Zimbabwe Absurdity

Last night I met Hannah at a local restaurant for dinner. We shared a starter of deep fried cheese and then she had a Thai green curry and I had the red version. For dessert Hannah tried the chocolate mousse which met with her approval and I had a banana fried in grated coconut. The coffee on offer was not the best so we did not have any. Wine was a local red which Hannah had sourced in a local supermarket that afternoon. I thought a bit light but Hannah assured me it was not headache material and she was right. Total bill was ZW$2 million (about US$10) including the tip.

Meanwhile desperate Zimbabweans were braving crocodiles, thugs and police patrols to find a new life and some food in South Africa. At least 80% of Zimbabweans are unemployed which may account for their inability to find food.

I have a lot of difficulty generating enthusiasm for my business these days. There is not much business to be enthusiastic about and no predictable upturn in sight either. So I look for other things. I found this wasp, probably a Chrysis species of cuckoo wasp in a drawer that I was repairing. It was too beautiful to ignore so I had to have a go at photographing it. Sadly it is beyond the capability of my little digital Canon Ixus which like all automatic cameras struggles with depth of field. Anyway, here it is. I will have another go tomorrow!

I’ve said it before – we are way too innovative in this country. We should be throwing the toys out of the cot at the smallest excuse but I guess that no-one is prepared to make a sacrifice just yet.

So you want to buy food? Here’s how to do it.

a) Speak to all and sundry and see how they do it or
b) spot an advert in the gym (as I did), email a request to the email address supplied, pay into an account the required amount and then on a specific day (today) meet in the carpark (with a host of other shoppers) of a well known junior school to collect the order from the supplier.

I got there a bit early so had time to peruse all the adverts on the nursery school wall for chickens and eggs and then someone was also selling potatoes from one of the classrooms. All today’s orders were short of eggs but as luck would have it there was another lady selling trays of eggs from the back of her pickup. Problem solved!  Someone else was giving out adverts for a farmers’ market on Saturday morning at which all manner of fresh produce is going to be traded. No, it was not cheap but everyone was VERY pleased to be able to get what they wanted. So, it has all come to pass just as the economists predicted; heavy handed implementation of price controls has just driven the black market harder and driven it further underground to boot.

Yesterday I was at THE social event on the art calendar. It was the annual Verandah Gallery charity art show. I have been collecting local artist’s work for some time now and though I know little about what is good art I do know what I like. My friend Caro who is the senior art teacher at a very posh girls’ school actually complimented me on my taste. I am a little suspicious though as I know she covets one of the works in my “collection”.

Well, you would not have known that Zimbabwe was in the grip of a terminal economic meltdown. The place was packed and lots of works were being sold although I suspect not necessarily to Zimbabweans. I guess US$200 is not a lot to pay for a work that you like but it is very much a luxury for me so despite perusing several works that I like it was not difficult to leave empty handed. A few years ago I did not have this problem so I guess my income has diminished substantially in real terms.

On Saturday my friend Gary, not the Mozambican one, phoned me in a bit of a panic. He has a game farm just outside Bulawayo and had shot and butchered an eland for consumption (there is no meat to be had in the butcheries) but having put the meat in a freezer and transported it back here, there was no power at his girlfriend’s house. So for the last couple of days I’ve had a freezer on a trailer in my back yard! We don’t seem to have too many power cuts here and it was not in much danger of getting stolen either. Anyway, I’ve done OK out of it all has he has left me a large bag of meat and another bag of bones for Jenni. We are becoming a nation of barterers.

I came home this evening to a large fire burning the bush at the end of the road. There were various farm workers around seeing that it did not get onto the farm where I live. What did surprise me though, was the sight of the same workers a short while later deliberately spreading the fire into the bush below my house (the wind was blowing it away). A few years ago that would have been a criminal offence. Now I guess it is seen as being pragmatic – if the bush burns now you don’t have to worry about it burning again until next year!

Southern Africa burns every dry season, which means the fires are starting in earnest about now. I should think the visibility is down to about 5km, the smoke is that bad. For a particularly good satellite photo check out http://eobadmin.gsfc.nasa.gov/NaturalHazards/natural_hazards_v2.php3?img_id=5145

Some years ago when the farm invasions were running at their peak I was coming back from a day’s paragliding on the Great Dyke. It was night time and a fire was raging by the side of the road. I watched it and saw the obvious metaphor for what was happening to the country at the time and by the time I got home decided I would have to put it into poetry. I’m not a great poet but I have finally done it in about 30 minutes total! Here it is, I make no apologies except that it took so long in gestation. It is angry poetry – I was angry then and I guess I still am. (I am open to suggestions for improvements from those more literally talented than I!)

I watched my country burn last night,
The flames were ecstatic, greedy and bright.
I watched the trees twist and I cried,
They could not run,
They just smouldered, died.

I watched my country burn today,
The flames were hot but seemed far away.
Smoke towered and billowed, drifted black.
The sun grew scared,
The birds turned their backs.

I will watch my country burn tomorrow,
I will see the pain, the hope and sorrow.
The sky will dim, the people afraid.
But who will listen –
Who will answer the pain?

How long will it burn, this fire, this cancer?
Can it burn forever, forever disaster?
Can we put out the flame – divert our fate?
Can someone help us –
Quell the horror and dull the hate?

I have just had a interesting chat with a supplier’s wife who has a contact within the Reserve Bank and due to the nature of her business has other contacts with the RBZ. As usual the talk got onto economics and politics and the topic of the Z$250:US$1 exchange rate came up as being the single most damaging issue in the economy (40% of all exports must be changed with the RBZ at this rate when the black market rate is around 200000:1 and more). She has brought this issue up with the various RBZ officials whom she knows and they have wasted no time distancing themselves from it. The orders come down from On High and no matter how daft, they have to be adhered to – or else. So, until His Nibs moves on the destruction will continue. That’s not to say that a lot of those With Connections don’t have a vested interest in maintaining the status quo.

Earlier this week I had a letter from the local ZANU-PF (ruling party) branch informing me that there is to be a meeting on Sunday at a local farm and “Everyone in our constituency is required to attend this meeting.  This includes commercial farmers”. My first thought was of course f*&#k you but then I gave it a bit more thought. Maybe this would be a good time to get to “know the enemy”. Then I thought it was not such a good idea as I am a bit provocative and would not be able to resist saying pretty much what was on my mind.  In the end I have been rescued from the dilemma by Debbi who wants me to go and take photos at a gym function which sounds a lot more fun and not quite so boring. I was more than a little irritated by some of the wording “Your provincial leadership would like to address you on a number of issues”. I can guess – we need money, and anyway, “MY leadership”? I don’t think so. Oh, and there was also the issue of providing transport. I showed the letter to all my staff who were less than enthused and suggested that someone at least should go though I cannot force anyone (fear of repercussions should do the rest). I have ignored these summons in the past with little comeback but with the ship leaking badly… Who knows?

Interestingly the paper is photocopied onto the back of a spreadsheet printout detailing fuel usage from bulk tanks. ZANU-PF doing fuel stock controls? Unlikely, but not nearly as ironic as the ZANU-PF logo on the letterhead picturing the tower of the central enclosure at Great Zimbabwe (previously known as Zimbabwe Ruins) under which is the slogan “Unity Peace and Development”. I kid you not.

“The pale blue dot” is a well known book by  the late astronomer Carl Sagan. I have not read it but I did come across this article on the web last night which is a text of part of an address he gave at his own university. I suppose it struck a chord in me (see the second paragraph) because of all the strife we are experiencing now in Zimbabwe. Anyway, here it is.

“We succeeded in taking that picture [from deep space], and, if you look at it, you see a dot. That’s here. That’s home. That’s us. On it, everyone you ever heard of, every human being who ever lived, lived out their lives. The aggregate of all our joys and sufferings, thousands of confident religions, ideologies and economic doctrines, every hunter and forager, every hero and coward, every creator and destroyer of civilizations, every king and peasant, every young couple in love, every hopeful child, every mother and father, every inventor and explorer, every teacher of morals, every corrupt politician, every superstar, every supreme leader, every saint and sinner in the history of our species, lived there on a mote of dust, suspended in a sunbeam.

The earth is a very small stage in a vast cosmic arena. Think of the rivers of blood spilled by all those generals and emperors so that in glory and in triumph they could become the momentary masters of a fraction of a dot… Our posturings, our imagined self-importance, the delusion that we have some privileged position in the universe, are challenged by this point of pale light.

Our planet is a lonely speck in the great enveloping cosmic dark. In our obscurity — in all this vastness — there is no hint that help will come from elsewhere to save us from ourselves. It is up to us… To my mind, there is perhaps no better demonstration of the folly of human conceits than this distant image of our tiny world. To me, it underscores our responsibility to deal more kindly and compassionately with one another and to preserve and cherish that pale blue dot, the only home we’ve ever known”.

– Excerpted from a commencement address delivered May 11, 1996

This is the actual picture he is talking about – taken by the Voyager spacecraft when it was about 4 billion miles away as it left the solar system. See the Earth as it really is – in the photo there are three rays of sunshine. In the one furthest to the right (the yellowish one), look VERY closely about the mid point. See that TINY white speck? That’s the home planet where ALL of the above, and all that will ever, take place.

I did a bit of shopping today. It’s been a while since I ventured near a supermarket, about 10 days or so, and supplies are running a bit low so I ventured forth to see what could be found, not expecting much. I was not disappointed. The first supermarket was closed, ostensibly due to lack of availability of diesel to run the generator in the absence of supplied power. I wonder. It might have been more to keep away “affirmative shoppers” and avoid selling below the cost price. We are sorry for the inconvenience. Right.

The second supermarket was open and selling. Great if you like butternut squash, onions and very sad tomatoes. The other shelves were full too. Of all the same thing – soda water mainly. In fact at least 4 entire racks were taken up by soft drinks in large bottles. The freezers had lots of pets’ mince but nothing else. No milk, flour, eggs, bread, meat of any type, sugar or mealie meal (the local staple). Well at least I was not spoilt for choice.  Lots of butter though. I wondered to another shopper if we could somehow reverse the process and get milk from the butter. She appreciated that. So I stocked up on the pets’ mince so that at least Jenni will not go hungry for a while. There were lots of cans of baked beans too. I guess Zimbabweans are going to be losing a bit of weight.