Social commentary | Zimbabwe Absurdity

The Zimbabwe Visa Business Programme

8 02 2016

On the road to cheaper climes

My German friends love southern Africa. They spend up to 9 months a year in the region traveling around in their large, well-equipped, overland vehicle. This time they only spent 2 weeks with me. Florian is a handy man and helped install the solar panels and power system while he was here.

Last Monday they borrowed a smaller vehicle from me and went into town to extend their tourist visa. They took the opportunity to inquire about visa costs and conditions.

A single entry visa is US$30 extendable for 6 months but only in 30 day periods. The first 2 periods of 30 days are covered by the initial fee thereafter it costs $20 per 30 days. Each renewal starts on the day it’s renewed i.e. one cannot renew in advance and it has to be done in person. After 6 months one has to spend at least 6 months outside the country. There are not, apparently, any concessions for pensioners.

For the road bound tourist there are more costs. A “carbon tax” and road fees are $30 for 2 months (depending on the size of the vehicle), all the usual insurance costs, a border-crossing fee of $10 and then a road tax of $10 per 100km.

Lots of countries have these sort of restrictions on tourist visas; apparently to discourage illegal employment. In Zimbabwe this ironic – we have 90% of the population lacking formal employment and a government that is broke by any definition and yet we are discouraging tourists from staying to spend their money!

Permanent residence costs a $100,000 investment and a local partner has to be involved. In the past the local partner had to hold at least 51% of the shares (seriously!) but this was not mentioned by the government official involved. Maybe she didn’t know if this was still the case (it seems to change on a monthly basis depending on which government official is being quoted) or maybe she was too embarrassed to say.

A pensioner visa exists for South Africa; $50 for 4 years! South Africa is also a lot cheaper in Zimbabwe at the moment. It’s not entirely due to their weak currency but also due to it being just, well, cheaper! So Ute and Florian and their little dog Tiga left this morning for an extended South African tour.

The local press is replete with reports of the drought and how local Zimbabweans are suffering. In masterstroke of irony, last week I received a request from the local branch of ZANU-PF (the ruling party) soliciting funds for Robert Mugabe’s birthday party later this month. That he should be having a massive birthday bash in the middle of a drought, that he has declared a national emergency, has not escaped the local press. Yes, suggestions have been made that the funds for the bash go to those who’d just like one square meal a day. Whether this comes to pass remains to be seen. It’s the first time I’ve had this request but in the past urban businesses have been squeezed – heavily.

Pencil – Digital

18 01 2016

Tools of yesteryear

Everything you see in this photo was bought in Zimbabwe in the past three months. They have changed little since I was a child, new at school, in 1966.

The eraser (rubber in this part of the world) is the one item that has changed a bit. The early ones that I remember were made of a softish rubber that was adept at smudging the pencil marks and destroying the paper. Some were truly appalling and broke and crumbled very easily. They made effective missiles when the teacher was out and more than a few got bitten in half just to see the teeth marks. This one is made of a soft plastic and is very effective. I cannot remember when this type appeared, possibly in the mid 1970s.

The sharpener I bought yesterday in a local supermarket. It has not changed in my memory. The originals were metal like this one and then they became plastic. This is a genuine Faber-Castell but made in India. There is nothing quite a satisfying as a well-sharpened pencil. A pen knife works of course and when the teacher was out we used to sneak to the front of the class and use her hand cranked sharpener which to us was very high tech and risky behaviour too!

Ah yes, the humble pencil. How I desired these genuine Staedtler HBs as a child. Black and red – definitely boys’ colours (most pencils are apparently yellow in the USA). Of course they had German quality in what was definitely an era of “Japanese Junk” (how that has changed).

The first wood cased graphite pencils probably originated in England around 1564. Nuremberg, Germany was the birthplace of the first mass-produced pencils in 1662 and is still the home of Staedtler, Faber-Castell and Lyra. Now of course, graphite has found new fame as a source of graphene – a layer of carbon one atom thick. It has all sorts of interesting properties in the field of electronics and is easily made. Anyone who has used a graphite pencil (lead is a misnomer these days though the originals were made of lead) had made graphene.

Paper. Amazing stuff. Paper as we know it dates back to around 105 A.D. in China though papyrus, from which the word is derived, dates back to the third millennium BC in Egypt. Mostly we write on it in ballpoint pen though even that is under threat and nowhere more so than at my local ZIMRA tax office. I am not surprised; they must have collected container loads of the stuff in the course of a year and now it’s all gone digital. Or that’s the plan. Every year one has to get tax clearance to import or export goods. In the past this has meant standing in long queues at this time of year and finally getting the all important ITF263 meaning one’s tax payments are in order and debtors don’t need to deduct 10% of their payment if one doesn’t have it. This 10% is then remitted directly to the tax office – in theory. It can then be deducted from tax owed.

I dread this time of the year but my book keeper told me that it had to be done online. I tried to register and got a message “We’ve had a technical problem but don’t worry, we still have your details…”. Right. Then I couldn’t re-register, or login or do anything. So after much pondering I used another email, my passport as an ID (we normally use ID cards for these purposes) and I was in. A quick visit to the ZIMRA tax office in town and I had my one off password valid for 24 hours. I took a deep breath, mustered up some negativity and applied for the ITF263. An hour later there it was, all ready to be downloaded and printed. The paperless office was a little closer.

I know that a few years ago the local branch of the International School announced it was going paperless. Whether this has actually happened I don’t know. What it means for the ancient art of writing is anyone’s guess. Are they really going to produce generations of students who cannot write? And will they know when they pick up the stylus of their digital device they are actually picking up the ancient Roman originator of the humble wooden pencil? It will be in effect a true digital pencil!

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Tags: eraser, graphene, pencil, Roman, sharpener, stylus, wooden pencil
Categories : Social commentary

Checking the box

13 01 2016

I went and saw the latest Star Wars movie last night (I have already forgotten the full title). It was a box checking exercise and besides, I had to see what the hype was about. Ok, I also need to admit it was the first Star Wars movie I’d seen. Yes, ever! I think the first one came out when I was at university and even then I was only vaguely interested despite the ground breaking special effects of the day. It was probably well after the release of the movie elsewhere in the world – those being the days of apartheid in South Africa where I was studying at the time. Well, there were no sanctions on films one just had to accept you were not going to be the first to see anything!

Last night was, I think, the last night of showing at the local cinemas. This run had started a month ago and I had a sneaking suspicion that it was about to end. Hey, do the maths, pretty good huh? We started showing it on the 14th December last year which must have been pretty close to the worldwide release. Unlike South Africa all those years ago Zimbabwe (contrary to what our politicians liked to claim until very recently) is not under any sort of sanctions. Maybe it’s also due to us using the US dollar so we can actually pay for things if we have the money, something most people in this country are struggling to find these days.

Well last night there was no shortage of money in evidence. I mean I actually had to walk some 200m from where I’d parked to the cinemas (last time I went I got a park as close as one could possibly park). The place was buzzing. I’d rather hoped with schools just starting their new term the place would be quiet. Nope, no chance of that. It was teeming with the youth. There are pubs, restaurants and a supermarket at that end of Borrowdale village shopping centre (yes, the supermarket was open at 7.30 p.m. – how times have changed) and of course I bumped into someone I knew. Harare is like that. A city by name but an oversize town by nature. Debbi from the gym had just been to see another movie with her family. Her eldest son Mike has just finished his medical degree in Johannesburg and is waiting for a placement for his internship. As he is not South African he has to wait for a placement; they have one for him but they don’t know where.

The movie theatres are pretty modern. Actually they have only been open about a year so one should expect this but in Zimbabwe one should not expect anything of this nature given the state of the economy (a lot of government employees were only paid for December end of last week). There are six small ones in the modern format. The ticket cost $5 (half price Tuesday) and the 3D glasses $1. Ok, another admission – this was my first 3D movie! I settled into my seat a few minutes into the movie and put on the glasses.

Two hours later I was not entirely sure that all the hype had been justified. The special effects had been good but then I’d been expecting that. The bizarre characters were certainly imaginative but there are some things that were bothersome. I mean, they had light speed capable craft right? That is serious tech (even if impossible by Einstein’s theory) but they still managed to miss most of the time in the dog fights. I don’t know what they were shooting at each other (balls of light things) but they only seemed to go in straight lines. The one set of missiles that did actually track the goodies also missed! And they actually had non-robotic/computer pilots. Not very good. The main character, the kick-ass chick (and boy could she kick) looked like she could have done with a few visits to the gym before hand. I WAS pleased that she was not drop-dead gorgeous but just sort of normal in a Hollywood sense. There were lots of characters from the original movie there too. Harrison Ford was looking his age as was Princess Leia (whoever she is). The former got stuck with a light sabre which is a truly stupid piece of high tech for waging hand to hand combat (get the contradiction?) so we won’t be seeing him again. The rest of it was of course left wide open for yet another sequel/prequel/something-quel. We left with Luke Skywalker (in a hoodie – I bet he has tatts he’s hiding) looking decidedly uncomfortable about accepting his old light sabre from the kick-ass chick. No doubt he was thinking he’s in for another epic.

And the 3D? Well on one occasion I took my glasses off to see if they were clean because background lights in the movie were more than a bit fuzzy but all was clean. So I think tech has a way to go on that one though I do admit that a couple of times I almost ducked as fighters “flew overhead” so I’ll keep the 3D glasses for another occasion. I’m not at all sure it will be for the next issue of Star Wars though. Been there, done that, checked the box.

The rain had reduced to a light shower by the time I walked out and the carpark was quiet. It seems that Zimbabweans go to bed early during the week. My evening’s entertainment had cost $6 plus a bit of fuel. Not bad – about a day’s wage for the average horticultural labourer in Zimbabwe. Well, for those lucky enough to be employed.

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Tags: 3D, Harare, light sabre, Star Wars, Zimbabwe wage
Categories : Art, News & Various, Social commentary

The drought of ’92

10 12 2015

Watsomba area of eastern Zimbabwe 1992

Zimbabweans have a curious attitude to the rainy season; they almost think it’s a right and are somewhat puzzled or even hurt when I say no, I don’t think the rains are going to come this year. Of course we will get some rain but it’s almost certain there will be a drought.

In 1992 we had a drought. At the time I was working in Penhalonga in the high rainfall eastern area of Zimbabwe. I was doing freelance programming; there was plenty of work but it did not pay well as people were not convinced of the value of it so I left and in 1995 (another drought year) started an agricultural job near Harare.

The photo above was taken north of Mutare in a high rainfall area called Watsomba. I don’t recall the actual date but you can see there is hardly a blade of grass to be seen. In those days Zimbabwe still had a vibrant agricultural sector and despite the ravages of the drought nobody went hungry because the commercial farmers (mostly white) knew how to use their resources well and besides, drought is endemic to southern Africa so there was plenty of stored water to irrigate crops.

This year a drought is likely but there’s a major difference; there are very few capable farmers left. Most were driven off their land by the Mugabe government in 2000 – 2002. Many of the former commercial farms lie derelict and ironically, the dams (reservoirs) that ensured plentiful crops and established Zimbabwe as a regional food exporter are still mostly full. There are two reasons for this – there are few farmers to use the water and those who can prefer to pump the water for more profitable crops than the staple maize. Pumping is also expensive these days as most of the country is enduring long power cuts so diesel pumps have to be used. One of my customers told me that he gets up at midnight, when the power comes on, to irrigate his tomatoes. “You can get quite a lot of irrigation done in four hours before they turn it off again but the labour force is not very keen” he added.

The electricity situation is only going to get worse. Lake Kariba, which normally supplies most of the country’s hydro power is critically low so the turbines are running below capacity. The lake is low due to poor rains in the catchment area of central west Zambia and eastern Angola and this inflow only occurs around April. The Zambians have also over developed the north bank power station and the lake simply cannot keep up. Zimbabwe also has a large thermal power station at Hwange in the west of the country but generating capacity is down due to lack of maintenance and capital development (the government is broke) and despite being right on top of a large very high quality coal deposit they just can’t seem to get it together.

Money was borrowed from Namibia to fund electricity development in Zimbabwe but now the local utility, ZESA, has taken out another loan and we have to export more power to Namibia to pay it back.

The internet did not exist in Zimbabwe in 1992 so there was not a lot of opportunity to research the causes of drought. Now the current el Niño is well covered both locally and worldwide. Looking back at the history, this year’s temperature rise that defines the phenomenon looks to be very similar to that of 1992 (1995 was not quite as strong though we were saved in this part of the country by cyclone Bonita that savaged the eastern districts) but perhaps a bit stronger. That’s not good news at all.

I don’t have a photo of the same area taken in 1993 but I do recall that the area recovered very well. That’s cold comfort right now (it’s blazing hot as I write this with temperatures in the mid 30 degrees and few clouds to be seen) as we still have to get through another 12 months before we can hope for a normal season.

In the meantime I am installing a solar powered system capable of running all electrics in the house bar the water heaters (it’s not my house otherwise I’d install solar water heaters too). I actually am connected to a reasonably reliable grid due to the proximity of a military baracks but I just like the idea of being independent and, yes, I’m a bit of a geek too.

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Tags: drought, el Nino, Kariba, solar power, ZESA
Categories : Environment, News & Various, Social commentary

Getting more for less (or preferably nothing at all)

22 10 2015

The workers’ committee representing my labour force requested a meeting yesterday. They were asking for a wage increase. That most of Zimbabwe is unemployed swayed them not a bit. Neither did the fact that most prices are not going up and rents are, in some cases, going down. The pharmacist where I most frequently get scripts has taken a 20% reduction in salary and is struggling to pay her children’s school fees. That I would have to increase prices to offset the wage increase and probably drive customers elsewhere also failed to move them. So in the end I just said no, it was not going to happen (I already pay substantially more than I am required to by law). They were more than a little bemused but at least they are actually working for a living unlike a lot of the “haves” in our society.

Currently there is a bit of a fuss in the press over a Zimbabwe born doctor who works in the UK. Dr Sylvester Nyatsuro is after a farm owned by a white farmer in the Centenary area in the north of Zimbabwe. Dr Nyatsuro is by all accounts successful in the UK, running a weight loss clinic in Nottingham – he does not need a farm in Zimbabwe. Even his UK lawyers seem to think he is entitled to grab the farm under Zimbabwe law. Note that he is not going to pay for it despite the fact that it is heavily cropped so I can only think he must be well connected. And what will happen to the farm in the hands of a doctor who probably knows little about farming? Well, he could if he is sensible employ someone who does know about farming but more likely it will suffer the fate of the farm just down the road from my business.

The farm to which I’m referring was once was highly productive. Some 3 years ago the owner was kicked off. Very little happens there now. There have been 2 disastrous crops of potatoes this year and last year there was an extraordinarily bad crop of seed maize that looked like it had been grown almost entirely without fertilizer. There is ample water supply to farm most of the land through the dry winter and ironically, unlike a lot of Zimbabwe, it has reasonably reliable power to pump the water. It is not clear whom is actually in charge of the land but the manager is reasonably capable so I can only think the “owner” is bleeding it dry.

Earlier this month, hot on the heels of Cecil the Lion saga, a magnificent bull elephant was shot by a trophy hunter near the Ghona-re-Zhou game reserve in the south east of Zimbabwe. It was a completely legal hunt but already the social media knives are out having so successfully lynched the American dentist who shot Cecil the Lion and has been exonerated of committing a crime (the professional hunter who led the hunt may or may not have something to answer for).

The German hunter who apparently shot the elephant paid a reported $60,000 for the right to shoot an elephant. That’s a lot of money for most people and in Zimbabwe professional hunting does bring in much needed cash and supports a lot of people. The hunting fraternity also argue that the controlled hunting areas would become a free-for-all poaching areas if hunting were to stop i.e. they are conservationists too. Whilst a lot of people find trophy hunting repugnant it would be difficult to argue that a poached animal that often dies in agony over several days has a cleaner death than one shot (elephant poachers have taken to using tranquilizer guns on their prey because they are silent – the tusks are then hacked off whilst the animal is still conscious) in a professional hunt. In Zimbabwe we don’t have the luxury of being able to leave land idle – it must all earn its keep. Sadly, allocating hunting areas to photo tourism won’t work either. Our already underfunded national parks are themselves being poached and in many cases the general public is helping to keep them going. Friends of Hwange are active in providing water to the animals in the country’s premier national park – a task that in normal countries would fall to the government. This government is always pleading poverty and prefers to let well-wishers help out whilst they spend supposedly non-existent funds on military vehicles.

Just yesterday I received an email from some local microlight pilots who have started a trust to provide aircraft free of cost to assist with anti-poaching patrols in the National Parks. The National Parks people are reportedly delighted as I guess so too are the government.

Now that most parts of the country are suffering massive power cuts of up to 18 hours, those of us who can are looking to “make a plan”. Whilst I am not in an area too badly affected I am not sitting idle and am looking at the solar option. A diesel generator would be cheaper but I am not convinced that diesel will always be available. Sunlight will be. So I guess I am as guilty as anyone of not standing up to the corruption, mismanagement and poor governance that blights this special country. But at least I am working for my money.

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Tags: Cecil the lion, Dr Nyatsuro, Friends of Hwange, Ghona-re-Zhou, Hwange, solar power, trophy hunting
Categories : News & Various, Social commentary

Passing on the knowledge

9 10 2015

Every year at about this time in October the local University of Zimbabwe 2nd year agriculture students come on a tour of my nursery. Every year I give them what is by now a well-rehearsed talk. Sometimes it’s an interactive visit that I enjoy with a lot of pertinent questions. Sometimes I could be talking to a herd of mombes (cattle in the vernacular). Last Monday I was starting to despair; I just could not get more than single sentence answers and discussion was just not going to happen. Then somebody did it.

We were standing at the tobacco ponds where tobacco seedlings are grown in polystyrene trays floating on a shallow pond containing fertilizer. Did I take notice of the regulations concerning planting dates of the seedlings? For a moment I was incensed but I very quickly realised that it was a serious question. So after a “I cannot believe you asked that” response (that the lecturer chaperoning the students found very funny) I told them why the regulations existed and why flouting them was a very bad idea no just from the legal consequences point of view. It’s all about pest carry over for the non-scientific; separating sequential crops with a fallow period breaks the pest/disease cycle. Tobacco crops in Zimbabwe must be destroyed by the first of May, new plantings can only be sown from the 1st of June and seedlings planted out from the 1st of September. There are numerous examples of how pests have been introduced into the country by people ignoring phytosanitary requirements. But why was the question asked in the first place?

Sadly corruption is pervasive in Zimbabwe. Earlier this week the Swedish Ambassador expressed frustration with the level of corruption in the NGO sector. Now that is something coming from the Swedes who have a history of being very helpful to Zimbabwe. We are in the current financial mess in no small part due to financial mismanagement and corruption and when the people see the top echelons misbehaving they must assume that it is OK to do the same; Zimbabwe is very much a patriarchal society. Why would my nursery not also be cutting corners? Yes, I have seen these corners cut by farmers who should know much better.

Towards the end of the tour I pre-empted a question that I was hoping to be asked; do we take students on attachment? We do but few are enthusiastic once I tell them that we don’t pay them. Once in a while I am pleasantly surprised and for those I make an exception and at least pay their transport as they are genuinely useful. Moses is one. A student in last year’s batch he worked for at least 6 weeks going around all three nurseries on the premises. He even came back in his vacation.

One morning soon after starting his attachment he approached me as I was taking measurements from the tobacco ponds.

“Morning sir” he said.

“Morning Noah” I replied, genuinely having forgotten his name.

“Actually it’s Moses, sir” came the reply.

I liked that. Not so much in awe of me that he cannot express an opinion. He is also very ambitious and hopes one day to become a member of the Royal Horticultural Society. So he almost certainly will not stay in Zimbabwe along with so many others who are fed up with the mismanagement and corruption. Our loss.

“I knew it was something biblical” I replied, and he laughed..

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Tags: corruption, horticulture, nursery, phytosanitary, seedlings, students, Swedish Ambassador, tobacco, University of Zimbabwe
Categories : Agriculture, Social commentary

Panic attack

1 09 2015

FinGaz front page

This is the Financial Gazette front page from last Thursday. It represents a major shift of attitude in the government.

Up until now it has been very difficult to get rid of staff without paying a massive (read punitive from the employer’s point of view) retrenchment package. For example, if I were to lay off any staff it would have cost me 6 months notice, 2 months payment for every year employed and one month re-location package. Scenarios for a layoff would have included a takeover of my business by anyone with the correct contacts. As I only rent the premises and have little in the way of assets it would have effectively wiped out the company.

The labour law to which the paper refers changes a lot of that. Now it is only necessary to give 3 months notice. While I have not read the new legislation it is fairly obvious why it has come about. The government wants to lay off a lot of the civil servants which it can no longer afford to pay. Already a substantial number from the state controlled ZBC (Zimbabwe Broadcasting Company) have gone. Rather than simply not pay them and get lumped with the bill later it has changed the law to suit itself. Interestingly there are a number of parties involved who are ready to challenge the legislation. Good luck to them! It is more than a little ironic that this is the government that introduced the heavily workforce biased legislation in the first place to gain the support of the working class.

The labour legislation, as it was, was deeply unattractive to would-be investors. Also unattractive is the current indigenisation policy, embedded in law, whereby companies must be at least 51% owned by indigenous Zimbabweans. While it was never completely clear what indigenous meant I knew that as a Zimbabwe born white I was not included. The reality was that the government (and those with the correct contacts) were after the bigger more profitable companies. So does the second tier title on the front page of the paper represent an about-turn by the government? Well, if one cares to read a bit further the answer is not quite so obvious as the title implies. Elsewhere in the international press there does seem to bit a bit of a charm offensive by the President, Robert Mugabe, to woo investors from the West. This really does represent a huge change of attitude.

Up until now the West has been the cause of a lot of our problems, according to the government owned media. Our biggest creditor at the moment is China who has been very generous with loans. When things really started to go pear-shaped last year the finance minister went begging to them but came back empty-handed. So to go begging to our former nemesis, on whom our woes were blamed for imposing sanctions, really is a change of attitude. It shows just how deep the financial crisis is.

It is well known that the police have been told to go out and collect their own wages so we are used to being endlessly stopped for both real and imagined traffic violations but last week it really was a frenzy. Even the ZBC got in on the act stopping vehicles to check if they had valid radio receiver licences. Perhaps it was a fear of being laid off under the new legislation or perhaps they were actually getting their notice payments. This week has so far been eerily quiet. Maybe it will all start again towards the end of the month when pay day looms.

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Tags: Financial Gazette, Labour Law, police, ZBC
Categories : News & Various, Social commentary

The curse of good health

13 08 2015

My uncle turns 93 or maybe it’s 92 this year. Mentally he’s very sharp but physically he’s frail. Last year he decided he’d had enough of life and decided to end it on his terms. He failed and now he’s condemned to a old age home in rural England, waiting to serve his time amongst the old, frail and demented.

I went to visit him the week before last whilst on an infrequent trip to a family gathering and the wedding of a young friend. We don’t get together much; my brother lives in the UK, my sister in north-western USA and I’m in Zimbabwe. It was my brother’s 60th birthday last weekend and I’d said to my sister-in-law that I’d come over for it if he promised to have a party.

Lucy and Will’s big day

It was pure luck that Lucy was getting married the weekend before and well, I probably won’t see Ant again.

The UK is unlike Zimbabwe in many ways;
Clean
Organised
Good roads
Horrendously heavy traffic but a noticeable absence of bad drivers (ok so it wasn’t a dangerous breach but it’s still a red light!)
Crowded
Green (Zim is very dry right now
In short – First World!

So whilst in London we did the tourist thing, the Science Museum to get my dose of science.

Tower Bridge on the Thames

Dining hall at the old Naval Academy.

The Cutty Sark

A Thames river cruise to the Cutty Sark and checked out the amazing dining hall at the old Naval Academy. Zimbabwe does not have recorded history going back that far and we don’t have a navy either. We do however have better weather than the UK though on this trip it wasn’t bad, choosing to rain just when I chose to do some serious photography.

Getting back to Harare we encountered some decidedly Third World air service with all the luggage being left in Johannesburg because there was no Jet A1 fuel in Harare. Well, that was the official story. It is certainly symptomatic of the state of the economy here and meant that we had to go back to the airport the next day to collect our luggage (don’t they deliver it elsewhere?). So my Saturday visit to the Gallery Delta had to wait a week.

The current exhibition there is From Line to Form where Wallen Mapondera’s string picture Everyone is a Vendor neatly caught the dire state of the economy; we just don’t produce much anymore.

Everyone is a vendor

Not at all like the market we visited in the curiously named Bury St Edmond where it was very hip to buy local produce. Not sure if these tomatoes were local but they are certainly better quality than the ones we get here!

Good quality produce

When I left Ant I shook his hand. His grip was firm by any standard. He just laughed when I mentioned it. Handshake strength is one of the criteria used to asses old people’s health. I winced inwardly at the irony of it.

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Tags: Bury St Edmund, Cutty Sark, London, Naval Academy, River Thames, Tower Bridge, Zimbabwe economy
Categories : Social commentary, Travel

This is George

3 08 2015

George the paragliding giraffe

This is George; possibly the most well flown paragliding giraffe in the world. He’s been cold in the Owens Valley in California where he survived without oxygen at 4800m ASL and descended under a reserve parachute there too (without complaining or injury). He’s been hot in Porterville South Africa and didn’t need a drink even in +40ºC heat. He’s charmed his way through customs in the USA whilst I was failing to do so and got compliments in broken English on the takeoffs at Annecy, the paragliding Mecca, in France. The weekend of Africa Day he finally got his paragliding fix at World’s View, Nyanga, after a break of almost 2 years. It’s been a long time.

The state of paragliding in Zimbabwe strongly reflects the state of the economy. Flat in a word. There were all of 2 of us pilots on the takeoff that weekend up at World’s View. In the heyday of paragliding there would have been at least half a dozen and we’d think nothing of leaving early on a Saturday, flying hopefully that afternoon and then on Sunday and driving back on Sunday night. Wouldn’t do that now; the fuel is too expensive and the roads far too dangerous to drive at night. The main road going east from Harare to Mutare and the Mozambique border is actually not too bad. I’m talking of the surface not what drives on it. Most of last year it was being resurfaced by a South African company (I know that because the traffic control at the various detours was far too organised for a Zimbabwean company). How it was paid for I have no idea as the government was only slightly less broke then than it is now. There was talk in the papers last week of lots of civil servants being retrenched. Actually the headline said “Fired” which implies there will be no retrenchment package.

The road from Troutbeck Hotel up to World’s View was also being resurfaced when we were up there. No small deal that either as a LARGE and very new looking bulldozer was moving substantial quantities of boulders and earth and a grader was tidying up after it. Now I’ve been going up that road irregularly for the last 50 years that I can remember and it has never looked so grand! Almost 3 lanes in places. Again, who is paying for it? Nobody I’ve spoken to seems to know the answer which makes me a bit suspicious. This usually means a Fat Cat has told someone to get on with it as he (or she, but usually it’s a he) has designs on some property in the vicinity and wants easy access.

Africa Day, for the ill informed, celebrates the formation of the African Union as one of the children on the landing field informed us. Our esteemed president, Robert Mugabe, is the current chairman of the AU. I’m not really sure what the AU actually does. Once upon a time the late Colonel Gaddafi proposed forming a United States of Africa. As delusional as it is grand i.e. very. The week of Africa Day there was a summit in South Africa which the rather odious president of Sudan, Omar al-Bashir attended. He is wanted to answer to charges of crimes against humanity by the International Criminal Court. Amnesty International wasted no time in filing for his arrest. The South African judiciary deliberated and deliberated and by the time a ruling announcing that the said president of Sudan could be arrested he’d been flown out of the country. How convenient for all involved. The judiciary upheld South Africa’s law abiding image and the AU got to give the finger to the West.

I’ve had another trip to the Nyanga area a month ago. The top photo of George was taken at the edge of the Honde Valley where we once had a great takeoff. You might imagine that George is looking a bit glum as the takeoff behind him is submerged in over a meter of grass and is therefore not useable. This was where we used to be based for the annual Zimbabwe Paragliding Open competition. One year we had over 35 competitors. This year there were 3 of us.

We did fly the following day from World’s View which was convenient given that we’d rented a cottage 500m away. It was not great flying by World’s View standards (usually it’s relatively easy to get 500m above takeoff) as it was heavily inverted and so we were limited to about 150m above takeoff. But it was hard work and good practice and George enjoyed it as you can see by the gilt in his eye.