Monthly Archives: February 2015

Zimbabwe weekend 2 – a tobacco farm

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It’s a strange, strange feeling being proudly shown around extensive fields of top quality tobacco plants mid-harvest. It has been a really good crop for the farm manager with whom we were staying and his brick barns were full of massive compressed bales of cured leaves waiting to be taken to be sold. It felt odd trying to appreciate a crop whose sole purpose is to shorten lives. He is looking to branch out into potatoes next year: I really hope that takes off – I feel a lot better about potatoes.

There are over 100 black workers who work long, long hours in the searing heat for a wage of one hundred dollars a month. (Zimbabwe’s main currency is US dollars. Currently 100 dollars would be £65). Let’s call it £2 a day. They do get basic housing and electricity in their workers’ village but when we’re sitting on the veranda sipping cold beers and 200 metres away they are surviving on a staple diet of mealie-meal after a long shift in sweltering heat…. It felt awkward.

We attached the speedboat to the new 4 x 4 and drove it down to the lake to do a little recreational fishing. Out on the water we passed some of the locals on the bank, fishing with a little more earnestness.

Sure there are rich and poor in every country of course, but here it felt as though (substituting boat and car for 18th century equivalents perhaps) we might have been back on the cotton plantations.

However, there is one big difference to the way this scene would have looked 20 years ago, say. For today, although the conditions for the workers are the same, the owner of the farm is also black. My white relative is working for him as a farm manager because he has the skills to get the best yield, as he would have done on his parents’ farm had it not been taken from them. A majority of the other stolen farms have not been run so well.

Many Zimbabweans, black and white, have left the country – there are 4 million in South Africa alone.

The black Zimbabweans remaining in Zimbabwe are the poor and the couple of hundred politically and economically protected families that make up the ruling elite. In the words of one ex-pat Zimbabwean now living in South Africa: “They (the ruling elite) have raped and plundered their country and impoverished their people. Almost all the mining resources have been handed over to China with the government ensuring that they are 51% shareholders of everything that comes out the ground. The diamonds they have just stolen. Their contribution is nil and the money made goes to the ruling cabal….. The farms were handed over to the ruling elite and they are in ruins. From an economic perspective you can take the farmers off the land but the skills to work these assets are no longer there…… Sporadic electricity, a collapsing infrastructure, a corrupt government and yet some whites stay. On the surface they enjoy an enviable standard of living but at what cost? What is the risk? Underlying it all is the ever present threat that everything you have can be taken at the stroke of a pen.”

This has happened to some of those in my family. They have started again from scratch and made promising (albeit fragile) futures for themselves. It is a country which is deeply scarred, many of the wounding blows wielded by its own politicians.

I don’t think President Mugabe cares much whether foreigners come into the country – unless it’s to give him money in return for business rights to leach some of the country’s phenomenal natural assets.

With the astonishingly beautiful resources of Victoria Falls, Lake Kariba and some not-too-shabby scenery along the way you would have thought the tourist industry would be forefront in the government’s mind.

And, to lighten the tone a little, having been there I can tell you there is not a fat lot to do as a tourist in Harare. If you log into Trip Advisor and type in “Top Attractions in Harare” the results are a little sparse. Fortunately for us, we could spend lots of time with family. But Harare? Well, it’s not set up for tourists.

However, there’s an exception to most rules and one place which was simply AMAZING is a place called Wild Is Life. It’s a small animal conservation area not far from the airport where they take small groups of people around to fully engage with the wildlife they have there. So, you get to see the lions being fed up close and personal. (Good excuse to show off photos I took – this one of a lion looking at me and, unnervingly, licking his lips!)

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(We were THAT close!). We got to walk with cheetahs, bottle feed giraffes,
stroke a pangalan (one of God’s weirder projects – probably invented on the same day as duck billed platypuses and the blob fish – go on, google “blob fish”, it’s very strange.) Pangalans are a bit like an anteater crossed with a tank. They walk on their back legs with their front paws off the ground, looking like an old (very flexible) man looking for a lost contact lens. Quite rare now – they used to be taken to the head of the tribe to be eaten as this was considered good luck (more for the chief than the pangalan it has to be said). Today, President Mugabe, by decree, owns every pangalan and if you find one you are meant to present it to him. Wild Is Life is thankfully allowed to keep theirs and he has his own keeper who cares for him full time.

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There are lots of animals running pretty free and you also get to meet and greet a little orphan elephant. He and I got on very well and I got to shout things down his trunk.

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It was, all in all, an awesome day of animal encounter

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Zimbabwe, weekend 1. Lake Kariba

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Zimbabwe didn’t fit in with the schedule of the round the world ticket we got. The airlines the company uses don’t fly to Zim as part of any package so we had to buy the plane tickets in and out of the country separately. The reason for including Zimbabwe into the travel plans is that we have relatives over here and we’ve never visited them. We really wanted to come, especially as we would be sort of in the neighbourhood.

My uncle emigrated to Rhodesia (as was) about 50 years ago and spent most of his life in the education system, founding schools and teaching and was a headmaster for many years. There are now cousins and second cousins and cousins once or twice removed (I don’t understand all that stuff) in various parts of the country.

I have been fascinated to see what life here is like in a country so little reported on in the UK in recent years but one which has gone through war, huge upheaval, economic meltdown with a peak inflation rate of 11.2 million percent at one stage and where a tiny minority of whites (1 white Zimbabwean to every 1,000 black Zimbabwean) coexist in an often brittle relationship.

On our first weekend in Zim we went up North to Lake Kariba.

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(My arty shot of the lake)

Just before we headed lakeward I read from Blighty the ludicrous news of the letter which was sent out by the department of health and insanity in the UK to leading supermarkets asking them to move daffodil flowers and daffodil bulbs away from fruit and veg sections in case people mistake them for onions or Chinese edible plants and try to cook them which can have unfortunate side effects such as dying. (It reminds me of an unfortunate mistake I once made in Tesco when their stationery aisle was placed close to the meat section and I cooked a packet of felt tip pens thinking they were sausages.)

I think that if people need to be told not to eat daffodil bulbs they are probably beyond help.

I would shudder to read a list of all the things we have been warned about in the UK that are bad for you, many of which will change every few years or so to contradict what you were told before.

It puts things into a new perspective when you come to a place where there are all sorts of things are a lot more dangerous than daffodil bulbs!

Namely, Lake Kariba – it makes Windermere look a bit puddle-like. It’s the world’s largest man made lake – lies between Zimbabwe and Zambia – it’s over 200 km long and up to 40 km wide in parts. It’s big and it’s beautiful.

And it’s dangerous! Positively packed full of things that want to kill you. Lots of hippos and more crocodiles than you could shake a stick at (while screaming: “Go away!” Loudly).

In England the most dangerous thing you’ll find in a lake is a shopping trolley.

People are regularly “taken” by crocodiles here. The last one (from the small jetty where we got on and off our little boat each day) was just a few weeks ago. The jetty is about 8 foot by 5 foot and a foot above the water. The water was murky brown so you couldn’t see what was lurking beneath and it left us feeling a little bit English – really wanting to get off it as quickly as possible but also having a desperate urge to form a slow moving queue.

We saw locals sitting, fishing, on the very edge of the lake with crocodiles a few metres away from them.

We sailed partway up “crocodile alley” which is a river running into the lake with a shedload of crocodiles and hippos. Think Roger Moore in Live and Let Die in the scene on the little island at the crocodile farm but with hippos added into the mix. We sailed past a group of 14 hippo adults and babies wallowing about but when a few of the adults started submerging and heading our way the anxious vibes we were giving off were picked up by Cap’n Mike and we high tailed it back to wider water.

We spent two seriously hot mornings fishing for bream with a fair amount of success and had a wonderful experience on the second evening when sitting on the front lawn and looked up to see an adult hippo grazing just 20 feet from us.

Traveling back from Kariba we slammed to a halt 20 feet from two elephants, grazing at the side of the road. We took a few photos and were saying lots of lovely things about how magnificent they were and how amazing it was to see them in the wild, just a few feet away, when a couple of cars and a pickup truck roared past at high speed – there were about 8 people in the back of the truck who were yelling at the elephants as they flew by which was crazily irresponsible: it was us who would be left to deal with a couple of distressed and stroppy nellies. Mike figured that reversing away from them would be a very good idea but the numpty in the car behind was frozen to the spot and wouldn’t move. Only option left was to try to get past the elephants before they charged.

I’m not sure whether it’s a good or bad thing that Mike’s truck is a big silver Toyota 4 x 4 which, if it had a trunk and big floppy ears would probably pass muster as a slightly under-height pachyderm, but these two very real elephants looked mighty peeved. I was videoing the scene on my phone, as there seemed nothing else to do other than scream and pray, and I have a great shot of the elephant nearest us stamping and trumpeting and generally being pretty angry and the second one, quieter (it’s the quiet ones you’ve got to watch, apparently) running at us as we race past and miss it by a metre.

There are definitely bits of Africa that are out to kill us.

You can forgive it a few assassination attempts as it gives such a lot in return. Lake Kariba is just stunning. With majestic fish eagles and herons and kingfishers flying around and elephants, warthog, zebra, hippos and crocodiles all spotted (zebra, striped) on one day. Huge skies – stunning sunsets. It’s easy there to think thankful thoughts of creation and creator.

Zimbabwe – part 1

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As I write this we are back in South Africa having spent 3 amazing weeks in Zimbabwe. Apologies for the lack of posts in the last fortnight but we have been without electricity fairly often and without WiFi for most of the stay.

And it’s difficult to know what to write about our views of a country which has had a recent history so different to ours and has a view of how whites employ backs which relies on buying in to understanding how things were in the past in order to accept how things now are: where black farm workers labour long and hard for £2 a day and the question posed to a group of white ladies as to whether it would be comprehendible to employ a white maid rather than a black one was met with absolute incredulity.

Also, I don’t want to be disingenuous to those who showed us such wonderful and generous hospitality – but who, in the majority, have views of black and white which are massively different to ours. Anything I write is from a very british perspective.

Firstly, mentioning as we will be in a little while,100 dollar bills, it would be good to stumble across some as the Zimbabwean authorities like to take lots off you.

When we flew in to Zimbabwe we got stung for 110 US dollars for entry visas. When we were visiting various places in Zimbabwe we got charged up to 5 times the local entry price for being British. Admittedly, at some of the places where they tried it we avoided the extortionate hike by pretending to be Zimbabwean. We managed this by not talking – for even my best impersonation would not have passed muster – even saying “shame” and “lekker” four times in every sentence wouldn’t totally fool the locals methinks. Then, at the airport on the way out of the country, we were stopped at the security desk and told we had to pay an exit tax. Another 100 US dollars. So we pay ‘entry’ tax, we pay “being here and visiting things’ taxes and ‘having the temerity to leave’ tax.

At the airport, on being told we had to pay the “exit tax” I didn’t voice my disbelief and displeasure nearly as colourfully and vernaculary as the guy in front of me as I feared the next conversation the guards had with me might well go along the lines of……

Thank you for paying the 100 dollars exit tax which I have pleasure in taking from you whilst not giving you a receipt. And while I have you here, may I ask: Did you breathe whilst you were staying in Zimbabwe sir?
Breathe?
Yes, that is correct, did you breathe at all?
Yes. I did. I felt it was necessary on occasion.
Well then sir, there is the Inhalation Tax to pay. That’ll be ten dollars, please.
What? For breathing in?
Yes sir. You were breathing Zimbabwean air which is the president”s air. He likes to have the air first. If you breathe it before him you must pay the tax.
That’s not fair.
No, but you are. Now then, may I solicitously enquire whether you then held your breath during your entire stay, sir?
No, I can’t say I did.
So you breathed out then?
Of course.
Ahh, well then there is the Exhalation Levy to pay too.
Which is?
5 dollars.
Half the price of the inhalation tax.
Special offer.
Well, fifteen dollars for being allowed to breathe is reasonable, I suppose: it”s definitely worth it for all the beautiful scenery I saw.
Ahh, did you look at the scenery, sir?
Yes. A lot of it was beautiful.
Then you’re liable to the Looking At Things Tax.
You’re trying to tell me there’s a tax for looking at things?
Indeed sir, ohh, and I hope for your sake you didn’t use both eyes……. And did you enjoy the views?
How much is the tax if I did?
40 dollars.
And if I didn’t?
40 dollars.
I don’t understand.
Don’t worry sir, there’s an Incomprehensible Tax which covers that…. If you’d kindly open your wallet you can leave the rest to me.

As it was, I paid the ridiculous 100 dollar exit tax and sadly, left a beautiful country with a sour taste in the mouth. Zimbabwe really doesn’t seem to care much about tourists.

Shame.

That word “shame” is an awesome Zimbabwean word (South Africans use it too, but Zim uses it much more) which seems to have an infinite number of uses. It can mean something is bad, good, happy, sad, obvious, mysterious – anything really.

I didn’t dare use it because I had an unnerving feeling I would use it totally wrong – which is strange because nowhere really seems to be the wrong place for it to go in any sentence as far as I can tell.

The following would be an entirely normal conversation between two Zimbabweans.

Hi.
Shame.
Shame.
I went to the shops this morning.
Shame. What did you get?
Trousers.
Shame.
Then I couldn’t find my car keys. Shame.
Shame.
But then I found them.
Shame.
Shame. And I found a 100 dollar bill.
Shame.
Shame.

There really is nowhere it can’t go and yet I know that if I said it even once it would sound entirely wrong.
A Zimbabwean: “Hi, Jon, would you like some eggs?”
Me: “Shame.”
(Frosty silence as they look at me like I’d just kicked their kitten).
So I stayed resolutely English and used words like “sandals” (they call them slops), “trainers” (takkies), pick up trucks (bukkies) MOT (they don’t have them – if you can get your car to go, that’s good enough) and “jolly good” (lekker).

Zimbabwe is a beautiful land – if she were a literary character she would be Miss Havisham.

Cape Town to Johannesburg – part 2

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When we left you, dear reader, we were on a long, slow train journey through the Karoo and on to Johannesburg. We pick up at the end of the journey…..

Arriving at Johannesburg train station we thought “As long as we stay with the crowds we will be fine.’ A tad unfortunately, we had somehow managed to lose our train tickets. When I say lose our train tickets I mean we threw them away. They were not the world’s most interesting looking pieces of paper and we thought that they had served their purpose since the train manager had stamped them 28 hours and 1400 km earlier and now that the train was nearing the station and the chap came round collecting our rubbish we lozzed them in along with banana skins, drinks cans and a couple of pages ripped out in frustration from the Times Cryptic Crossword book my mum gave me as a leaving present thinking it would pass an hour or two. Even working backwards by looking at the answers in the back and then reading the questions brought very little insight.

Also of very little insight was the throwing away of our tickets.

We shuffled along the crowded platform towards the bottleneck at the foot of the single escalator where guards were forcing the flock of hundreds of travellers to become a single line by taking their tickets. Everyone else dutifully handed theirs in and walked off away from the bowels of the station and up the escalator to freedom, looking all sort of happy and smug at having retained their tickets just long enough to give them away to the correct person. Leaving us to discover how rapidly an already unsmiling guard’s face could become an unsavoury mess of gall, bitterness and personal affrontedness. We couldn’t have asked for a more “this is NOT going to end as happily as you naively think it might” look if we had been left to look after his granny and his Porsche for a fortnight while he was on holiday and got the care instructions for the two mixed up.

We were escorted by armed guard to the security section.

On the bright side, we were probably in one of the safest places in Johannesburg at that point so we didn’t have to worry about getting stabbed or mugged (see comment on last blog) – but getting conned looked like it was coming right up. They insisted we buy tickets again even though we could show them our confirming email from their company showing we had paid in Cape Town and the train manager could vouch for us as we’d had several conversations withy them and they had stamped our tickets (albeit 28 hours and 1400 km before). This held as much interest to them as a toothpick to a jellyfish. They wanted more money.

Fortunately, when talk of hand-cuffs was moving from something I had unwisely joked about to becoming a distinct possibility Clive burst through the doors. (I say ‘burst’ purely for dramatic effect as he actually just walked through the solitary door but as he was going to be our saviour he definitely symbolically burst through.

Knight-like.

And unless I’ve mis-remembered there was a fanfare playing.

Clive looks like what he is – a successful businessman, Jo’bg born and bred and I doubt even his mother had ever managed to stand in his way. With an impressive fold of the arms and a stance which suggested he “knew stuff” he whisked us out of there faster than an SAS snatch team. We’d never met him before but, as a friend of a friend of Ella’s sister he had kindly offered to host us for the night when we’d emailed him the week before having decided to stay overnight in Jo’bg and fly up to Harare the next day in case the train was late.

Clive runs lots of businesses and has very cool cars. We told him about what the internet had said about how dangerous Johannesburg was and he said that he has lived there all his life and has only ever been mugged once – and that was in London. Having swam in their pool and giggled about what temperature it might be in England (sorry, England) we were taken out by Clive and Joanna to a meat-eaters’ (which I reckon could correctly have an apostrophe before the s, after the s, or not have one at all and each would be correct) paradise that evening. Not Carnivore, which Zoe suggested on one of the blog comments – but they were fishing in the same pool, or at least hunting in the same reserve. Crocodile tail pie and warthog curry were excellent and very reasonably priced, and Ella had kudu, which I thought was a little dear. (Falls off bed laughing)

Flight from Johannesburg to Harare was uneventful apart from a wonderful moment at the departure gate when we were told the plane was delayed. Someone asked the lady at the desk if she knew for how long and she replied: “I have no idea. Unfortunately we cannot find the plane.”

I hoped we would all be asked to help look for it but that was not to be.

What is it with having to buy a visa in order to be allowed in to a country? You get it at the airport and there may as we’ll be a sign above the booth that says: “licence to print money”. 55 U S dollars each. It’s not as if people coming in are not going to be spending money in the country while they’re here. Oh, and thanks “experiencezimbabwe.com” for stating that Visas cost 50 dollars on your website which you proudly say was updated only last week so there’s me thinking I only needed to withdraw 100 dollars in Jo’bg airport…. Ahh, no – you’ll be needing more than that.