Won't you help me - please?
You have just emerged from your pupa to find that your wings won’t open properly, your legs don’t work very well (I know THAT feeling!) and no-one can help!
There was not a lot I could do except take a photograph. It died soon after this and appeared to also have been parasitised by another very small wasp.
Zimbabwean retailers seem to have a curious business model. It often centres around marking up products to the highest possible price that the consumer will accept and when the consumer doesn’t buy the product it is simply left on the shelf in the hope that they might change their mind. This is most noticeable in the luxury goods sector.
On the way back from the bank to the carpark this morning I went past a local photographic shop. I’d seen a rather nice tripod there that I thought would do rather well for mounting my binoculars for a bit of steady stargazing. I’d made a mount for this purpose this long weekend and it had worked better than I thought on a monopod so I was keen to try it out on a tripod. Everything about the tripod seemed suitable for the purpose and it was a Slik 400 which is a reliable brand but the price at $464 seemed high even by Zimbabwean standards. A bit of internet research showed the same model at 72 pounds from Amazon.uk which at today’s exchange rate equilibrates to just $100! Now I don’t for a moment expect to buy that sort of item for anything like the same price it goes for in the UK, but trying to sell it at that price is ridiculous. I have also just checked the South African price and that is less than half the Zimbabwean price and South Africa is a very bad place to buy photographic equipment (it is usually around double of the USA price).
I bought my Nikon 10×50 binoculars from the same shop at least a year ago and they had another pair of very nice Nikon 8×40 roof prism binoculars which I briefly contemplated but could not justify the $760 price tag. I saw today that they are still for sale at the same price so maybe cash flow is not an issue and they are relying on the core business of photo printing and photo copying. Maybe I am sensitive to this because my business relies on very high volumes of sales (our pricing unit is in $/1000 seedlings) at a relatively low markup but I cannot for the life of me think why they don’t just drop the price and at least sell SOME of their higher value stock! A curious business model indeed.
I have just found my glasses. It only took about half-an-hour and that was just this morning. I tried finding the spare pair first so that I could find the everyday pair – but I couldn’t find those either. This is actually not the whine you might expect it to be. You see, I used to be nearly blind without my glasses in which case I would not have left them lying around but some 8 years ago I decided to have my eyes lasered in Cape Town. I was not an ideal candidate with a prescription of around -9.5 in both eyes but I was really fed up with hiding behind a barrier of glass or plastic. Contact lenses just hadn’t worked. God knows I’d tried the lot. Glass, plastic, gas-permeable and everything in between – my eyes just wouldn’t tolerate them.
The ophthalmic surgeon was disappointed with the result and when I went back after a year for a check-up he said that they would have used an intra-ocular lens if I’d had it done now (being then). I was not at all disappointed. I still needed glasses though of a relatively light correction of -2 but I was free of this, this mass of glasses on my face and I could even drive without them if I had to though I didn’t really like doing so. The one downside is there is a bit of flare on bright lights when I drive at night but is really a small issue. Now that I am a bit older and have presbyopia (my lenses have lost their plasticity) I would normally need glasses for reading but I just take my glasses off to read or just look under the lenses at the object. Around the house I often just leave my glasses off as nothing is too far away to see – and forget where I have left them. It IS progress, I wouldn’t go back to the glasses of old (I finally threw away the last old pair a couple of months ago) for anything. Now I just need to find the spare pair.
At my age I do ponder what it’s like to be really old. I AM officially “madhara” (see Madhara at 52 on this blog) so I don’t think it’s a strange thought. My uncle has just turned 90 and he is still very sharp mentally though my brother in the UK says that his back and knees are giving him trouble. My aunt – my aforementioned uncle’s sister – is 84 and still going strong so maybe I have their genes, but what would it be like to “lose the plot” with one of the age-related mental disorders?
The warehouse stank. It had that recognisable agricultural chemical smell – acrid and unpleasant. I was really glad I did not have to work there. One of the labourers loading the coir bales into the back of my pickup was wearing a dust mask but I doubted that it gave him much protection. After the second visit to collect the balance of the order I was glad to get out of there and head back to the nursery to offload the coir. I have ordered a container load from India but it ran out last month so I have to rely on other stockists around town. The interior of my pickup still smelt strongly of agro-chemicals even at lunchtime.
Things started to go wrong at lunchtime but I couldn’t really put a finger on it. I just couldn’t really concentrate that well. At 2 p.m. I was showing an agronomist from a locally based fertiliser company around the nursery to see if she had any ideas on what could be causing the strange growth and deficiency symptoms in the cabbage seedlings that we’d been experiencing. I very unself-consciously and loudly farted and just continued like it was normal (I am not usually THAT indifferent!).
Being month end I got stuck into the accounts, or so I thought. One particular purchase gave me trouble. I couldn’t remember buying the fertiliser even though I’d apparently bought it the previous week. I had no idea why I’d bought it. I searched through the computer but the menu on the software that I’d written was not making a lot of sense. I eventually found the composition of the fertiliser (it has a trade name that does not indicate what the contents are) and concluded that it was a micronutrient mix (it is not) and assumed that I had bought it. I still had no idea what it was for. I continued on in a daze but the computer programme was still not making sense so I decided to go home early. I didn’t panic, there was nothing to panic about. I had even forgotten that I’d written the computer package which does everything from accounts to keeping track of stock, the various fertilizer mixes that have been used and the weather as well as various other business related issues.
I had tea and logged on to the internet to download email. There were a number of mails referring to Tumbuka, a local dance group. Tumbuka? Who or what was Tumbuka? I had an idea I should know more about this Tumbuka but it did not seem that important. I had forgotten that I am a trustee on the Dance Trust of Zimbabwe of which Tumbuka is an arm. I mooched around doing nothing much of consequence, had a light supper and went to bed early.
The next day I was back to normal mental functioning and realized that I’d experienced some form of poisoning, probably due to something leaking in the warehouse where I’d been loading the coir. I mentioned this to Stewart who is involved in agro-chemicals and he said it was likely a symptom of mild organophosphate poisoning. Curiously, at no stage was I ever aware that anything was actually wrong, there was no sense of panic and no other symptoms that I was aware of. Is this what Alzheimer’s disease is like? General confusion? I must admit it was not that bad but I hope I don’t have to find out. But then if it does happen – will I even know?
The local police are on a money-making drive. They especially like hanging around traffic lights, called robots in this country, catching drivers running the lights. That in itself is not a big deal except they are looking for drivers going through amber lights – which is not illegal! Then they use a tactic of intimidation and the public’s lack of legal knowledge and a reluctance to go to court to issue a spot, i.e. on-the-spot*, fine of $20.
I was caught recently and even if I wanted to I could not have stopped in time for the light change – it would have left me smack in the middle of the intersection. The police were uninterested in discussing the issue and I realised arguing that an amber light was there to warn one of the impending change to red when of course one MUST stop was pointless. I did realise too late that their procedure was unusual. I was asked for my driver’s licence and then if I had $20 to pay the fine. They waited while I found the money before writing anything on the Admission of Guilt form.If it really was an offence to run an amber light why not just make out the fine form there and then?
I spent the rest of the day fuming and mentioned the incident to Gordon whilst paying my rent on the way home. He said “I refused and took it to court. I defended myself and won the case. It only cost me my time”. It does say very clearly on the top of the form that one has the right to be heard in court (see the highlighting in the image below) but I am sure that the vast majority of drivers know that paying $20 is much less hassle than having to go to court so the police take advantage of this. So next time I am not letting them get away with this!
*The spot fine system is under review as in the past one could pay within a certain time period at any police station. This would also presumably give the defendant time to research the legality of the “infringement”.
Admission of Guilt form. The highlighting is mine.
I caught Hope Masike and her band at the Gallery Delta last night. This talented Zimbabwean has recently spent time in Norway but is back in Zimbabwe until June and is definitely worth seeing if you like mbira music. Her band consists of herself on mbira and vocals, traditional drums, bass guitar, maribma and percussion.
Last night’s show started off with a very young girl who sang Whitney Houston’s “Saving all my love for you” including the lyrics “… and we’ll be making love the whole night through” which got more than a few giggles from the audience! Another young girl then sang two of her own compositions and proved adept at getting the audience involved before we moved onto the main act.
The small amphitheatre at the Gallery Delta was packed with a mixed and appreciative audience and we only dispersed after 10 p.m. Well worth the drive into town for me!
“So how has this season been?” I asked the farmer once we’d got over the introductions.
“Actually it has been a good tobacco season” he replied. “Not too much rain”.
“And how secure are you?” I asked, referring to the possibility of an eviction.
“Well, there is someone after the farm but he is pretty much a non-entity. There is an electric fence around the house and once in a while we exchange words through it. I have got our case to the Supreme Court and so far we seem secure but I’m not at all sure that we’ll still be there for another season. At least leasing the farm means we have no emotional attachment to the land”.
I asked if the landlord had “connections” in the political world.
“No” came the reply. “He is another white farmer who gave up his other farm. His son was recently kicked off his farm in the same area. There is a notorious fat-cat with political clout who even managed to block the hearing at the Supreme Court and two weeks later was on the farm”.
I thought of my doctor and her husband who were evicted off their farm in November last year. Both the High Court and the Governor of the province had told them to stay on the farm but the would-be occupier know someone with a LOT of political clout and that was that. It’s all about connections.
I pondered the paper clip and bent it into the number 4. It needed more though so I wrapped the down bit around the tail. Ah, that was better but it was still unbalanced. Another 2 wraps and it was approaching objet d’art status. What associations did I have with the number 4? Four horsemen of the Apocalypse waiting on high. Chris de Burg song. I wondered if he was still shacked-up with the au pair girl after writing Woman in Red for his wife. Forthright, Firth-of-Forth, force to be reckoned with – that wasn’t really 4. I looked for other entertainment. I investigated the contents of the notelet holder on the desk but there was little of interest. Taking liberties perhaps? I think I’d earned the right to take a few liberties. This was my third visit to the ZIMRA (Zimbabwe Revenue Authority) office to get my Tax Clearance Certificate and after a total of some 5 hours there the goal was in sight!
A Tax Clearance Certificate is a requirement to import anything and it can take some doing to get as I’d found out. I have previously acquired them before by fair means and foul but things have tightened up substantially and this time there was a bit of a rush as the container of coir that we use at the nursery for propagating seedlings is due at Beira, Mozambique in three weeks. Now I really wasn’t so naive as to think that one visit would do the trick but all my tax payments were up to date when I arrived three weeks ago with the file in a bag and negotiated the stairs into Kurima House in the Harare CBD. Disabled access to public buildings is mandatory in Harare but it doesn’t seem to have filtered through to ZIMRA despite the recent refurbishment of the offices. The man at the computer made a few notes and sent me upstairs to the Debt Management department where I introduced myself to Mr M. After a mere hour and a half it was ascertained that my PAYE (pay-as-you-earn) file was up to date (it should be, I fill in the returns based on the deposit slips of the money that I have paid) but the company income tax needed a payment. Wow, this was easier than I thought! I went straight off to the bank full of optimism and hope and made the required deposit.
Last week I was back, somewhat puzzled as to why my PAYE account no longer balanced. We sat and pondered the columns of figures. It seemed that a $501 deposit had found its way in erroneously. That had to be removed but not straight away. There was also an issue of a previous penalty that I’d paid that had been wrongly credited to the wrong account. I left after 2 hours more than a bit depressed – I just didn’t seem to be making progress. It didn’t help my mood that I’d been optimistic enough to only pay for one hour’s parking and had to dash (well dash at my speed) downstairs to pay for the next hour.
Then yesterday it all fell into place. By this time Mr M and I were almost on first name terms, I had his phone number and had even booked an appointment. I paid for a full 2 hours parking and made my way upstairs. The $501 had been removed and the penalty had been correctly credited but it still didn’t balance. I muttered a mental obscenity – one DOES NOT GET FLUSTERED IN PUBLIC IN THE ZIMRA OFFICES – and settled down for an extended session. Then it all clicked into place! I ended up with a $46 credit, Mr M typed up the necessary letter clearing the way for the Tax Clearance Certificate and I was in his supervisor’s office happily bending the paper clip whilst waiting for her to appear and sign the letter.
That done I was back downstairs in the office that issues the tax clearance – waiting. It was lunch time after all. Not only that, it was lunchtime at the end of the month so most people were not out to lunch but passing their time on emails and computer games because as one clerk admitted, “I am broke”! I watched a video of some daft characters in a zebra suit trying to get close to a herd of zebras. The latter were not impressed but a pride of lion were and investigated and after a short tussle one immature lioness made off with the head of the zebra costume without the idiot’s head inside it. They were obviously out for entertainment. Then it was my turn and in a short while (relatively speaking) I had the treasured green document in my hand and was off to celebrate lunch at a restaurant I’d heard of.
The “croissant” arrived cold despite being taken “hot from the oven”. It looked like a croissant but the interior was definitely just bread. The coffee was acceptable so I sat and enjoyed the smell of rain on the hot tarmac for a while.
These photos were taken this past weekend on the east side of the Great Dyke near Ceasar Mine some 70km from Harare. Despite the generally poor rains the veld is looking good.
I was not too impressed the first time I was called madhara (old man in the Shona language). However, in Shona culture it is a term of respect for someone who has achieved old age, against the odds. Perhaps this originates in the not so distant past when getting to old age was not the norm. In the much more recent past Zimbabwe’s average life expectancy plunged below 40 years for both women and men but I see that now it is back above 50 and ahead of such countries as South Africa but with a ranking of 214 in the world that is not a lot to crow about.
Not so long ago I was asked at a local supermarket if I was a senior citizen and therefore qualified for a discount. I feigned indignation and got a laugh. I recounted the story to friends and they thought I was silly not to take the opportunity, but there is only so far I will stoop. Then two weeks ago I was at the CD launch of a local group in town where Oliver Mutukudzi, Zimbabwe’s very own music superstar, was the guest of honour. He was introduced as Madara Oliver Mutukudzi and suddenly being “madhara” didn’t feel so bad. Though I should point out that my musical ability does not even approach his – I have yet to master the air-guitar. Mhdara at 52, yes I think I can live with that.
Zimbabwe Absurdity 