back of my hand that I thought I could sort out at lunchtime with some ice.

The next stop was the shadecloth factory where they’d quoted me the wrong price – it turned out to be just more than half the price I’d heard, or thought I’d heard, on the phone. This could be a good day! The shadecloth was offloaded at work and  Kharma was ecstatic, as she always is, to see me home for lunch. By the time I’d got to the fridge to find the ice the haematoma had gone from small to half tennis ball size and was excruciating. I phoned the doctor and got an appointment straight away. Kharma gave me the “I am a dejected dog” look as I sped away from my briefest lunch ever. They can really turn on the pressure if they want to!

“We are going to have to cut this on open” Simon said.

“Why?” – this was sounding like a very bad idea to me.

“Normally I’d leave it but you have those two abrasions which could be a source of infection and a haematoma is an infection waiting to develop”.

“What about a needle?”, I bargained.

He considered this option for a moment and then went and got a big one. I am not squeamish but this was one procedure I was not going to watch.  I left shortly afterwards with my right hand tightly bandaged and a script for antibiotics should the haematoma become infected. I was back 10 minutes later to retrieve the script I’d left at the reception. Now I had to get out to a fertilizer supplier out of town and pick up a tonne of fertilizer. It was time to look for some air for the back tyres of the pickup.

The first filling station: I knew they’d had an air hose but they were undergoing renovations and it was no longer there.

The second filling station: “Sorry no power!” the attendant said, shrugging his shoulders. A generator stood idle in the corner.

The third filling station: “Sorry but this one doesn’t work. Try the filling station back there” the attendant said. I finished my indigestion rich pie and drove off.

The filling station back there: There was air in the air hose but I couldn’t get it into the tyre. It seemed the valve on the delivery mechanism was faulty.

The fifth filling station: “Reverse in here” the attendant” called. I did.
“How much diesel do you want?”.

“I don’t want diesel, I want air” I replied wondering if this was a Monty Python skit.

“Oh, I thought you said diesel, the air is over there” he indicated a tyre and wheel balancing outfit across the street. I thought about pointing out the dissimilarites between “air” and “diesel” but my patience had failed and I knew of another filling station close to where I was going but I doubted that it was the type that had a compressor. I was right.

“How has your day been?” said the well dressed lady at the fertilizer company office.

“Dreadful” I said and recounted the tyre pressure saga in compressed format.

She shook her head and said “This place is a disaster”. Then I told the story to the clerk in the payments office.

Tony rang from work. “There is a problem with the plough – the bearing on the tail wheel has seized. Can you get another in town?”. I was nowhere near town but the bearing needed to be got so I copied down the details and phoned the company.

“Yes, I have the bearings but they are not sealed” the sales clerk replied.

“That’s not a lot of good for the purpose I want them for” I commented.

“But I can sell you the seals” she added hopefully.

“Why don’t you just give me the part number of the bearing and I’ll get it elsewhere”. This was becoming a farce.

“I can’t do that over the phone” she replied. I could think of no sensible reply so burst out laughing. This was just amazing!

I parked the pickup in the warehouse and watched in admiration as the workers loaded the 50kg bags of fertilizer having carried them on their head from the pile. In front of me there was another pickup truck loading 10kg bags of fertilizer. They were also being carried one at a time on the heads of the laborers. I suppose it is easier to walk five times to the pile than carry five in one go.

It was past 4 p.m. by the time I got to the tractor spares outlet where I found the sales clerk whom I’d phoned. I asked about the bearings whilst she wrote down the part number. They were $6 each for the unsealed bearings, $7 for the seals or $5 for the sealed bearings which they did not have anyway. I got the required part number and dashed to a bearing specialist nearby. They had the right bearings at $34 each! The salesman was emphatic that the seals, if indeed they were sold separately, could only be factory inserted. By this stage I was beyond arguing so I paid and just managed to beat the rush hour traffic back to work.


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On the process of dying

3 08 2012

I’m at the age when I’ve started to wonder how I’m going to go, you know, die. Two people who I knew well have died over the past few years, admittedly from smoking which I have never done. I rather like American scientist Carolyn Porco‘s comment in a Scientific American magazine some time back that went something along the lines of “It’s not death that I fear but I am not looking forward to the process”. I think that just about nails it for me. If it’s like the thief in the night and I don’t wake up one morning – well, it couldn’t really get much better than that. If it is like the long drawn out and excruciatingly painful process that my mother went through in her terminal cancer, then no thank you very much.

I am betting that I will “go” in a vehicle accident. The driving in this country is getting to the stage that I think this is a very real possibility. When there weren’t so many vehicles on the road I wasn’t so concerned but they have multiplied a lot over the past 3 years or so with the usage of real money and whereas once traffic jams were  unheard of now they are common in the centre of Harare. Melissa, who works frequently in Nigeria, tells me that even the driving in Lagos is better than Harare. That’s some statement.

I was going in to Avondale to meet my French teacher at 10h30 this morning and arrived at the turn into Cork Rd off 2nd Street just as the lights turned green with an arrow for me to turn right across the oncoming traffic. I’m not sure what inspired the white 20CD (I didn’t get the last 2 digits of the registration plate) Land Cruiser to accelerate towards me as I was about to turn but I had to take substantial braking action. I was not unprepared as I know this intersection is a problem and drivers coming out of town get frustrated with the long period of the red light and are prone to just ignoring it but I still let the driver know what I thought of him. The police of course were nowhere near; in fact they were on Churchill Rd traffic lights busily fining motorists for going through an amber light which is not a fineable offence (see Policing Amber post). So I missed that particular potential “process”. Now if only I’d read the last 2 digits of the number plate I could have at least given the Canadian Embassy a call. Coincidently there was a 20CD Land Cruiser at work when I got back this afternoon and it was also white but it was the smaller Prado model.


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We have the best weather

30 07 2012

Jenny’s family left this country in the 1960s when it was called Rhodesia. The Unilateral Declaration of Independence had been declared and things were not looking good so the family settled in Australia. She now has a 16-year-old daughter who is interested in coming here for a visit. Her father (the parents are separated) has determined that Zimbabwe is too dangerous and has forbidden Jenny and Meg to come here which he can legally do until Meg turns 18. Maybe he saw the Australian government travel warning on Zimbabwe which even I have to admit is pretty impressive. I also have to admit that everything on it is true though when one compresses all the woes of just about any country onto one page it is bound to be impressive. Some of it is downright daft; “A comprehensive indemnity is often required by safari operators before they accept clients” (italics are mine) – of course it is required, you are going to come close to wild animals which are dangerous! It completely fails to mention that most Zimbabweans are law-abiding citizens, are friendly to anyone who cares to be friendly back and will go out of their way to help out. “There has recently been an increase in armed robberies, assaults and other violent crime. Security risks are heightened at night, especially on city streets, and in or near parks and the city centres”. Yes, but how does that compare with say, Jo’burg?

Then yesterday I got some spam advertising various safari options for the whole family in Zimbabwe with a mention of a survey and report by International Living on which countries are a good place to live taking into account a whole host of factors that in their opinion contribute to quality of life. The quality of life index page makes for some interesting reading. Zimbabwe is 12 from the bottom just above Haiti. Somalia is at the bottom, where it should be in my opinion.

Let’s look at the table column by column. First from the left is cost of living. Zimbabwe is quite expensive and shares indices with the Ukraine, Uruguay and Latvia. Our neighbour, Mozambique is slightly cheaper to live in. No news here; Zimbabwe got expensive after the changeover to the US dollar from the doomed Zim dollar.

Sort the Leisure and Culture column and Zimbabwe is listed there between Brazil and Chile. Scrolling to the top of the page we see that France and Switzerland top the list. France I have no doubt should be there but Switzerland? Scroll down a bit and we find Swaziland ahead of the UK! Just how objective IS this list?

Sort the economy list and not surprisingly the USA is at the top but where is Zimbabwe? Oh dear, we are right at the bottom with a score of 0. Looks like I will have to change the script below the title on this blog. I knew things were bad but THAT bad? But where’s Haiti? What, they have listed Haiti’s economy ahead (just) of Brazil’s!

Let’s move on. Environment. Zimbabwe doesn’t score well on this one either – they must have had a look at Lake Chivero recently or seen the fires on the AFIS site. Iceland is right at the top. I guess it’s been a while since a volcano erupted there.

Freedom Hmm, this is not going to be good and… no it isn’t. Well, at least we are ahead of North Korea, Somalia and Saudi Arabia. The lower rankings are depressingly shared by our fellow African countries to the north. Russia is not highly rated either. Maybe this list is reasonably objective.

Health is topped by France and Japan and Zimbabwe is a bit further down. Well, it’s actually quite a long way further down with other African nations. That has not always been the case. I know a public health doctor and she’s told me that once upon a time when had a really good health system. But that is no reason to not visit the country. The private clinics have some fine health care professionals and specialists.

Infrastructure is not a shining light for Zimbabwe. We are ahead of Mozambique though and I am on the internet on “broadband”. Our version of broadband. Not yours!

We have a quite respectable score of 57 under Risk & Safety. Just about all the other nations listed have a higher score. Except Iraq, Afghanistan and Haiti. It must be the driving but I cannot believe that anyone’s minibus drivers are worse than ours.

What about weather? Click on the weather column and there we are; right at the top with Malta! I’ll accept that ranking. I don’t suppose the Aussie government bothered to look at our weather ranking. I don’t care that much, I KNOW we have great weather here in Harare. I’m not sure that I’d want to live in the south-eastern lowveld but it is pleasant enough in winter. Summer it gets very hot and humid.


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Brothers in the sun

10 07 2012

“Do you have a letter?” the tax official at ZIMRA (Zimbabwe Revenue Authority) asked.

“What letter?” I replied.

“There’s a notice on the door” he waved vaguely in the direction of the entrance. “You need a letter from your company authorizing you to collect the ITF263” he continued.

“But I am the director!” I exclaimed.

“Well in that case we need to see your CR14 and your ID”.

I got up more than a little perplexed. I’d been to Kurima House in Harare to get an ITF263 (tax clearance form) and never been asked for company documents (the CR14 lists the names and addresses of a company’s directors) but I’d never won an argument with a tax official so there was not a lot to do except go and get it back at my house. I checked on the door on the way out and there was indeed a notice listing the requirement for a letter for a non-company official to collect the ITF263 but nothing else.

Arriving back at the tax office this afternoon the tax official banged on the office window as a walked past and told me to come directly inside ahead of the queue. Given the length of the queue I didn’t think that was a bad idea. I went to the next free desk and nobody there was interested in my CR14!  Just less than an hour later, with just 5 minutes left on the parking ticket that I’d bought, I was back at my truck with the precious green document and feeling more than a little pleased with myself. All the tax payments had been in order and though I had to visit a few other offices in the interim I was now clear to import raw materials for the next 6 months.

I was waiting for the traffic to move behind me so that I could reverse when the man with albinism appeared at my window. Blacks with albinism are easily spotted in this country of a black majority and while once they were shunned they have become much more accepted in the last 10 years or so. He held up a container of sunblock and said “Can you help me please sir, I need some money to buy some more of this?”

I paused a moment and then reached down into the foot well of the passenger seat and retrieved the ¾ full bottle of factor 30 sunblock that I keep in the pickup and handed to him. Fully expecting him to be disappointed at not getting cash to spend as he liked I was pleasantly taken aback at his obvious delight. I gently remonstrated him for not wearing a hat but he explained that he’d washed it that morning and it was still wet.  I’d once given my cap to an albinistic girl in the Zambezi Valley when paragliding there but unlike her this man did seem to be looking after his skin. The poor girl whom I gave my cap to was pathologically shy and was obviously taking the brunt of the teasing of the other kids.

I thought it a smart move approaching a white man who’d very likely be sympathetic and know what sunblock was. Blacks do of course get sunburnt but nothing like the extent that we whites do in this tropical climate. What the man who’d approached did not know was that I was a soft target on another front – my mother died of malignant melanoma in 1992, a high price for living in the tropics.


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Where have all the skills gone?

28 06 2012

For 20 minutes I sat and watched an abortive attempt to tow a heavy steel structure across the car park of the engineering works that specialised in welding. They were using a thoroughly inadequate chain which kept breaking and it was getting boring so I decided to go and see what was happening with the coffee pot. I’d bought it at the gym coffee shop towards the end of last year because it seemed easier to use than the espresso pot that was probably older than me and, despite being very expensive, I thought it had to last a long time as it was made of stainless steel. I’d never been over-impressed with the marketing guff on the side of the box; “The Signature Collection is 100% craftsmen made because objects that are made by craftsmen resonate with emotion. Pick one up and you can sense the time and effort invested in its creation“. It felt to me distinctly machine mass-made to me but what the hell, it was a Nick Munro design (whoever he is if indeed he exists) so it had to be good. Then last week the spout began to leak and lo, with minimal effort, it came right off! Some craftsmanship this was but having paid $60 for it I thought it worth getting fixed.

They still hadn’t managed to get the gas lit so with an increasing sense of foreboding I decided to hang around and watch. Eventually things started to happen but it seemed to take an awful long time to merely re-attach a spout. The welder then made off with the pot and my concern turned distinctly nasty when a stub of a file was found and the inside of the pot attacked. I asked for it back, told the foreman I wasn’t paying and made off with the pot and my money nearly and hour after arriving.

It’s well know of course that skilled artisans are in short supply worldwide. Zimbabwe is no exception. In the dark days of the Zimbabwe dollar’s plunge in 2007/8, large numbers of professionals and artisans left for more stable and better paid jobs elsewhere. It was at that time that I had my Land Cruiser engine rebuilt at a machine shop in Harare. All seemed well but after 2000km it self-destructed and I opened the engine to find all 6 liners (hard metal sleeves in the cylinders) broken. I found out later that the original owner had sold up, emigrated to Australia and then sponsored all his best machinists to go over from Zimbabwe and join his new business. As I had done the re-assembly of the engine I was advised that I could not try to pin culpability on the machine shop even though it was obviously their error. Quite how they’d managed a blunder of that magnitude nobody could really tell me.

On a far larger scale the commercial farmers who were kicked off their farms in the land grab in this country took their hard-earned skills to the Middle East, New Zealand, Afghanistan, Iraq, West Africa and even Russia amongst other places. Zimbabwe is not an easy country to farm and we are now paying dearly for these skill losses.

As for my coffee pot I will have to see if the mess can be cleaned up (he even managed to BURN THROUGH THE SPOUT!) enough to make it useable. So it’s back to the old espresso pot (on the right in the photo) which although more fiddly to use does, in my opinion, make better coffee. Who knows, it might really have been put together by real craftsmen all those years ago when they weren’t in such short supply!

 


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About nothing and DIY in the middle of winter

22 06 2012

I haven’t written anything for sometime now. Nothing much has happened though I’ll have a go about writing it. Actually, quite a lot of nothing has been going on in Zimbabwe. I’ve heard of at least 2 Spar supermarkets that have closed their doors recently due to lack of trade. The small sawmill that operates off the same premises as my nursery is also on the verge of closing. They had a run-in with a union some time ago so paid off all their staff and now just employ them on a day-to-day basis as and when they have work. I got them to cut 1200m of battens for the greenhouse that we are recovering with plastic. We are not that busy either so are doing the maintenance that we ignored for so long in the dying days of the Zimbabwe dollar (LONG may it stay that way!). Actually this is traditionally a quiet time for us so I am not that concerned – yet.

I know that in the developed world there are specialist greenhouse covering and maintenance companies but that is not how we do things in Zimbabwe. If there’s a problem on the farm you get on and fix it yourself. ART Farm where I live has a fully fledged workshop that does all the on farm repairs and maintenance and on occasion I do use their skills. The senior mechanic is a pleasant fellow and I have used his help on the Land Cruiser after-hours on a Saturday. Though I have to admit (with head briefly bowed) that I thought replacing the oil seals on the half shafts would best be done professionally in town this week. Then I got the bill and thought that for $580 I should have had a go myself!

Building is not my forté but what the hell I gave it a go this week. OK, I supervised the builder who did the building. It’s nothing much, just a pit toilet known as Blair toilets in this part of the world after the government laboratory that many years ago developed the standard. It’s simplicity itself; a sort of square spiral wall (work it out!) over a squat hole in a concrete slab with a roof and vent pipe. There’s even a plan in the CFU (Commercial Farmers’ Union) handbook. Pretty basic stuff but it still required me to supervise the builder for the best part of the day while he got the plans wrong. It has taken him the last 3 days to do something that a skilled builder would have done in a day. At one stage I began to think that I should have got in a skilled builder and just paid but actually his building is OK for a farm builder and the skilled builder is “not reachable” according to the cell phone service provider. Which is a pity as we have some tobacco ponds to construct and it really does need accurate building skills. A previous builder “had a go” at some ponds a few years back and when I queried about why the walls were not visually level (no spirit level required to see this) he told me that it was not the walls that weren’t level it was the water in the ponds that wasn’t level! Harsh words were exchanged and I refuse to employ him. Maybe I’ll have to give it a go myself. I know that Tony has a dumpy level and I watched the skilled builder doing it just in case I needed the knowledge.

Maybe I’ll just go and employ a builder off the wall I see being built around a property on Harare drive. It’s certainly straight and level enough. And big. It’s at least 3m high and 300m long on just the road side – they have yet to build the other 3 sides but the bricks are there. That’s certainly someone with plenty of money and no taste. It’s been painted a light pink with mauve on the top. Mind you, I saw another like it (though much shorter on the Rolf Valley road) that was painted lavender and had a mirror in the electric gate. The lavender did not last; something much less brash now though the mirror is still there.

I suppose I should also have a go at repairing the coffee plunger pot at my elbow. Stainless steel no less and not cheap the spout is in the process of coming off and there is coffee leaking onto my desk. I could be catty and say it was made in China (which it was) and what does one expect except I do still have the box and it goes on about what a quality coffee plunger thing it is but it does claim to be designed in the UK and the English is genuine. Or I could just get on and have a go at fixing it. I have no idea how to solder stainless steel but I suppose I can find someone who does though I suspect it would be cheaper to buy another coffee pot. Though I did see some “cold solder” in an auto supplies outlet yesterday…


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Negotiating the fine

22 05 2012

“You stopped but were over the line” the traffic policeman said having pulled me over.

“What line?”, I retorted knowing full well where the line was. “If there is a line it is very badly marked” which was also true.

“Get out of the car and we will walk back and I will show you” he answered.

“I don’t walk” I said, holding up my walking stick. “But if you get in we can drive back and have a look”.

He pondered this new approach for a moment and then saw the biltong on the seat of the Landcruiser. “Ah, I am going to enjoy some chimkuyu” he commented using the Shona word for the biltong. Biltong for those who don’t live in southern Africa is a spicy dried meat cut into sticks. Gary’s son Stuart had given me some that they’d cured from a wildebees that he’d shot the previous week in the Humani Ranch area of the Save Conservancy in the Save Valley of Zimbabwe. From the policeman’s comments I now knew that the whole “fine” was open to negotiation.

“Have you got change for my $50?” he asked holding up the note. Now I knew I could likely get away with the not stopping behind the white line at the stop street on The Chase and College Road. I scratched through my stash of small notes and found the requisite amount.

“You’d better count it” I said handing it over and taking the proffered $50 note. He counted it slowly and getting to the end said “How much do you want to pay for the fine?”.

“Nothing” I replied. “Your line is very badly marked”. The line marking probably wouldn’t have stood up in court but we both knew that neither of us wanted to take it that far.

“How about some chimkuyu?” he hinted.

I reached over to the bag and extracted the smallest stick I could find.

“But there are three of us” he said, trying another angle.

“Well, cut it up then” I said as he surreptitiously pocketed it. Then he waved me on.


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A darker side of HIFA

7 05 2012

On Saturday night I left the recital hall at about 19h30 having watched The Armed Man and taken photos. Driving past the main gate to HIFA was chaos; people parked all over the place and a seething crowd. I made an easy decision to just keep going. Turning left onto 2nd Street it was a lot quieter and I stopped at the traffic lights on Herbert Chitepo. There was a small car parked to the left of me. Then there was a load pop and a hissing noise and someone walked fast between us and away to the opposite corner of the intersection. I thought, “You bastard, you’ve slashed my tyre” as the lights changed and I moved off.

The rear back tyre went flat in a matter of metres but I saw a minibus parked at a pickup point some 50m up the street with a number of people milling round and it was quite brightly lit so I pulled in there. I was immediately surrounded by people all telling me I had a puncture! I got out warily after checking that my camera bag was out of sight and expecting the worst but they were being genuinely helpful and some 20 minutes later the spare was on and I gave them $20 (Shelton, my French teacher said a dollar would have done) which was received with much delight and I was out of there.

I found out on Sunday that another of the HIFA photographers was accosted in the same manner except his tyre went down gradually and when he stopped to change the wheel on Josiah Tongagara Ave an unmarked (no licence plate) car pulled up and two men accosted him. He and his wife fought them off with a wheel spanner and fire extinguisher and luckily nothing was lost.

Was this a coincidence? I don’t think so. There are all sorts of people around at HIFA and a fair proportion of those employed to assist with parking are street kids/adults who very likely have unsavoury contacts. It would not take a lot of surveillance to see who was arriving every day with cameras and keep tabs on them. I drive a very distinctive white and maroon Landcruiser at night (it has attitude to keep ‘Benzs from cutting me up) and I have a distinct limping gait too. I have no idea if I was followed from the recital room. I was just lucky that the person who slashed the tyre misjudged the cut and it went down fast. Yesterday I used a different vehicle which is very nondescript.


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I AM the police!

28 04 2012

“Do you know someone with a forklift for hire?” I asked Herbert over the phone.

“Yes”, said Herbert, “I’ll get back to you with prices”.

He duly did and they weren’t cheap but the container of coir from India had come through from the port in Beira a lot quicker than I’d expected so I had no chance to shop around. I agreed and waited for the container to arrive which it did around 9 a.m. on Friday. By 10 a.m. there was still no sign of the forklift so I got back to Herbert who was as puzzled as I was. A bit of phoning around and we managed to contact the forklift driver but then lost the signal. I started to wonder if they were lost, it doesn’t take THAT long to get out from the industrial sites. By 11 I was distinctly annoyed and wondering if there was an alternative way to offload the container. I got another phone number off Herbert and managed to contact the driver’s assistant. They were some 2km down the road so would be here shortly. It was a noisy phone call with what sounded like a very noisy gearbox in the background. It really didn’t sound good. 10 minutes later they were still not in sight. I wondered about the gearbox sound and then the penny dropped; they were driving the forklift on the road – I’ve heard them and they make that sort of sound. I couldn’t believe it but shortly a small blue forklift appeared on the road to the nursery. They really had driven across town in a forklift!

The offloading process soon started and it became clear they were ill-equipped to get 1 tonne pallets of coir out of the back of a container on a big truck. I was asked if I could find a trolley jack that could fit under a pallet. An hour later I had to give up – they were all too big. I decided to let my blood pressure drop and went off to have lunch. I got back and they’d refined the system a little and were making better progress so were finished by 3 p.m. I paid the assistant and turned to the driver.

“You are going to be back in town in peak traffic on a Friday afternoon”.

“It’s not a problem” he replied, unfazed.

“But what about the police roadblocks?” I asked.

“I AM the police” he said, getting onto the driver’s seat, “so they just let me through”.


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Snippets

26 04 2012

The Zimbawe Air Force has one fast jet still operational. I know that because I saw it flying when I was at the Zimbabwe Orchid Society show a couple of weekends back. It is apparently an F7 of Chinese origin. I now have it on good authority from a pilot customer that the last remaining pilot capable of flying it has resigned. The Hawker Hawk jets are grounded due to a lack of spares because those horrible Brits won’t sell us the spares – it’s those pesky sanctions again. I do see the occasional Bell “Huey” helicopter around but it’s been a long time since I saw an Alouette in the sky (I should hope so, they are ancient!) and I never saw one of the Russian Hind-D helicopter gunships that were used in the DRC (which was Zaire). Do we even have ANY operational aircraft? Just as well no-one is interested in attacking us!

Keeping up with the competition can be exhausting in any economic climate. Zimbabwe of course has its own rules. My nearest competition is an Israeli-owned nursery down on Harare drive. How did they get to own property in Zimbabwe – they are hardly indigenous? Word had it (it was a while ago) that they sourced the fancy riot control vehicles with water cannons for the Zim police and were allowed to own property in return. Come to think of it I haven’t seen them around recently either. I’m sure it’s nothing to do with spares – business is business as far as the Israelis are concerned. It must be our non-existent credit rating. I digress. The nursery was set up originally for supplying rose cuttings to the region and very state-of-the-art it was too. Special plastic and automation to boot. That market collapsed with the world economic crisis so they diversified into seedlings, fertilizer and various implements – all rather pricey (their seedlings are nearly twice the price I charge). In the early days of the US dollar I used them quite a lot because they had what I wanted even though it was not that cheap. Now there are much cheaper fertilizers and plastic around and the other suppliers spell Zinc correctly on the bag; not Zunc! That always makes me suspicious. If they cannot spell correctly or at least get someone else to check the spelling what else have they got wrong? I found out from my new greenhouse sheeting supplier this week that they’d also given some of their rather nice erect-and-go greenhouses to a number of the “fat cats around town” in return for good publicity. That type of business ethics I do find bit dodgy. I do however still support the pita bread bakery on the premises – hey, it IS good pita bread!

Traffic in Harare has increased tremendously over the past 2 years. Driving skills have diminished proportionately. On Tuesday I was very nearly eradicated by a driver in the industrial sites. I was approaching Rotten Row on Coventry Road and fortunately slowing down for the T junction. A car came out of the Colcom complex on my right, drove straight across the front of my pickup and exited onto Rotten Row 4 lanes later! Luckily I saw him coming out of the corner of my eye and braked hard. I guess he missed me by about 50cm. Not a week seemingly goes by without news of yet another bus disaster and in 36 years of driving I have had my vehicle checked for roadworthiness only ONCE about 3 weeks ago on the road to the airport, near Mukuvisi Woodlands.

“Please put on your hand brake sir” said the policewoman. She then leaned rather pathetically on the door frame to check the hand brake, checked the lights and I was free to go. Admittedly most of the accidents seem to occur when minibus drivers deem themselves invincible (which is most of the time) and overtake into oncoming traffic. When are the police going to get serious about bad driving and unworthy vehicles? I guess it is not a lucrative as harassing drivers for going through amber lights and not stopping at stop streets.


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