The status quo

11 01 2010

Hi Bridget,

Yes, there is no denying that Zim is a lot better off than a year ago. Everything is available albeit at a high price (especially electonics!). The basic food stuffs are reasonably priced and some things like beer (essentials!) are the same price as in SA. I would say that some 90% or more of what I see on supermarket shelves is imported. I even saw imported tomatoes the other day which in my opinion is scandalous! If you stuck to the touristy things you would not know that there was much wrong because they are not dependent on local inputs, just you the tourist bringing money in. As farming inputs go I can get whatever I need and prices have come down with competition though a lot of our chemicals seem to come out of China along with a few worries about what is actually in them. I was out at the TRB (Tobacco Research Board) the other day and they did mention that they’d had a lot of reports of phytotoxicity on seed beds this season though that might also have been due to imcompetence.

We are still as a nation not producing much though with the gold price being what it is that aspect does seem to be coming along. The flower exporters (who hadn’t been kicked off) took a massive knock whith the world-wide economic crisis of course. This year is also a full blown el Niño so rains have been very patchy and some areas are getting hammered. My senior foreman came back from leave in Manicaland last week and said that if they did not get good rain by this week their crops would be a write-off. I have heard from a friend whose son farms in the Chimoio area that they are equally bad. So no doubt the begging bowl will come out again!

Farmers getting kicked off the land is no longer the front page news that it was though I have heard via the grape vine that it is still happening. Maybe it’s because there are so few left that the rate has slacked off a bit! I do hear of people wanting to come back and I believe there is a drift in this direction. I’m not sure what they think they will actually do. I don’t see a lot happening until there is some sort of rule-of-law and of course that is definitely not going to happen as long as the incumbent is still there and he shows no sign of leaving. Loans are very hard to come by and conditions for collateral are ridiculous. I survive because I am a cash farmer but things are very tight right now – I have only 3 large commercial scale farmers left on my books.

The health services have improved a lot but are expensive relative to SA and if you don’t have medical aid you WILL have a problem at some stage! I suppose I should say that the private health services have improved massively but I was impressed with the Pari (large government run hospital in Harare) when I went there for some tests a while ago (that means it was functioning and clean and not the train smash that it was last year!)

Education is fine if you can afford the private schools – Peterhouse girls all in is now $3000 per term. A friend says that is more expensive than Rhodes University! Government schools are functioning which is certainly and improvement but as to the standards I cannot comment.

So yes we are in for another tough year.

Ciao,
Andy.


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Graceless

6 01 2010

There is an L shaped piece of land between me and my next door neighbours. It is about 40ha and is good ground. Last year Grace Mugabe farmed it with soy beans (well she got somebody else to do it but I did see her “inspecting” on occasion). They were late getting the crop sown and it was riddled with weeds so I guess the yield was not great. The year before that some white commercial farmers managed to lease it and did a good job with their soy crop. It was spotless and they did well out of it – I asked one of them, facetiously, if they’d used Roundup Ready soy seed. He took me seriously and said no, but they were looking into using it. Roundup Ready soy beans are genetically modified to take a spray of Roundup (glyphosate) which is a herbicide that normally will kill everything. GM crops are banned in Zimbabwe for no good reason that I can think of but then logic IS in short supply around here.

This year Grace’s lot are again back and again they are late. For some time a very large, new, tractor was parked behind my work with an equally large cultivator behind it. It did eventually do some cultivating and then stood again before being removed, probably because the land was too wet. Last week I saw herbicide being sprayed on the cultivated land then a rather old tracked tractor appeared with a much smaller cultivator. It has been parked in the same spot for the last 3 days and now the rain has arrived so it cannot do any cultivating. Not a great start but it’s probably not her money anyway.

After the first crop of soy beans were harvested the locals moved in en masse to pick up the beans that had been dropped. They were there for most of the year – times must have been tough (it was the time of the Zimbabwe dollar fiasco). This year I noticed that at least a quarter of the field already had a substantial crop of self sown plants and I don’t recall anyone picking up the fallen beans. I guess times must have improved!


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Not fussy

21 12 2009

Dirty money - mostly

Small denomination US dollar notes are quite hard to come by in Zimbabwe. I am quite lucky in that my business takes quite a lot of small currency so each month I start hording it so that I don’t have an issue when it comes to wages which this month I’ll pay on Wednesday. The bank I deal with has in the past been very helpful but I don’t take chances. Amazingly just about the only criterion on defacement is that the notes must not be torn. All the notes in the picture are quite acceptable! I think I am correct in saying that we are using US currency without the USA’s permission so they refuse to change any old notes for new. It’s a bit like the pass the parcel game but in this one you don’t want to be left with the torn notes.


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The culture of appearance

10 12 2009

In Zimbabwe as in the rest of sub-Saharan Africa appearance is paramount. It doesn’t matter how successful you actually are so long as you look like you are.

I was reflecting on this on the way out to the Tobacco Research Board this morning to try and nail down a particulary persistent disease problem in our lettuce seedlings. There is a four lane highway (dual carriageway in local parlayance) being built from the airport to the city centre. It is not proceeding very quickly and there were a number of idle construction vehicles on the new road site (I know that the consultant engineers have not been paid for some time). We don’t need a dual carriage way from the airport into town – at least not from the traffic density point of view. That would require more aircraft using the airport than it could handle. So it has to be for appearances. I am told that most of the other southern African nations have a dual carriageway to their airports so I guess we are trying to keep up with the “Joneses”. I cannot believe that it will actually impress the people who count most i.e. the holders of purse strings who know as well as I do that the money would be far better spent on other projects. Traffic lights for one. Health and education for another.

Earlier this week I went past a minor accident on the intersection of Harare Drive and Kew Road. A minibus and a security reaction van had collided and there were injured lying by both vehicles. The only people assisting were two white women (one at each vehicle) – the usual crowd of gawkers gawked. On the way back there were more gawkers and the white ladies were packing up and the police had a arrived. I didn’t see any blacks helping out. I think I am reasonably correct in saying this lack of wanting to help their fellow beings is also represented in the charities in Zimbabwe. I only know of one that was started and run by a black person, the Jairos Jiri Organization though I am not sure that it is still functional. All the others that I know of were started or the idea imported by whites though they obviously have a contingent of black staff. I asked my friend Gary who works with the black community in Gorongoza in Mozambique why he thought this was. He didn’t really know but he told me of a very old black couple who could just about collect water and get to the toilet and back. He asked the locals why they did not help out. It seemed they were concerned that if they did the old folks relatives might accuse them of having designs on the old people’s property.

In the current environment of political correctness it is the done thing to respect another people’s culture. I am using culture in the all encompassing definition; “The set of shared attitudes, values, goals, and practices that characterizes an institution, organization or group” as defined in the wikipedia article (see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Culture). To an extent I agree. When I travelled in South East Asia I was careful not to offend the culture of the people I was visiting – anyway, if people appreciate your attitude you are likely to see a lot more. It really irked me to see European girls swimming topless on Thai beaches where there were signs clearly asking them not too. That is insensitive and stupid. I do think the British have got silly about it all in the way that they fall over themselves to be “mulitcultural” and make sure no-one is offended to the extent that they are losing their own culture (they would not dream of walking around Pakistan in miniskirts but seem to think that wearing burkahs etc. in the UK is a good thing). I digress. Some aspects of a group’s culture can be odious by any standards – it was fashionable to burn suspected witches and heretics at the stake in Europe. Fortunately that has changed. I don’t see why the culture of selfishness and appearing to be what you are not cannot be changed here. And there are plenty more attitudes and practices I can think of to add to the list.


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Zimbabwean resourcefulness

9 12 2009

Hope is eternal!

I spotted this dog nursing the kittens yesterday whilst picking up the artwork for the company calendar. I don’t carry my rather expensive camera around with me so went back today; I had a doctor’s appointment nearby. She is too young to nurse the kittens but they weren’t going to let that stop them trying! Their mother had been killed on the road and one of the staff was having a go at raising them. They looked rather malnourished to me and I told him that cats are obligate carnivores so have to have meat (or at least milk at this age). They were not playing like kittens should so I don’t hold a lot of hope for their survival. The dog’s mothering instincts were already well developed; not only was she allowing them to suckle but she was defleeing them too!


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Change

5 12 2009

“No I don’t want a credit note”, I said. “Maybe I don’t want to come back here”.
“Well, can I get you something?” the till operator asked.
“Yes, you can get me my change” I replied.
“But we don’t have any” came the reply.
“Well, 48c on 186 dollars is not a lot, why don’t you just take it down to 186 dollars then?”.
“We are not allowed to round it off” was the less than helpful reply.

Change in the form of coins is hard to come by in Zimbabwe (though sometimes South African rands are used as they are smaller than US dollars) so supermarkets keep boxes of small items at the checkout tills to make up the value to a round number but I was really tired of being offered ball point pens, sweets or chewing gum and the alternative was a credit note that I would almost certainly lose before I came back for another purchase.I’d also been driving around the industrial sites of Harare all day and about 10% of the traffic lights I’d been through had been working so the rest required nerve and good luck and along with the pothole doging I found it all very tiring. On top of it all my knee was giving me hell and that always makes me tetchy. They’d got me on a bad day. Tough. I was not giving in and was quite prepared to leave the vacuum cleaner at the till and walk out.

“Well then, tell the people who programme your computers to make sure everything is valued to the nearest dollar – you can do ANYTHING with computers. I know, I programme my work computer!”.
“What are we going to do then?” the till operator said avoiding a reply.
“WE are not going to do anything. Do YOU want this sale?”.
“Yes”.
“Then call the manager” I replied moving away from the till as though I was about to abandon the trolley with the box in it. I was fed up and on the verge of walking out.

The manager made an appearance, tapped at the keyboard and I was given the vacuum cleaner for $186.


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Muddy paws

15 11 2009

It’s the season of muddy paw prints in the kitchen. No matter how much I nag her Jenni just will not wipe her paws before she comes in!

The first storm has arrived – smack on time and it didn’t even trash the UHF aerial next door. I’d left it too late to go and unplug the aerial so just sat on tenterhooks until it had passed. Just as I unlocked the door the power came back on and the screen on the proxy server turned on – weird, for a moment I thought there was a ghost in the machine!

 

Acacia karroo

This acacia karroo has been flowering in my garden for the past 3 days

 

 


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Fault lines

3 11 2009

I was paying Tony the rent that I owed him yesterday. He asked me if I’d heard of the rumour that the Zimbabwe dollar was going to be re-introduced. I hadn’t but he’d apparently heard that there had been a run on one of the branches of CABS and they’d run out of cash. I’d drawn $1000 out of my corporate account that morning and there were certainly no queues at my bank so it was probably all fiction; albeit very dangerous fiction. We are certainly in no position to start playing those sorts of silly games – the financial system collapse would be near instantaneous and probably irreversible. On the other hand it might be euthanasia for the increasingly ill GNU (Government of National Unity).

Jonathan Moyo, the arch villain, turncoat and sleaze ball of Zimbabwe politics apparently said last week that “…we don’t need the MDC in the GNU. Now that we have dollarized investment will come pouring in”. Right. I still think I’ll draw down the company bank balance a bit.


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Nyanga Odyssey

26 10 2009

I am sitting typing this at 2200m in what is possibly the highest holiday cottage in Zimbabwe. It belongs to a mate who is only too happy to get people to use it. I am in the guest “house” which sits on a very steep edge of the World’s View escarpment and when the air is clear it is possible to see 100km quite easily. It was clear this morning but now it is very hazy again.

It is always cool up here, sometimes very cold, but that’s in winter. Now it’s the end of October, sometimes called the “suicide month” because of the oppressive heat at lower altitudes so it’s a relief to get up here. I left Harare and took a leisurely drive up, stopping to photograph some wild flowers by Headlands. It was an easy trip, the Landcruiser performed flawlessly with its “new” turbo charged engine – this was after all an excuse to test it within the warranty period. In Rusape I was stopped at a police roadblock and after the usual greetings the older policeman said “Have you just come from Salisbury?” grinning hugely (there was a momentary pause before “Salisbury” as he sought the long disused name). “No” I said, “I have come from Harare, it has not been Salisbury for some 30 years!”. For some reason this was a huge joke and I was bid safe travels.

Jenni on the World's View escarpment

Jenni on the World's View escarpment

Taking Jenni for a run yesterday evening she revelled in the cool air and spent a fair bit of time looking over her shoulder wondering why I was being so slow (a very bad road). The wind picked up and soon it was rather cold and last night was spent listening to the wind moan about the roof.

Behind the house to the south is a massive granite rock slope that drops off to the Nyanga village some 700m lower. It’s just begging for photos with boulders, lichen, aloes and at other times of year, flowers. I spent a happy hour or more this morning while the sun was still low, taking photos and daydreaming. Some company would have been nice (Jenni is an uncooperative model and let’s face it; a doggy expression is a doggy expression!).

Looking south towards Nyanga village

Looking south towards Nyanga village

The only property I own is a half share in a 10ha plot on the northern flank of Mt Nyangani, Zimbabwe’s highest mountain. My mother bought is for some 600 pounds in 1960 (way over priced) with the intention of using it as a retirement property (she apparently had more money than my father!). It became obvious that it was just too far out of the way to be practical and what with the deteriorating security situation the only investment they made was to plant a few thousand eucalypt trees of varying species.  I had not been there for several years so this morning I set off. It took and hour of appalling roads that have had no pretence of maintenance for the time I have been away. I was surprised to find the km long track down to the property quite passable for a high clearance vehicle. On the way I stopped to chat to a personable black man who has set himself up on the southern boundary. Cephas claims to have known my father and also remembered my mother visiting in her small white sedan. Thinking it good sense to have a good neighbour I bought 2 litres of honey off him – it smelt really good but I think I’ll resieve it when I get home to get the bee parts out!

The plot is now almost entirely covered by trees. Most are still the original and are now giants of some 50m or more. They are too big to harvest safely and even then the transport costs will eat up any profit margin for the timber. We scattered some of my parents ashes at the place where we used to picnic as a family so I was a bit emotional as I reflected on two lives that ended way too prematurely; my father murdered in 1978 and my mother from misdiagnosed melanoma in 1992. I have no idea what I will do with the property. The other partner lives in Europe, I have no progeny and I don’t see any chance of developing it any time soon; it will still be out on a limb no matter what the political situation of Zimbabwe.

Butterfly on Helichrysum ("Everlasting")

Butterfly on Helichrysum ("Everlasting")

Part of the property where I am staying burned down last year. Derelict buildings are just loaded with photo opportunities and I have been watching the sun move down a rather photogenic wall while I type this. I must go and check it out.


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Betrayal of trust

14 10 2009

Her coat is matted and dirty; sort of Labradorish. She is young but middle aged on the street and surprisingly not too thin, yet. Her tail is only half as long as it once was but she cannot remember what happened. All that matters now is that she must eat to feed her family – an instinct so deep she does not even think about it. She has vague memories of laughter and games a ball to chase and young friends to play with and security and friendly voices to … wait! What was that? Her nose, supreme sensory organ that it is tells her there’s food around. Where? Look, down there! She jumps easily down into the ditch, and yes, it can be eaten. What is it? No matter, food in a bowl was long ago – she has no choice. She picks it up, jumps back up on the bank and ducking under the railing away from the traffic makes off with her find. She must feed her family.


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