Zimbabwe Absurdity

It was not before time, I thought. Austin was looking for finance to upgrade the equipment in the gym. I couldn’t recall any new equipment being added to the circuit training selection in the 12 or so years that I’d been going to the gym and it was looking a bit dated.

Finding finance for business in Zimbabwe these days is a tricky affair. The banks are looking for extortionate rates and silly conditions for collateral. It seems the route to go is private lending. My cousin “Jumbo” was listening in on the conversation. He is a wheeler-dealer extraordinaire and knows anybody who is anyone about town. He seemed to think that one of his contacts could be tapped for a repayment rate of 1% per month which is not at all cheap when compounded but Austin had done the maths and it seemed acceptable to him. It all sounded rather dodgy to me but the gym DOES need new equipment.

I was up early this morning, drinking coffee and enjoying the view from my verandah as the sun rose. On a clear day I have the best view in Harare – 70km to the Great Dyke in the north west where we fly paragliders on the weekend. This morning was such a morning and there was valley mist over the Mazoe Dam. The morning is the best time of day in Africa; it’s cool and fresh and the birds are about. My neighbour, Charles, has a view of vegetables and mielies (maize). He is one of the black managers on the farm where I rent my house and cannot understand why I don’t want to see mielies for a view. He is not an oddity – it is common to go past a very smart house in the suburbs and see a garden with a large patch of mielies growing. Goodness knows, the owner certainly can afford to buy the mielie meal if he wants to at a fraction of the price it costs to grow the crop – that’s why there are commercial farms that grow it (not too many left in Zimbabwe though).

The previous tenant next door was a white guy who also enjoyed the view so when Charles moved in he moved in a tractor and had his garden converted to production. I was wondering why the whites tend to enjoy the view and the blacks prefer to gaze at crops?

As European descendents us whites tend to feel secure with a view. In days gone by we could watch for the invading hordes which in the country now called England would have included Celts of various descriptions, Saxons, Angles, Jutes, Scots, Norse, Italians (Romans), French, Dutch, the odd armarda and the German airforce. And that’s just England. Invasion has been part of European history for a very long time. In Zimbabwe this has not been the case. Mzilikazi used to send impis (raiding parties) to raid the Shona for cattle and women but they were small parties and a view would not have been a lot of use, and besides, there is little water to be found on hilltops in Zimbabwe. Far more important would have been food security. Before Zimbabwe became a country (Southern Rhodesia) it was colonised by the whites but this was an “invasion” of the subtle kind and a once off affair. The grand irony here is that the Europeans introduced maize to this country and it is poorly adapted to the endemic droughts.

Droughts are not all bad news for farming in Zimbabwe. Tobacco, for example, yields very well when stressed a bit. In fact tobacco farmers have a lot of problems when the rains are good; the crop grows too quickly and the leaf is difficult to cure. So this season some very qood quality and excellent yields are expected from those few farmers left who have the skills. Of course where there is feast the scavengers gather too. On Christmas Day a white farmer in the Rusape area (east of Harare) was kicked off his farm just as he was about to start reaping his first planting of tobacco. He won’t be the last. I suspect some will probably do ALL the work and then lose the cured crop. Especially as prices were excellent last season and expected to be even higher this year!

“So what are your qualifications” I asked the young teller taking the cash for my electricity account that I have not received in over a year but must still pay anyway. “Three A levels” she replied.
“And how much are you paid?”
“One hundred dollars” and though she didn’t mention it I knew it was monthly.
I told her that my senior foreman went home with over $200 with overtime. Domestic servants are paid around $90 often with accomodation thrown in and my labourers earn $60 or more with overtime. Some have only a few years of education and cannot read or write. It is perhaps not surprising that the civil service is threatening a strike.

Meanwhile Harare’s mayor has budgeted for a new mayoral Benz for his use and a twin cab pickup for his wife (who is not an elected official). The drought is now starting to bite and no doubt the begging bowl will come out while the diamond fields in Marange continue to be plundered and new ways of taxing us are conjoured up.

In my army days RHIP stood for Rank Has Its Privileges and meant that officers didn’t do guard duties and if there was dirty work to do the lowest of the low (troopers – us) got to do it.

It seems that RHIP still exists in Zimbabwe today and can be seen in many guises and in the smart cars that ministers and others of rank get to drive. If you are really somebody of note you might even get a permanent armed guard on your home gate. It is almost entirely showing off; I have never heard on an attempt on anyone important at their house.

This afternoon I drove past a smart house in Mount Pleasant with an armed guard outside the gate. He was diligently writing something down in a notebook whilst sitting in the grass on his rifle.

Jeremy is an ex-commercial farmer who works for a German NGO. Rather late last year he asked me if we could grow gum trees, some for him and a much larger amount for the NGO to give out to be grown near dip tanks in the rural areas to take the pressure off the indigenous trees being cut for fuel. It was late to plant trees but I did not mind; it was a nice order and we needed the work. Jeremy was very pleased with the seedlings when he came to start organizing their collection and distribution. I got chatting to him about the rest of his work. They (the NGO) give out treadle pumps and they can be used to irrigate up to a hectare of crops. Jeremy was enthusiastic on how well it was all going and was keen for us to start supplying vegetable seedlings for the NGO to distribute as giving out seed was a bit hit and miss as to whether the crops got growing. He was talking big figures and I started to be quite hopeful. The glass was definitely half full.

I have met Bill before and like Jeremy he too is an ex-commercial farmer and also works for the same NGO. He came to organize the collection of gum trees to go to the Makoni area which is in the central east of the country. I asked him how it was all going. Dismally apparently. He said that no-one was really interested in watering the trees through the dry season (and we are already having a dry wet season) so most would likely die as had the numerous trees that had gone before them. What was more the kopjes (stony hills) in the area were being devastated by the tobacco farmers cutting trees to use as fuel to cure their tobacco. He couldn’t wait for September when his contract finished. For him the glass was half empty and the level falling fast! I decided not to put too much hope in Jeremy’s entusiasm.

Jeremy is an ex-commercial farmer who works for a German NGO. Rather late last year he asked me if we could grow gum trees, some for him and a much larger amount for the NGO to give out to be grown near dip tanks in the rural areas to take the pressure off the indigenous trees being cut for fuel. It was late to plant trees but I did not mind; it was a nice order and we needed the work. Jeremy was very pleased with the seedlings when he came to start organizing their collection and distribution. I got chatting to him about the rest of his work. They (the NGO) give out treadle pumps and they can be used to irrigate up to a hectare of crops. Jeremy was enthusiastic on how well it was all going and was keen for us to start supplying vegetable seedlings for the NGO to distribute as giving out seed was a bit hit and miss as to whether the crops got growing. He was talking big figures and I started to be quite hopeful. The glass was definitely half full.

I have met Bill before and like Jeremy he too is an ex-commercial farmer and also works for the same NGO. He came to organize the collection of gum trees to go to the Makoni area which is in the central east of the country. I asked him how it was all going. Dismally apparently. He said that no-one was really interested in watering the trees through the dry season (and we are already having a dry wet season) so most would likely die as had the numerous trees that had gone before them. What was more the kopjes (stony hills) in the area were being devastated by the tobacco farmers cutting trees to use as fuel to cure their tobacco. He couldn’t wait for September when his contract finished. For him the glass was half empty and the level falling fast! I decided not to put too much hope in Jeremy’s entusiasm.

They are everywhere these days – the water carriers. I was driving behind a 10 tonner this afternoon, water sloshing out of the 3000 litre tanks on the back. A lot of them like this one are not even proper tankers; they just have plastic tanks tied down on the back of the truck. Some of them pay the price too and on more than one occasion I have seen broken tanks and even an overturned trailer.

Water selling has been lucrative for some time now since the water treatment plant at Lake Chivero, Harare’s water supply, fell into disrepair. I know people who have not had municipal water supplied for in excess of two years now. It follows that borehole drilling and pump supplies have also been good business (as has borehole pump theft). For those who can afford a hole drilled and get good water (not a given) this has not been too much of a problem, until now. The promised el Nino drought is starting to make its presence felt and I know of several friends whose boreholes are starting to run dry. Which is good news for the water sellers.

I don’t know what the hygiene requirements are for supplying water; whether it has to be potable or not. There is one setup just down the road from my business and rather close to a municipal rubbish tip that is hiding in a premises that is ostenisbly selling used tires. A friend tried to buy some tires there a few days ago and just got blank stares. I have seen the tanker filling up inside on several occasions – used tyres? No, water!

The actual figures of Zimbabwe’s hyperinflation in 2008 will be the subject of papers and theses for years to come. A few weeks ago I did come across a locally produced estimate in a banking promotion given out with one of the independant newspapers.

The CPI (consumer price index) in October 2008 rose by some 46,134,120% implying an annual rate of 64,070,807,881,462,900%

Just thought I should mention it!