Zimbabwe with a step-ma

Joan and I waiting for an oven specialist

Last month: I’m in Harare where there’s a fuel shortage, the economy is in an uproar and people are stock piling whatever they can get their hands on. My main mission is to drive to the Eastern Highlands some 286kms from the capital to clear the remaining bits and pieces from my father’s house. I anticipate encountering all sorts of difficulties; my travelling companion is my partially sighted 85-year-old step-mother who wants to visit her old stamping grounds. Yet there is no real trouble. My way is smoothed by the hospitable, generous and ever-optimistic Zimbabwean people who, despite having enormous hardships, collectively make my 11-day stay easy, interesting - and also rather bizarre.

There’s always a bit of apprehension about heading back to Zimbabwe after a two-year absence as one never knows what to expect. Are there huge changes since Emmerson Mnangagwa took over? Is cholera rampant? Plenty of time to ponder on the transfer bus as it rumbles along Dubai International Airport’s tarmac towards the Emirates Airline plane destined for Harare, always parked at a slot miles away from anywhere.

On board, the movie Mary Shelley (author of Frankenstein aka Mary Wollstonecraft); directed by Haifaa-al-Mansour is compelling, a shocking true reflection of the loneliness and pain humans can cause to one another, yet again such pain can lead to inspiration as it did for her.

After the normal one-hour wait in Lusaka we depart for Harare International Airport, a quick 40 minute flight, then it’s US$55 for a single entry visa. Five purple bags trundle by on the baggage carousel and I haul off four mistakenly thinking one is mine. It then shudders to halt as a power cut darkens the room. This is one of the country’s many shortcomings. A generator eventually starts up and soon enough the bag arrives intact.

I’m met by a relative who expostulates about the economy, first trussing up the big purple case in the back of his pick-up truck as a precaution should an opportunist thief decide to pounce if we stop at the traffic lights. I wedge a smaller case underneath my feet so my knees are up to my chin.

It’s hard to fathom Zimbabwe’s money situation. Although the US dollar is the official currency, there’s very little hard cash in circulation so virtual banking and telephonic transfers are the way to pay for goods. US$ in cash are effectively twice or more (up to 6 times more) as strong as the virtual US dollar foreign currency residents hold in their bank accounts. This virtual money is also available in tangible notes and coins, known as bonds.

As I don’t have virtual/ethereal money I’m given a local debit card with access to this virtual money (held in a virtual bank?) plus a phone which also has virtual money on it, called eco-cash. And this is how all Zimbabweans pay for commodities.

Jacarandas in Marondera

[In 2008 the Mugabe government destroyed the economy with crippling inflation. As a result all pensions and savings held within the country were wiped out overnight. In February 2009 the US dollar became the official currency; from then on all deposits placed into local bank accounts were supposed to be US dollar deposits, put in by means of a mobile bank money transfer, a Real Time Gross Settlement (RTGS) transfer or cash.]

Living in a parallel universe surely forces people to be hugely inventive, flexible and sharp in order to navigate the laws that seem to change daily. Running any sort of business here is extremely challenging.

Once I get a grip on how to get around, an ex-farmer chucked off his property by Mugabe’s henchmen in around 2005 lends me his “pension”, a top-notch Toyota pick-up 1 ½ cab with GPS, air conditioning and ¾ full of diesel. He explains more about the economy but it is beyond comprehension. It seems to me the government is stealing from the entire population yet again.  Not surprisingly he heads for the Mozambique coast for a break.

 I head for Marondera about an hour’s drive from Harare where my step-mother stays with family. In this small town there’s a spectacular welcome from an avenue of jacaranda trees, their blossom creating purple carpets along the road sides. I’m told all’s well with family members but they have a few issues including a broken oven. Despite having taken it to a repair shop, there it has sat idle for six weeks because these specialists don’t have transport to move it to Mutare where repairs are done.

So when step-ma and I leave 8˚C Marondera next morning there’s an oven in the back of the top-notch pick up. Our suitcases are jammed against the back to stop the oven from crashing into the back windows should I have to brake suddenly.

The main road has a few toll gates manned by people who chat and laugh with us. It is refreshing to note that everyone here is very respectful towards my snowy white haired step-mother. She becomes almost a celebrity.

There is no fuel queue in Macheke where a happy attendant bounces out, fills up, asks me for a job as he knows I have just come from the big smoke of Harare, and I say, “You are better off here”. 

"Frankly my dear, I couldn't give a damn" 

In central Mutare an oven specialist called Milton meets us and jumps into the back of the top-notch pick up, directing us to Sakubva high density suburb where crowds are buying, selling, bartering and hanging out. Milton asks what’s wrong with the oven. “Haven’t a clue,” I say feeling rather stupid. Later on I discover the felt lining has been eaten by rats.

At a garage we have a pit stop and buy a loaf of bread for $1.10. I give a $2 bond note; the change is in tiny plastic bond 20 cent coins.
My step-ma, who smokes tobacco like a trooper when she gets a chance, puffs away. “Supporting the Zimbabwean economy,” she breezes and doesn't listen to those who tell her smoking is bad for her. Tobacco is indeed a big earner here.

Vumba

We reach the Vumba, a region of stunning mountain views, forests, streams and prolific birdlife including the rare Swynnerton's robin, sunbirds and silvery-cheeked hornbills. Despite her macular degeneration my step-mother appreciates the lush greenery and breathes in the absolute peace and quiet. Our hired stone cottage is just up the road from my house. It is modestly furnished with a cosy indoor fireplace that Jonathan the security guard comes to prepare, greeting us with a cheerful smile and perfect English.

Top Cottage Vumba

That evening our former housekeeper tracks us down in the cottage. Word gets around pretty fast here. Sipiwe was let go a month ago as new tenants are taking over the house with their own staff. But she helps me for the next three days and is the recipient of most of the paraphernalia we have been hanging onto (my father died in 2007) for whatever reason people hang onto stuff for. For daft reasons I take home a cut glass water jug, my parents’ Mah Jong set and one of my very first LP records - John Denver's Greatest Hits (1973).

Sipiwe with the piles of rubbish

I’m pretty glad Sipiwe is there as apart from the house being kind of remote she knows where everything is, and then there’s a scratching noise in one of the boxes of kitchen utensils. It sounds like an elephant but is in fact a large pregnant mouse, she tells me after dealing with it somewhere outside.

So we clear the house, my step-ma doing what she can sifting through old bits of paper, books, spectacles and shoes, rubbish left behind by some gold prospectors who once lived in the pool house but just disappeared in 2015 and haven’t been heard of since. We find an intriguing note: “Moz. Go through Sussundenga to Dombe. Before Dombe on RT Chimanimani National Park – gold there. Dombe, Buzi River joined by Haroni and Rusitu rivers. Try to get to these. Haroni in Zimbabwe is mined by Russians for diamonds.”

From the house the views of distant hills and neighbouring Mozambique remain spectacular. Lion Rock mountain at the back is pink at sunset, golden in the late afternoon and often shrouded in mist.

On the second evening we have a stiff gin and tonic followed by a magnificent roast chicken and the best crunchy Yorkshire pudding ever (sorry Jackie Fulton from Richmond, North Yorkshire), provided at the cottage owners’ home. The Morgans have been here since the 1970s, seen many changes and despite times being tough don’t want to go anywhere, least of all their native Yorkshire. “Here I’m somebody able to make a difference, there I’m nobody,” Roger says. And they do make a big contribution to all in this tiny community.
Lunch next day is at nearby Whitehorse Inn, still serving up delicious meals and maintaining its lush gardens of elephant ears, shrubs, trees and lawn, and tucked behind the greenery is a sparkling blue swimming pool.

Whitehorse Inn pool

On Monday when we visit my lawyer in Mutare town we hear that the illegal money changers below their window are being handcuffed and marched off. I couldn’t see anything, only the tail of my top-notch pick up, a blessing that it is still there and still intact. It’s a bit of a worry driving around in someone’s pension.

The money changers set up business on the pavement using deckchairs as offices, do deals via mobile phones, while cash is carried in sling bags across their chests. Most people use these dealers so are a bit sad at their arrest.

We then visit a friend of a friend who is up in arms about the potential development of 67 houses in an area clearly marked for agricultural use. The Mutare District Council could have a battle on its hands - but I sadly doubt it. There’s a magnificent lunch of fresh garden produce and steak  and kidney pies. Another lunch guest goes to a great deal of trouble to bring me a very special chunk of wood - generally used for making wind instruments – which my son has asked me to source for him to make a knife handle at his self-built forge.

On the way back to the cottage we stop at a garage to pick up a coke. At the check-out the cashier tells me I cannot have it. When I look surprised, she says:  “No takeaways, unless you have an empty glass bottle - do you?” I didn’t. And back at “home” there is Jonathan waiting to make the fire and chat about life in the district. Nancy also comes by, hugging her jumper to keep out the cold wind, and offers me some delicious home-made vegetable soup as I have now developed an Asian cold (it must have come off the plane).

La Rochelle Estate

La Rochelle Country House

Next day we take ages to depart as we don’t really feel like leaving this beautiful part of the world, but head to La Rochelle Estate off the Penhalonga Road. The French-style turreted country house built by Sir Stephen and Lady Virginia Courtauld in 1951 and donated to the National Trust of Zimbabwe (NTZ) in 1970 has been beautifully revamped. There are rose and botanical gardens, an orchid house and an agricultural training centre for small scale farmers.

The philanthropists whose wealth was based on textiles fascinate me as Sir Stephen had been awarded the Military Cross for his bravery in the First World War while Lady Virginia was the daughter of an Italian marquis, a divorcee, had a snake tattooed up her leg (rather a shock to society in 1930s’ Britain) and travelled around the world with a pet ring-tailed lemur called Mah-Jongg. He is buried in the garden - a granite monument featuring a carved lemur on the front has the rather poignant words: “Companion in our travels over many lands and seas” engraved on one side, and “Much loved member of our family for fifteen years” on the other. While eccentric they did a lot of good deeds for the country and its people, and built many public structures which are still in use today.

A lemur's tombstone

In the orchid house Peter shows me the rare Vanda lombakensis Virginia Courtauld, discovered on an East Java island and so named by Sir Stephen Courtauld. It was kept in a glass house in their property at Eltham Palace, London. When this was bombed in the Second World War, a tiny piece of the orchid was salvaged then brought to Southern Rhodesia when they moved here. In 2016 it flowered for the first time after 40 years. Peter hopes it will flower again in February 2019.

We return to Marondera. That night a bush baby (or nagapie in Afrikaans – it’s a small primate), establishes itself the jacaranda tree outside our house and screeches loudly at the domestic cats below. Ah Africa! I successfully eco-cash money to Sipiwe who now has a job in the Chimanimani. I’m getting the hang of things.

Tabitha at the avocado tree

I leave my step-mother behind as there is no fuel in Harare so we have no idea of how or when she could get back. I also suspect she is succumbing to my Asian flu. Feeling a complete heel I depart, along with six enormous avocados just picked off their trees.

Ngomokurira

There’s a small boy at Mutake Primary School in the village of Ngomokurira who has Steven Johnson Syndrome, apparently a reaction to an antiretroviral drug. I WhatsApp his doctor to ask what is needed as I’m visiting the school today. A prescription arrives by email and I can only get it if I pay in US$ cash at a particular pharmacy in Harare. For a visitor it is not an issue to hand over the rare foreign currency. Three tiny bottles to briefly alleviate his painful and itchy eyes cost $48.

In the top-notch vehicle I fetch an ace botanist relative who knows the way to Domboshawa and the Ngomokurira hill. Head teacher Mrs Nyamuhwe tells us there are 1,128 kids, 20 teachers and 12 student teachers, so it is about 40 to 45 children in a class. We are taken aback at how well-disciplined, attentive and polite the children are. The parents and teachers run the school while the government pays for the teachers’ salaries. There are not enough classrooms so half the lessons are conducted outside under shady mango trees. The tiny open-sided block of a kitchen is closed due to the cholera outbreak in another part of Harare earlier in the year.

The kids’ uniforms are a crisp, white-and-green check and every child has one. Most have shoes, but not all. They have rabbits in hutches and a vegetable garden for the children to nurture, harvest and then sell in the local market to swell school funds. Some parents are installing beehives in the eucalyptus trees, the honey from which will also be sold.

Inside class

Outside class

In the bare earth playground that holds two metal slides, a see-saw and old car tyres half buried in the ground, the children seem happy.

Before we leave the head and deputy head insist we have some food, it is the Shona custom. We feel greedy about taking the grilled chicken from them as they have so little, but of course do so.

Bougainvillea

Back in Harare the next day I have breakfast with retired family friends who travel a great deal but spend more and more time enjoying Zimbabwe’s climate, social life and golf courses. Their main concern today is a crumbled pergola festooned with bougainvillea which is now being propped up by some old planks. A man arrives to talk about reconstructing it. My friend was quoted $900 for the job last Saturday; by today Friday it will cost him $6,000 for the same thing. Of course my friend explodes and there’s a bit of argie bargie with the owner of the company down the telephone line and the poor bearer of bad news gets it in the neck. My friend will not bend the knee to people who climb on the band wagon of this economic crisis, so the bougainvillea will continue to be propped up by old planks.

I spend the weekend with other friends, and we chew the fat on the patio enjoying the cool evening air and a little Bombay Sapphire and tonic to keep away the mosquitoes (none at this time of year but it’s a great excuse).

The white stripes in the centre are firemen

Around 7.30pm one night we see a ball of orange fire consume a tree in what looks like the next door garden. Being alarmed as well as innately curious I go to investigate and discover it is on the boundary of the neighbour and its adjoining property. Three by-standers hover at the gate, saying there are big dogs inside. I whistle and yell and eventually a thin dishevelled old man scrambles to the gate and beckons us in frantically. He had been burning rubbish (illegal in a residential area) and torched two enormous tall trees in the process. Other people including a security guard, a tipsy chap, two young men constantly pressing their mobile phones and a caretaker from the Franciscan Friars Centre also come to look or help.

Not one person along that road has a complete hosepipe, just bits. Together we try to make a hosepipe out of the pieces, finally get one long enough, and apply it to the tap. The water trickles out - the pressure is useless for a blaze that high. We try throwing buckets of water from a fish pond at the flames but really it’s no use.

No-one has called the fire brigade as they don’t have faith in a system that didn’t work in Mugabe’s era. No-one knows the correct number - when I Google 111 comes up but no answers from that. (I discover later that’s New Zealand’s emergency number.)

Eventually my friends find a number which I call. Surprisingly a man answers instantly, asks relevant questions, and says: “We are coming”. Yeah right we say and look at the sparking orange trees opposite us with trepidation. But sure enough, within 10 minutes a fire engine is zooming down our road with lights blazing and siren whooping. Strong pressure hoses pound the fire and later we hear the still sparking trees being cut down with a chain saw.

Visit

I’m trying to convey that while it is not a destination on many people’s radars, (although Lonely Planet has just added it to their list of 10 destinations travellers should visit in 2019, see https://www.lonelyplanet.com/best-in-travel/countries), visitors here will learn some life lessons and also may appreciate that special sense of community that exists in some parts of Africa. Zimbabwe is conundrum, a mixed-bag of highs and lows, of things that work and things that don’t.  Real dollars will boost morale and help the nation rebuild, while the visitor will get more than just a bog standard holiday. The country offers unparalleled natural beauty, historic treasures and national parks with professional guides cited among Africa’s best.

Support of the tourism industry filters down to the people of country, 90% of whom are unemployed (albeit become small-scale entrepreneurs by default). That’s just what Zimbabweans do – they make a plan.

NEXT MONTH: KERALA, GOD’s OWN COUNTRY!