Zimbabwe Absurdity

My French teacher has a full-time job with Air Zimbabwe but that changed this week with the pilots’ strike. Like a lot of Air Zim staff the pilots are owed a lot of money (around US$6000 each according to mon professeur) and they eventually got fed up waiting.  The strange thing is that one Air Zim executive was quoted as saying that the strike was costing around $500,000 a week in lost earnings (some simple maths bears this out) – so they should be able to pay the staff if that sort of money is coming in. The senior management are not on strike of course. The chief executive gets a late model Benz SUV and like a lot of the other senior staff there are children’s education benefits, fuel allowances, cheap flights etc. This whole sorry mess started around a year ago and shows no sign of being resolved. After all, are the senior staff going to give up a few benefits in order to help the national carrier’s financial woes? Not likely!

“Due to circumstances beyond our control, the Freshlyground concert will no longer be taking place in Harare on the 3rd of October. We sincerely regret any inconvenience caused but hope for your continued support in our future events.”

So goes the comment on my Facebook page announcing the cancellation of the South African pop group’s local gig. I do wonder if it has anything to do with a video they produced recently for a song entitled “Chicken for Change” on a South African “Spitting Image” type satire show that featured the “impending departure” of Comrade Robert.

Yesterday at the airport we encountered another type of Zimbabwe absurdity that had Lucy spitting mad.  We’d just dropped her boyfriend off on a flight back to the UK and arrived back at the Land Cruiser to find that it had been wheel clamped for incorrect parking. There was a grubby piece of paper of a badly photocopied notice explaining that for $20 we could get it unlocked but if we removed the clamp it would get us a $100 fine. A parking attendant was found (not in any sort of uniform) and Lucy asked to see his identification which he produced. When she attempted to get the phone number off the back he got distinctly unco-operative and asked if we wanted to report a complaint. No, we replied, we just want to verify who you are.  He snatched the card away before she could copy the number and called some passing police. They were uninterested. Lucy duly went off to see about paying the fine and after a long sob story and bonding with the person manning the exit gate we were let off. The parking attendant came back all smiles and removed the clamp, which wasn’t even locked onto the wheel.

Two evening previously I’d picked up Lucy and Will, her boyfriend, from a local hotel where they’d been dropped off by the bus from Bulawayo. They were a good 2 hours late. It transpired that the bus company had refused to give a certain senior policeman a free ticket to Victoria Falls so he’d taken umbrage and set up roadblocks around Bulawayo. The bus company had hired some smaller mini-buses instead of using their large and very ostentatious coach but still they were stopped. The senior policeman picked on one of the bus company staff and had her arrested on a spurious charge and did likewise for a professional hunter who was moving back to Harare with his weapons. Perhaps not so much absurd as churlish.

Maybe I’m just a slow learner or maybe I just like sharing information (basically just showing off). I do know that after nearly 11 years in the business of growing seedlings I do know a lot about it.

The tobacco companies are going “green” which is a bit ironic considering that people die from smoking cigarettes. It seems that they are trying to force contracted growers to grow their own fuel (gum trees) for curing the tobacco. In theory that should be good for my business as we are good at growing the Eucalyptus seedlings that they require.

First was Matthew who has been contracted to grow gum seedlings for Tobacco Company A: “We are not in competition with you – we are only growing trees for our contract farmers so I was wondering if you could help me with some information”.  So I helped him out but intentionally forgot some vital information. He made no mention of paying me.

Second was Colin who works for Tobacco Company B: He was much smarter and dangled a juicy carrot of an inferred large order of gum tree seedlings (“It makes much more sense if you do them, at least for this year”). I was bled of information on several occasions and the order has not materialised – maybe he had no intention of getting me an order. Sucker me.

Third was Claire who has her own nursery business  not related to tobacco: Bless her, she offered to pay straight away and I will go around to her setup next week to see if I can help but I think it is really just a management issue.

Now it’s hot as only English summers can be. It’s been a great holiday; old acquaintances renewed into friendships, lots of new places seen, experienced and enjoyed. Now it’s back to the grind – the power cuts, the water shortages, the difficult working conditions and the inevitable loneliness after the constant companionship of a special friend. Yes, in a way I will be glad to be home amongst the familiar surroundings and the ever faithful support of Jenni but… Yes, it’s been a great break. Hopefully the plane will leave on time tonight!

After the second announcement that there was a technical problem they finally gave up and admitted that we’d have to use the aircraft that had recently landed from Beijing. We eventually took off from Harare 4 hours late. The flight was uneventful and I had ensured a window seat to be able to watch the scenery of the Congo and Sahara but storms over the DRC had the last word and I did get a good view of the Congo River but then visibility became poor.

Gatwick airport late at night is not a place to find sensible answers so it took me a while to locate the sim card machine and then to find out that no, I did not get any free time! I eventually got a sms off to Mike and his wife Natalie came and picked me up at a very unsociable hour.

Monday was a holiday and less than perfect weather so we sat around and swapped news and then they drove me up to London in the evening to Charleen whom I’d last met 20 years ago. We’d connected on Facebook a while ago but it took me a while to realize who it was at the door. We’d been at university together many years ago and part of the same group though she did law and I did agriculture. Her husband Richard has a small trading company and is also an ex-Zimbabwean so we sat and swapped stories for a good part of the evening.

I have been to London before and even worked here for all of 2 days in 1987. It has changed a lot since then and of course is completely different to Harare. I was struck by the huge variety of languages; tourists abound of course (they are rare in Zim) but even on the buses I was struck by the variety (lots of Russian). The place is clean and everything works – hey there’s an economy here!

Yesterday was damp and cold in central London – not what I thought summer should be like. Today is cool and clear in what is hopefully the start of a clear spell. I am meeting Sybille at St Pancras in 2 hours – we haven’t seen each other since the end of March so I must admit to being a bit nervous!