The benighted country under the Milky Way. Half the time there will be little or no lights at this time of night. That’s Jupiter middle top-left and the lights of the Troutbeck Hotel below the horizon.
There are now 8 hour power cuts every day. They usually alternate mornings and afternoon/evenings. The latter are more tedious for domestic issues, the former for work when we are doing most of the watering of the seedlings at the nursery. Power requirements are met with a diesel generator which is big enough to run pumps and office equipment but not the borehole motors which are some 450m away. Those have to wait for the mains power to come back on and run all night if necessary. So far there is enough “on time” from the mains for the boreholes to fill the main 125,000 litre reserve tank but that may not always be the case.
Diesel for the generator comes from a bulk tank that I filled a year ago but that is not going to last forever. Queues at the filling stations have been long and ubiquitous for those paying with the local currency. Got US dollars? No queuing necessary; just drive up to the pump. It’s not cheap at $1.36 per litre but my contact in the fuel industry says he can sell me bulk diesel for 89c per litre with a minimum delivery of 2,500 litres. Given that the unofficial exchange rate is 8.1 of the local dollars to one USD it makes sense to sit in a queue and pay with local money (it’s the equivalent of US60c a litre) if you have the time but one can queue for several hours with no guarantee that the fuel won’t run out.
Last weekend we decided to get out of the stress mire that is Harare and spend a few days in the cold mountain air of the Nyanga mountains in the eastern highlands of Zimbabwe with some friends from Mutare, also in the east. Some phone calls and social media research ascertained that the likelihood of fuel being available in the area was good, but not certain, so in the interests of sanity we dug into our reserves of real money, bypassed the queues at the local fuel station and filled up the pickup and a Jerry-can with diesel. It was worth it to get away. Ever hopeful, I packed a paraglider but the wind was not suitable so we spent the weekend sitting in the sunshine and just chilling out. It turned out to be a literal chilling out with a very sharp frost on the first morning we were there but the company was good and the log fire warm. Yes, the power cuts reached us but it did not matter too much and it turned out there was plenty of diesel available, for US dollars only, at the Troutbeck fuel station. Tourists were in short supply though the hotel seemed to be getting by on conferences. Marianne commented that it must be soul-destroying for the staff to spend the week waiting for weekend tourists who don’t arrive.
Mt Nyangani, Zimbabwe’s highest mountain, dominates the horizon. This was taken from the same spot as the starscape but facing further south. The weather was not as warm as it looks.
On Tuesday I was at the local bank to get my online banking password changed (I’d been locked out for too many wrong login attempts) and the bank official asked me how business was going. I replied that it was OK, my business was still afloat which was better than I’d expected at the beginning of the year but the outlook was still bleak with no promise of a rescue by a US dollar in the wings as had happened in 2009. She agreed with me. Any light that was in the tunnel is fading and it is unrealistic to expect any economic recovery with power cuts for 8 hours in 24. The night is indeed looking dark.
Zimbabwe Absurdity 