Mental Arithmetic is not dead

So I went to buy my lunch today and the change came to some odd amount of cents.
"Bother", I thought, "A credit note".

Let me explain.
For the past few years, Zimbabwe has been a "multicurrency economy". What this means is that you can officially use US$, sterling, South Africa rand, Botswana Pula, Euro or even Zim$.  Officially.  In practice, in Harare, you use US$.
But we have notes only, not coins.  What coins are in circulation are rand or occasionally pula.
So if I hand over US$5 for a $4.32 burger and chips, the normal 68c change is not going to happen.  The normal is that the store will issue a credit note for 68c and the next time I am in that particular store (and remember), I cash it in.

Not this time.

I was handed, without so much as a pause, R2.05 and one pula.
Mental arithmetic is not dead!  Who in a normal world can calculate that USc 68 = R2.05 + P1 and calculate it in less time than that?

I might spend my days working in the Payment Industry and helping people do clever things with electronic money.  This helps the coin dilemma.
But it comes no where near close to the cleverness of the Mental Arithmetic at the shop.

Apathy or irony

At Saturday night's NAMA Ceremony, Dr. Tony Mhonda was awarded "Outstanding Arts Reporter"
Unfortunately, the nation's Outstanding Arts Reporter didn't attend the ceremony. 
Maybe he had a crisis, I don't know. 
Or maybe the National Arts Merit Awards are not of interest to an Outstanding Arts Reporter.

No matter.  At least his home paper publishes his picture on their report of the evening!

Honoured!

It's more than a question of being recognised. 
It's more than realising that there are many great performances that have not been recognised. 
It's more than the rosy glow that comes with other people being prouder of you than you are of yourself.
It's more than an opportunity to stop and remember that I am nothing in my own strength.
It's more than a trophy, a certificate, a program (and some cash).
It's more than the tantalising allure of things to come.
It's more than I can understand.
But I am honoured, and grateful.

From Changi to Bogota

So, my phone now knows where it is.
Or not.

As with the rest of us, its guidance mechanisms are only as good as its experience and its source - but not necessarily in that order.
The phone knows to ask the nearest GPRS tower for coordinates.
That's experience. That's a learned (programmed) response.

But the tower does not always give valid coordinates. The Source is fallible.

So...
I woke up this morning in my own bed in Harare, but to be told that I was in the Changi aea of Singapore.
And I am now sitting in Harare International Airport being told that I am in Bogota, Columbia.

Well done Econet Wireless!
Changi to Bogota in one morning with no jet lag.
I believe that setting the correct coordinates on the base stations is relatively simple. It just has to be done right. Someone has to be told. And they have to do it.

Thanks be to G-d this Christmas!
Not only did Him tell his engineers, the prophets, what to say, but He made sure they got it right.
And above that, just in case we didn't hear them correctly and still were unable to navigate correctly, He sent His Son to show the way; to BE the Way

Unrest anyone?

No thanks, We'll just go drink my Schweppes Lemon.  We'll meet you there.  Shuuwa!

(via Cynic Harare  who also points out that "Detractor is a farm vehicle!")

Silver Spur, Holiday Inn, Harare

The "spoil myself" day which has brought me to the Woodlands began with a juicy monkey gland steak at the Spur.
Quality is as good as ever. (although I still prefer my olives pitted)
And it was peaceful.
Maybe five tables in use in the whole place.
Just what I needed. Don't disturb me. Just let me settle down and unwind.
The apple pie was not too bad either. Not perfect, but plenty good enough.
Anyone know where Monkey Gland steak gets its name from?
What do they do with the rest of the monkey?

Lunch time!

There are a number of feeding sites like the one on the right of this picture. Vegetables lie strewn around.
I guess 2011 is not just a lean year for the people of Zimbabwe. Even the animals need food assistance.
Soon after this picture was taken, the group of eleven impala gathered tightly and got stuck in... before a giraffe wandered down to displace them.
Even the guinea fowl realised that the top of the tower might not have been meant for them.

Deep knee bends

Mukuvisi Woodlands

Ok, so it's not Ngezi.
That was the plan for today. But plans have changed such that I scratch Ngezi and the first night of the national One Act Play Festival at Campbell Theatre in Kadoma.

But, God willing, I'll get to the Festival tomorrow.

Meantime, sunny skies, baked veldt, ostriches, zebra, impala,ibis, assorted water fowl...
It's not all bad!

Current Location Unavailable

Nice idea.
Put a Google Latitude widget on your blog page.
Until your phone thinks that the internet is a bad place and refuses to go there. As you currently see, my widget says "Current Location Unavailable".

I'm leaving it there because one day (maybe soon) I will be back online.

BTW - anyone have any ideas on how a HTC P3400 can send and receive emails to a variety or email systems, but not want to play nicely with internet or related apps?
The nice lady at Econet says everything is fine.
It's not.
It's just weird.

(If you want to know, at time of writing, I'm in Harare.  At time or reading, who knows?)

Winter's afternoon

The sky is a bleached blue, the air has a bight, but the doors are open again, and I'm back in short-sleeves.

Winter is not over yet, but the "nice" part of winter is upon us.  

And I like it!

2009 - the coming of the Green Back. Officially

2009 - the coming of the Green Back.  Officially

Noone would have dreamed, in the last days of 2008 that the coming year would shape up so very differently.  Few men would have believed that in the silent realms of hyperinflationary economics, minds immeasurable different to ours were watching us.  And slowly and surely, they drew their plans against us.

(With apologies to H G Wells' remarkable "War of the Worlds")

But early in the year, Zimbabwe suddenly staggered from a dollarised black-market into a legalised multi-currency environment which turned out to be predominantly USD in Harare and the north of the country, and ZAR in Bulawayo and regions closer to the Rand monetary area.

Suddenly, the few Zimbabweans with jobs and money became relatively rich and were briefly able to buy, buy, buy to their hearts' content.

But slowly, although the shops in the more affluent areas continue to be well stocked (certainly relative to the preceeding years of run-away zillions of Zim dollars), the available pool of green-backs has been sopped up.
It will be a hard Christmas again.  But, as various commentators have pointed, this is what Zimbabweans can cope with.  If we learned nothing else in the last few years, you now know how little we need to survive.

Chivero
Some will travel for hours and days to see wonders.
We are just so blessed of God that, within an hour of Harare, we have such marvellous wildlife!
My nephew is up from Joburg for a few days. Any excuse. Four of us (Bryden, Edgar Dacre - a long standing family friend, Mum and I) went out to Chivero National Park today.

As excellent as ever. Impala, tsesebee, zebra, warthog, giraffe, more zebra, rhino, fish eagles (with fish), more zebra, more impala, squirrels, zebra...
So close, so wonderful.
Such a privelege

Edgar joins "the diaspora" in a few weeks. How the glorious weather plays on his expectations of the UK wetness, is up to the imagination. We just provide the home-sickness in advance - not the ability to cope with it!

Inflation
Central Statistical Office says that, for the month of April 2003, Zimbabwe's inflation rate hit a new level.
269%.
We are into an arena of unimaginables. How does one plan for anything?
I remember growing up hearing of folk in (then) Israel going straight from the pay office to the shops to buy anything and everything. Making sure that all the pay was spent imeadiately. Stockpiling whatever they could find - from jam to Jaguars. Anything to get the capital as goods rather than cash.
It was a joke.
We pitied them in a distant, far off way.

Now I buy a month's supply of bread at a throw, and that twice a week.
It freezes, and it's going up.
It's no longer "them" - it's "us".

And ZCTU says that we need to stock up on food because the next strike will be the big one.
What food?
OK, I'm at the top of the food chain, but what proportion of the population feel in a position to stock up on anything?
What proportion can find the necesaries to stock up on?

Where will it end?

And still we know it is not as bad as it might have been. Do you remember that "one hit wonder" STEP team band "Voyce" who came through Zimbabwe in the late '80s? They had a song which included the words

If the Lord had not been on our side
We would have been the ones who died
That's easy to say. Many are dying anyway. It almost feels as if God has abandoned us. I don't believe He has. It's not His style!
It would be so much worse if He had.

Great Wall Chinese Restaurant, Harare
Dinner for two. Great grub, great company, Great Wall.
I could go back there.
Where? You know - East Road, behind Reps
And not as bad as the Fingaz review from July 2002. (Not to mention the other bits of Grace Mutandwa's private life and newspaper article!)

So you were surprised I have a web page(/blog/whatever)?
Well now your dinner is on it. Ha!
Garlic chicken wings, gingery lamb something or other and grilled bananas. Ha!