Global Warming

6 11 2010

Early season storms in Zimbabwe can be ferocious; lots of lightening, wind and often hail without a lot of rain. This season’s storms have been unusually savage. Last night I was sitting on the verandah and I could hear the gust front approaching. It was not long before the power went off, came back on and then went off until around midday today.

The various global warming models have predicted that weather will become more extreme. Whether the ferocity of the recently experienced storms is anything to do with this would be very difficult to say but I cannot help but think that the appalling bush fires of the dry season are not helping the situation. Burnt veld of course is darker than grassed veld and therefore heats up a lot more.

In Zimbabwe dollar days we actually paid a carbon tax based on the size of the car engine of the vehicle we used. It had nothing to do with CO2 emissions or any sort of remedial action on the pollution – it was just another tax. It may even still exist for foreigners bringing their cars into the country but we found that the disc that had to be displayed on the windscreen as proof of payment was easily forged with a scanner and a bit of image processing so it did not last long. Maybe the Greeks could learn a thing or two about tax evasion from us!

Last weekend I took the Landcruiser up to Nyanga to get away from the heat and work. I did not give a lot of thought to the CO2 footprint I was generating. Paragliding was off the cards due to the storms around but I still managed to get a few good photos of flowers, this being the flower season. On the way back I went through the tail end of a storm near Juliasdale that had dumped a sizeable amount of hail on shade cloth covering a Hypericum crop and another near Ruwa that slowed traffic considerably.


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Tobacco seedlings

16 10 2010

I have grown some tobacco seedlings on spec this year – hoping that we can sell them without and order. In days gone by we used to do quite a lot of seedlings this way but now it’s a bit chancy and we prefer to only grow to order.

It is also an opportunity to experiment with a different method of growing seedlings – we float the polystyrene trays on shallow ponds of nutrients instead of watering them from above on wire racks. The pond method is well suited to tobacco and some years ago I did work with UNDP in Malawi converting farmers to this technique so I had a good idea how it worked. It is getting much more attention in Zimbabwe now that methyl bromide used to sterilize the seed beds is on it’s way out of use. It is damaging to the ozone layer so now with the Montreal Protocol it is being phased out. Methyl bromide is an extraordinary effective fumigant and though there are others available they just don’t do the job that well and the Zimbabwe tobacco industry has become commited to the “floating tray” technique as it’s known. That should be good news for my company – or so I thought. Having sounded out a couple of tobacco company agronomists I decided to take a chance and put in 30ha worth of seedlings of two cultivars that were deemed to be popular. I am very pleased with how well the seedlings have grown and even my landlord Tony, an ex-tobacco farmer of many years was impressed with the seedling quality. Selling them has been a bit more difficult.

So when I saw a customer looking interested in the ponds this morning I moved in for the hard sell and told him he was looking at the best tobacco seedlings in the country (with a big smile to make it more humourous). We soon got chatting and it emerged that he had been let down by the Tobacco Research Board’s commercial operation so he was indeed interested. It was also obvious that he was a “new farmer” i.e. had acquired his farm without paying for it. I am uncomfortable with this sort of setup but I have to be pragmatic – I need the money. Then Mr N arrived. He is a big bear of a man and unusally for a black in this part of the world he grows a beard. He is VERY outspoken and soon assessed the situation. He introduced himself to all around and then proceeded to make a very loud comment about “those of us who don’t have political connections” while grinning at me to emphasize the point. I did an inward wince but I am used to Mr N’s comments – he said to me once; “I am 74, what are they going to do to me?”. The tobacco customer has indicated that he will be back for more seedlings next week – so just maybe we are at the start of a new successful project.

T64 tobacco seedlings grown with "float tray" method. Seedlings shown are immature.


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le Malaise de Zimbabwe

16 09 2010

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!


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Zimbabwe Absurdity

12 09 2010

“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.


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The statuesque soap opera

31 08 2010

A soap opera is unfolding outside the Karigamombe Centre in central Harare. It seems the Ministry of Home Affairs has found it a suitable place to honour the late Joshua Nkomo who is sometimes known as the “Father of Zimbabwe” a title Bob would prefer for himself.

The grand irony, or insult, here is that “Karigamombe” means “The one who fells bulls” in shona (though “mombe” does not specify what type of bovine it is) and “Nkomo” in siNdebele (Nkomo’s home language) means “bull”. It was presumed the name of the building was to honour the defeat of Nkomo’s PF ZAPU party by ZANU-PF, the ruling party run by Robert Mugabe. Nkomo’s family has taken umbrage at this and the erection of the statue has stalled although the plinth is already there.

Did the aforesaid Ministry really miss the significance of all this? Will the Ministry of Home Affairs back down and what statue will be erected here instead? Wait for the next episode!


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The state of the park

27 08 2010

We did not get off to a good start. I had instructed Lucy and Will to stay in the vehicle and not say anything otherwise we would have to pay extra entrance fees for foreigners and I was damned if I was going to do that. I walked to the gate “house” to make the entry payment. Of course the woman attending the gate did not have change and had no suggestions as to how we were going to overcome the issue. It was all of 11 dollars and 10 just would not do – the good old Zimbabwean attitude that it is best to have nothing and be inflexible than get something. I boiled, muttered and eventually scratched around to find the exact amount.

I reflected as we drove into Nyanga National Park that the state of a nation is reflected in its national parks. The roads were not good and a low clearance vehicle would have had serious problems with it. The once neat Nyanga Research Station was decrepit and abandoned, windows broken and doors ajar though curiously the adjacent orchard was still neat. I remember the Research Station as a child and was fascinated by the director, one Bud Payne who had the longest beard I’d ever seen. A bit further up the road we drove through the remains of a stand of exotic conifers. Once majestic only a few trees are alive now – the rest are dead, victims of poor fire management. Instead of being felled and sawn for some desperately needed revenue they have been left as a monument to incompetence and neglect. One had actually fallen across the road and was supported by another tree on the other side of the road. It didn’t seem likely to fall so we continued up towards the Mare Dam.

Wattle trees require fire to germinate so have invaded large areas of the park and little has been done to remove them – at best a mammoth task – but almost impossible with the negligable resources available to the Park. I did see evidence of controlled burning on the grassveld towards the north so maybe they are concentrating on what they know they can do. The 16th century ruins of a fort we visited were still in good condition (invasive species kept out) and I dawdled looking for flowers to photograph while Will and Lucy explored. On the way back down the hill we came across two waterbuck incongrously standing in the road like shaggy overgrown goats. They moved off unconcerned – at least the poaching seemed under control!

I noticed on the way into town this morning that the traffic lights on Harare Drive where I cross it had been repaired and were working! I suppose that is progress of a sort. But precious few lights were working on the way to the Tobacco Research Board. The electricity situation is definitely NOT improving.

Lucy, Will and myself on Worlds View


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Sucker

21 08 2010

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.


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Hiatus

20 08 2010

I have been uninspired since Jenni’s death. It’s not that I haven’t been writing, on the contrary, I filled 21 pages of my diary with my memories of her, but it’s private stuff that I won’t be posting here. I just can’t seem to find much to write about.

We actually managed to get a group of pilots together for the long weekend this month and head up to Nyanga. It was to be my first flying since the neck op in March and I was not at all sure that my right arm would cope as it is so much weaker than before. The Sunday we all went off to the Honde site (east facing) which is spectacular enough, overlooking the Honde Valley into Mozambique. I was too nervous to fly at midday but by the afternoon when I’d plucked up courage the wind had dropped to nearly nothing and it wasn’t worth the effort. Still, it was nice to chill with flying buddies in the evening and drink a beer and talk the usual pilot talk.

It was westerly on Monday and we waited around at World’s View. Pete and Manu offered to get me off the hill and after more than a bit of dithering on my part I got a clean, easy launch and headed out to find a thermal. The previous inexperienced pilot had missed all available thermals and sunk out to the “turkey patch” without ever getting above take off. I headed away from the takeoff and soon picked up a nice thermal that took me nearly 1000m above take off and the flight was on. It was quite emotional for me; Jenni should have been with me and a good friend, Trevor Ambrose had died suddenly early on Sunday morning in Harare. But I settled into the flight and enjoyed the smooth relatively strong climbs and landed 1.5hrs later at the National Parks grid into the park. A very slow flight but enjoyable..

Last week I had to go to Jo’burg for a follow up consultation with the surgeon who did my neck op. Setting the alarm at 04h15 I got to the airport by 05h30 only to find I was the first in the queue. I still managed to be last onto the plane which was fully booked.

I’d plenty of time to do my own thing so after sorting out a bit of business I looked up Cheryl whom I’d contacted about getting another Rhodesian Ridgeback dog. She’s a breeder in Edenvale and invited me around the next day to see a bitch she was thinking of rehoming due to some breeding difficulties with her – she was also being bullied by the other dogs. I knew I was being assessed but had taken the precaution of directing her to Jenni’s album on my Facebook page. We got on well and she introduced me to Kharma, a young, very gentle bitch who is a quite different build from Jenni but a similar temperament. It took a while but Cheryl eventually agreed that I could have Kharma (I’d pay for her to fly up to Harare – a road trip would be too risky).

I saw the doctor that afternoon and he pronounced himself satisfied with the result. I didn’t point out that the right arm was still not up to the functionality it had before the op.

On Tuesday I went past the Department of Livestock and Veterinary Services to see if I could get an import licence for Kharma. I’d been alerted that there was a ban on all animal and animal products into Zimbabwe from South Africa but an internet search revealed it was all about protecting local industry rather than preventing Rift Valley Fever getting in. There was a poster up on the wall informing all that there was a total ban on the import of animals and animal products from South Africa. But I asked anyway. No, there was no ban, it had been lifted. Yes! I was too elated to bother pointing the poster out.

I should have picked the permit up today but did not go that way. So it will have to be Monday. There is no rush, Kharma only flies up in 2 weeks – I think Cheryl is getting a bit possessive! That’s a good sign.


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Too many ghosts

26 07 2010

As I write this Jenni is sleeping on the couch. She will get up just now, stretch and make her way past me to the bedroom where she will climb up on my bed and make herself comfortable on the pillows with a gentle sigh. On her way past she might give me a glance, just to check on me. Her tail will be high in that Ridgeback confident attitude. Or so I imagine.

Actually Jenni is sleeping outside my east-facing window, next to Tina under the “Angel Bells” rose that I planted over her grave. She was cold, poor girl, when we buried her this morning so I covered her with the fleece I’d been wearing. I left her head uncovered so that she could hear me in the bedroom more easily and I also put a biscuit in her bowl by her side – just for a snack before breakfast. Jenni was Tina’s sister by another litter so hopefully they are sharing happy experiences although they never knew each other.

Jenni came to me last night in distress, she shivered next to my chair so I stroked her and asked what was wrong. Thinking she needed to go outside as her belly was obviously distended I opened the back door and she rocketed out in a very uncharacteristic manner. I immediately called her to no avail. Now Jenni ALWAYS comes when called, not always immediately but sooner rather than later. Now I was worried. I got out a torch and went looking. Eventually I saw her eyes reflecting back from the bottom of the garden. I called her and she came to me then ran off along the verandah. I called her again and she lay next to me, her head in my lap as I stroked her. I had to get her into the Landcruiser but needed to get organized. I called her into the house and she ran in, again uncharacteristically fast. I expected to find her inside but after searching the house I realized she’d just run straight out the front door. Now I really was panicking. After about 15 minutes of calling and searching I phoned Trevor to come and help me then spotted her eyes by the side of the house. She was whimpering and groaning which I’d never heard her do. I finally managed to get her into the car and we set off to the 24hr veterinary surgery on 2nd Street.

There were no lights on in the surgery (power cut) which was not a good start. Not getting a response from the doorbell I phoned the number listed next to it and got a reply. A side door opened and several people came out to help. I explained the problem to the duty vet and he gave Jenni a cursory examination. I was worried that she’d maybe swallowed a sharp bone at the microlight club that afternoon and an X-ray would be in order. The vet explained that he thought that was unlikely and anyway, they were on inverter power and couldn’t do an X-ray but I should leave Jenni there over night and they would sedate her and see what developed. This sounded like a really bad idea to me. I knew that the Kamfinsa vet would be available after hours (which the 2nd Street lot did not know) so we got through to him and I took Jenni over.

It took the vet a while to arrive as he had to go and get an assistant for surgery but he took one look at Jenni’s distended stomach and her distress and pronounced that she had a twisted stomach and needed immediate surgery. I watched the surgery start from a distance but decided I’d better move off before I fell down. I scratched Jenni’s chin and went to the next room. After an hour it was all over and Jenni was moved to a recovery kennel. The vet was pleased with how it had gone and despite having to remove her spleen which was too badly damaged from lack of blood said that he’d be very disappointed if she did not recover. He did caution that an embolism was still a very real danger but he gave her a powerful painkiller to keep her quiet and promised to check up at around 2a.m.

On the way back across town I wondered if it would be OK to take Jenni up to Nyanga in 2 weekends time. We are going to go up for the long weekend for some much needed paragliding and it would be unthinkable not to take her  – she’s always liked going up there. I’d ask in the morning.

When I phoned at 8 this morning the vet was still doing the rounds so I was told to phone back in half an hour. At 08.24 I got a missed call from a number in the Kamfinsa area that I did not recognize. My heart sank. I called back but it was engaged. Then the call came through. “Hello, is that Andrew Roberts?”. “I’m afraid I have bad news about your dog.” Jenni had been up and wagging her tail when he checked at 02.15 but when the staff opened up at 8 she was found dead. It seemed likely that an embolism had indeed struck her down.

My Gentle Jen, Jenni Girl, Chienne Sauvage, Joli Jenni, Jensie or just plain Madam had left me. There is a rose on top of her grave too, a red floribunda one of unknown name. Jeanette laid some of the blooms that I’d cut off the bush next to it after it had been watered and settled in. I am tired now. Tired from a short night last night and the grief today. I must try and get some sleep tonight. Maybe in the moonlight I will see Jenni lying on her old sheepskin on the foot of my bed. She might even get up in the night, turn three times to make a better “nest” and lie down again. Then again it may just be a ghost.


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Gorongosa National Park

20 07 2010

Gorongosa National Park in central Mozambique was one of the first national parks I ever saw as a child. I am not sure if I remember much about it as a 6 year-old or I remember the photos. It was famous for its lions that used a derelict camp on the edge of a flood plain as a vantage point, climbing onto the flat roof for a better view (presumably). Most of the game was shot out during Mozambique’s protracted civil war and last time I visited the main camp the bullet holes were still clearly visible on the buildings. They are still there if you look around but this last weekend we were more interested in getting into the park and anyway, the main camp is a bright, clean shadow of its former self!

We were not disappointed. A lion too pigged-out on warthog to move lay less than 5m from the road and a gaggle of hissing, squabbling vultures devoured the remains of the warthog not 20m further along the track. Bushbuck and warthog were in abundance (a lack of predators perhaps?) and lots of waterbuck and impala dotted the floodplain near the famous “lion camp” though the roof of the latter was no longer accessible to anyone except perhaps equipped with a ladder. We spotted some truly massive crocs in the rivers and pelicans and crowned cranes waded in the water holes and flood plain. We also spotted a rare (for this park) Cape buffalo and some massive leguaans (water monitor lizards). The weather was ideal for the park which can be oppressive in summer and nights were cold and refreshing. A long drive for a weekend but well worthwhile!

Driving back to Harare yesterday afternoon I had plenty of time to ponder the differences between Mozambique and Zimbabwe. Mozambique is populated, heavily populated at least along the road. The Zimbabwe countryside is by contrast visibly empty, the result of more than a decade of willful destruction of the farming sector. Mozambique is grubby –  this impression is not helped by the Portuguese architecture which was predominantly a love affair with concrete. And there is rubbish everywhere. Mozambique almost certainly has a bigger economy than Zimbabwe but it seems poorer – the people one sees in Zimbabwean towns appear more wealthy and are better dressed (which is odd).


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