We Are On Our Last Legs

Another great morning, this time full of anticipation. Allan had decided to stay in Bulawayo and get caught up with some old friends and he would come up to Harare a day later than us. So then there were five. I like to shower in the mornings, and I was excited by the fact that here we were in a very comfortable house and that there was a real bathroom with hot water and clean fluffy towels in my future. Imagine my disappointment when I turned on the tap and everything was cold. We asked why and found out that it was a Monday. No electricity on Mondays. Oh well. This is Africa. The most difficult thing that morning was recovering from the mosquitoes. They must have some kind of proboscis champion breeding program in Bulawayo because I have never been bitten so often or so persistently. The little bastards weren’t repelled by regular spraying of off, or by trying to hide under the sheets. When I was moaning about the little spitfires Johnny said to me that there were only a couple of them, and that they were just very vicious. I asked how he knew this and he told me that he had had the lights on and counted. Just goes to show how demented that incessant buzzing can make you.

Driving out of Bulawayo we stopped in at a friend’s mother’s house. The streets of that town are absolutely beautiful, wide and spacious and lined with Jacaranda trees which were in full bloom, making this ongoing tunnel of purple for us to drive through.










Once we were outside of the city limits the going was easy with little traffic. The big issue was the road blocks. The annual congress of the ZANU – PF, Mugabe’s party was scheduled to start the following day in Bulawayo and so politicians from all over the country were on the move. I am not sure if this is what caused it, but we went through at least fifteen roadblocks between Bulawayo and Harare. It seemed like they had a number of functions, ranging from toll collection points ( wonder how much of that money ended up in government coffers) to vehicle documentation checks to distribution of safe driving pamphlet distribution points. Because we were in the fire trucks we were waved through most of them, but it is disconcerting to say the least, especially when they are manned (womanned in some cases) by folks who look like they are teenagers and who in many case had rifles on their shoulders.  Made one think a little of the Lords Army in Uganda. ( We don't have pictures of these people)

Harare is a good sized city of nearly 3 million people, by far the biggest in that part of Africa.  It is a sprawling city and the city center is relatively small. Despite its growth over the years there are still a number of familiar sights.








It is a center for the MDC, the largest opposition to ZANU-PF. Over the years the city and all of its amenities have deteriorated a lot, leading the Economist in 2009 to name it the most difficult city in the world to live in. It is really this deterioration that gave rise to our trip. The fire department did not have any fully functional fire engines, and as a result if your house caught fire and you did not have a readily available source of water, it just burned. The chief told us that while there is a line item in the budget for the fire department, that does not mean that there will be funds available to spend for the equipment. One of the people I spoke to told me that while there is a water system connected to hydrants, and there is no shortage of water in the reservoirs, the incompetence of the bureaucrats means that there is not water in the hydrants regularly. 

One of Peter’s close friends, the former head of the military, was a man named Solomon Mujuru.  He died several months ago in a house fire,( http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-africa-14543048) and as a result Peter decided to see what he could do to improve the situation. What started as a discussion to buy a jaws of life as a gift for the city, expanded to the point where he bought two fire engines in the UK, so that there would be working equipment. 

Despite all of the difficulties he also opened a new business there called Bennie’s Burgers, a fast food place in the suburbs.  Because we had not stopped for lunch, we pulled in to Bennie’s to sample the fare.  What a treat to have a burger, fries and a shake.

From there we went to our hotel, a sort of B and B, that was spectacular. It was close to Peter’s house and had a delightful English garden; Les and I stayed in the cottage away from the main house. We didn’t have plans that night so we settled in to a bottle of Famous Grouse, a scotch that I had not tasted before.






The first taste led us to further sampling, and about that time we met a fellow guest who was staying for a couple of days before returning to London. We sat down for dinner together and we kept sampling the whiskey as well as some wine that he had bought. The more we sampled the more compelled we were to confirm our thoughts, and so by the end of the evening we were pretty certain that the empty bottles of wine and whisky and sherry had all contained some really good stuff, and we were glad that it was us who had finished it.