Tuesday, 17 June to Friday, 20 June 1986: Return to Harare – the Good, the Bad & the Lovely

Tuesday, July 8, 7:15PM on the Bulawayo-Mafeking train somewhere near Palapye, Botswana and Tuesday, August 5, 9:00AM, Hillcrest Community, Halfway House, South Africa

Two days after arriving back in Bulawayo, I left for Harare, this time by train. The fare was only Z$19.80 (US$11.00) for the 275 mile ride in second class.  The train was rather slow, leaving at 8:15AM and arriving at 3:58PM (actually 2 minutes early!)  Along the way, I got some photos of people and landscapes as I listened to the pathetically mournful horn of the electric locomotive that pulled the train on the electrified line from Gweru into Harare.  I had a compartment all to myself as I do again tonight. 

As the train was pulling into Harare, Zimbabwe’s capital and largest city, I was struck by the number of modern industrial facilities.  Southern Rhodesia (later Rhodesia and now Zimbabwe) had imported most of its most of its manufactured goods from Great Britain until economic sanctions were imposed in 1965 after UDI (the unilateral declaration of independence from Great Britain by Ian Smith’s white minority government).  So, Rhodesia decided to go it on their own, and new industries quickly sprang up in the country.  Rhodesia continued trading with South Africa and any other country that would deal with them.  They held out until 1979 when South Africa actually put pressure on them to negotiate with the black majority.  My understanding is that South Africa figured this would take the heat off their own apartheid asses.  It didn’t work. 

However, many people in southern Africa point to Rhodesia’s 14-year defiance of sanctions to show that sanctions won’t work against South Africa.  In a way, they are right because the West imposed an arms embargo on South Africa back in the 1960s.  After that, not only did South Africa become self-sufficient in arms production, but they are now one of the world’s leading exporters of sophisticated weaponry.  

I suppose sanctions are more of a strong symbolic condemnation than anything else.  But, it will take more than sanctions to bring down the white South African government or get it to negotiate.  What might be more effective is for all the blacks in South Africa to go on strike.  The country can’t run without black labor so a nationwide strike would bring the whites to their knees pretty damn fast.  Many South African blacks have been working toward this end but it’s tough to get all of them to comply when their livelihoods depend on their continuing to toil for The White Man.         

Back to Harare:  I stayed from Tuesday through Sunday, the 22^nd, with members of the Emissary Community, a new age spiritual group, in Harare.  My trip may appear to be an awesome experience but it’s no bed of roses.  First and probably worst is constantly moving around and never feeling really at home with anyone.  Great hospitality is no substitute for communicating with long-established friends.

Zimbabwe is the land of scarcity.  Christ, you can’t even buy raisins or unsweetened fruit juice in this fucking pseudo-communist paradise.  Posters in the Harare railroad station show Comrade Prime Minister Mugabe proclaiming, “Workers of the world unite.”  I don’t know whom he is trying to impress with this bullshit rhetoric but he certainly manages to scare off potential foreign business investment.  Some say that Mugabe would like to throw all the whites out of Zimbabwe but the president of neighboring Mozambique has done that and all his poor citizens have to show for it is starvation and a dead economy, or so I’m told. 

The winter days here are warm:  up to 70°F but I’ve been freezing my ass off at night with temperatures dipping into the 30s.  Problem is that the beautiful homes here have NO heat, and some of the crazy people here actually leave the windows open all night and keep warm with hot water bottles – apparently an old custom in frigid England.  Last night, I climbed in my bivvy sack under about three blankets.  

Yes, I miss Denver.  What I wouldn’t give for some greasy Mexican food from a Denver dive; a Gaetano’s pizza stuffed with ricotta cheese; a couple tokes of good reefer; a walk with Jim Bachman’s greyhound mix, Dot, in the moonlight; and, oh yeah, some good lovin’ from an ol’ Colorado girlfriend.

On Wednesday I went downtown to do some errands.  If President Mugabe is creating a socialist workers’ paradise in Zimbabwe, why are there blind people begging on the streets?  At Kingston’s Stationery Store, I noticed that most all the political books they had in stock had a Marxist slant.  In an office supply store window, I saw a crummy-looking Facit electric typewriter with a 2-foot carriage.  It was a used, older model.  The price:  Z$1950 (about US$1100).  I was reminded that imported goods are very expensive here – if you can get them at all.  And speaking of imported stuff, Zimbabwe must import all its fuel and most of it comes through South Africa.  Petrol is Z$0.57½ per ½ liter which works out to US$2.60 per gallon. 

Bustling downtown Harare:  First Street Mall, 19 June 1986.

 

The June 23 issue of Newsweek was on the stands with its headline reading, “South Africa’s Civil War:  The Making of a Bloodbath”.  Inside was the latest on the June 16 Soweto anniversary riots.  I suspect this was the issue that got the Newsweek editor in South Africa kicked out of the country.  However, it seems to me that referring to the current situation in South Africa as a civil war is a bit of overkill or premature.  Was Newsweek overreacting as white South Africans frequently accuse the foreign press of doing?  Or maybe they came up with this punchy headline to sell magazines?  I wondered if I should I get back to South Africa as soon as possible to check out the situation that has evolved since June 16. 

I also stayed with the chief ornithologist for the Zimbabwe National Park Service, Pete Mundy, and his family at Lake McIlwaine about 20 miles south of Harare.  One day, I went into the city with Pete, and we went our separate ways for a few hours to run errands.

After managing to buy a train ticket for the upcoming Victoria Falls – Bulawayo segment of my journey, I walked up Harare’s main thoroughfare, Samora Machel Ave. (named for Mozambique’s inept communist leader).  As I was crossing the street, several African workmen were doing something with a street light in the median.  Suddenly one of them yelled something at me.  I looked up, then quickly jumped out of the way to avoid possible collision of my skull with a large pole that was being lowered.  One of the workmen and I smiled at each other and non-verbally communicated a “whew, that was a close one,” to each other and I continued down the street.  I became aware that a few months earlier, I would have gotten pissed off and given the workman a dirty look while mumbling an obscenity under my breath.  What was Africa doing to me?  Had some of its mellowness rubbed off on me?

I continued up the boulevard and stopped at the offices of Interpress in the hope of meeting Karl Maier, the young, friendly editor I’d had a meeting with back in April. Turned out Karl was on assignment down in Botswana, so I left him a note.

On the way back down Samora Machel Boulevard, I was about to pass the government buildings when a bunch of police and soldiers stopped all traffic for nearly ten minutes.  I ventured up to the front of the pedestrians for a closer look at whatever was going on.  A no-nonsense rifle-toting cop told me to move along after I’d been standing there a few minutes.  I wasn’t about to argue and just as I was crossing the boulevard to show my acceptance of local law and order without losing my view of what was going on, out of a large gate drove four motorcycle cops followed by a black limo.  I couldn’t see the dignitary in the back seat behind the tinted windows.  Comrade Prime Minister Mugabe perhaps?  Or maybe President Canaan Banana – yes, that really is his name.  I’ve been told that it is now against the law to refer to Zimbabwe as a “Banana Republic.”  It seems the jokes were getting out of hand.  Whomever it was, I found it entertaining to see traffic on a major street in a modern city backed up for blocks just so some political biggie could be whisked away to whatever.  But I understand that security is a big concern considering how many Ndebeles from south-western Zimbabwe would like to see Mugabe’s head on a platter with a tomato (or maybe a banana) stuck in his mouth.

I was to meet Pete at The Tusk, a curio shop and luggage store at the corner of Samora Machel and Julius Nyerere (named for the first president of Tanzania).  At The Tusk, you could pick up an elephant-hide brief case for Z$575 (Z$1.00 = US$0.58), a first grade zebra skin for Z$805, or a set of Hakata (African diving bones used by witch doctors) for a few bucks.  And for the mantle of that marble fireplace in your Aspen, Colorado second home, how about an intricately-carved four-foot long ivory tusk for Z$4600.  I explained to the saleslady that I’d sold my Denver home with a fireplace and wasn’t sure when or if I’d acquire another. 

I thought about buying some ivory ear rings for the wife of my Denver colleague, Rudy Garcia.  Before I left, he had given me $20.00 to buy something African for her.  I wasn’t sure, however, that I could get the ear rings through US. Customs.  After Pete picked me up in front of the store, he told me that Zimbabwean ivory with an approved seal can be imported into the States because, unlike most other African countries, Zimbabwe has strict controls over poaching.  All their ivory comes from elephants that have been culled legally.  Pete said they have do this periodically because too many of the big grey beasties can wreak ecological havoc on the countryside.  

Pete and I got into a discussion about the morality of acquiring African animal souvenirs.  Pete doesn’t see any problem with a store like The Tusk because all their animal products are legal meaning endangered animals are not sold there.  However, I done think I’d want to own most of these African souvenirs.  While ivory earrings carved in the shape of little elephant tusks would look nice on Rudy’s pretty wife, elephant hide brief cases and the like impress me as being crass and unnecessary.  A zebra skin hanging on the wall of a rich sonofabitch would look like a sign that the jerk had bagged it on a safari and wanted to impress his rich friends. 

A Zimbabwe National Parks game ranger holds an elephant tusk in an ivory vault in Harare.

Photographer:  Jekesai Njikizana/Getty Images.  https://news.bloomberglaw.com/business-and-practice/Zimbabwe-could-withdraw-from-cites-to-sell-300-million-of-ivory

 

On Friday, I was hanging out in Cecil Square in central Harare when I was approached by Arthur, an intelligent young African guy who said he is the superintendent of this peaceful one-square-block park.  He stopped to admire my little typewriter.  He has a friend going to France in a couple weeks and wondered if these typewriters are available there.  I told him that he might be able to find something like it but warned him not to get a model like mine that uses thermal paper because he would never find the paper here.  Zimbabweans like Arthur lust for quality imported goods but only the rich and politically-connected can find ways to get them. 

If I had ten portable electric typewriters with me I could make a fortune, in Zim dollars, that is.  And they wouldn’t be much good anywhere except in Zimbabwe.  Legally, you can’t take more than Z$20 out of the country.  Even if you could, I doubt anyone would want them.  When I was on the train between Botswana and Zimbabwe a couple weeks ago, a number of people on both sides of the border tried to sell me Zim dollars.  I found that interesting because no one tries to sell you South African rands or Botswana pula. 

Despite all the negative shit I say about this country, it’s stocked full of gorgeous landscapes and friendly people, both black and white.  Harare (formerly Salisbury) is a lovely city.  It has modern 15-story buildings, wide clean streets, and numerous businesses.  On the surface, the Africans and the remaining whites are doing a reasonable job of maintaining the old English/Rhodesian infrastructure.