Talking of fishing, I had the privilege of going fishing on Lake Kariba
on the Zambezi River earlier this week. Ever since I left National Foods Limited, opportunities to go on decent houseboats have been few and far apart. The last time I went on the lake is almost four years ago on this boat
So I really appreciated this week’s trip on a comparable boat.
The fishing was disappointing for December. It is not clear whether it was the fish or skills lacking. However we still had a grand time, not least because there was a good cook on the boat. I was skinny when I embarked
but four days later a boerwors belly was already evident
With more festive flab on the way, I may need an Olympic effort to get back in shape next year.
Last month Gwatamatic hosted an honoured guest. Tim Cole, the deputy ambassador at the British Embassy in Harare came not only to see the Gwatamatic in action but to taste the sadza too. And he survived the experience!
The business continues to recover, albeit slowly. Three years ago it was in a net liability position (the technical definition of insolvency). Fortunately I had structured it as well as my personal life to restrict overheads to an absolute minimum. You can read about my business model at http://www.wipo.int/sme/en/case_studies/algorhythm.html
Now I can not only keep body and soul together, but I even managed a proper holiday this year. What I cannot afford yet is to take a wife. Hopefully it will be possible sometime before I retire. In common with other businesses of a contract nature, the Gwatamatic fortunes follow a feast-or-famine cycle. So far the frequency of famines has been higher than that of feasts.
Murombo haarove chine nguwo (The poverty trap is very hard to get out of.). My finances suffered a major setback when I had serious hassles with the car in October 2011. For a while I thought the Isuzu had finally given up its ghost. It has been quite a survivor in its life and this time was no exception, which is just as well because I really can’t afford to replace it at this stage. Over the years it has survived high speed collisions with a dog as well as a cow. On 11 October I was hurtling excitedly along the new Polokwane bypass
en route from Johannesburg with 800km to go to Harare when there was a loud rattling racket, the whole dashboard lit up and the engine seized. I had cracked the engine block!
The farmer at a nearby farm was very kind to me. He gave me not only a wheelbarrow to cart my baggage
but also the use of his rondavel
while I got myself re-organized. While my car was in the garage having an engine transplant, I ironically had access to much better cars.
So I was bitterly disappointed when it was time to go back to my Isuzu.
While I was carless in South Africa, I had to rely heavily on the new Gautrain.
It was an interesting experience for a number of reasons. Post-independence African governments have generally run their railway systems into the ground. That makes South Africa an illustrious exception. They have bucked the trend and actually built a new railway system. Africa has been waiting for a post-independence success story for more than sixty years! There could be hope at last. The only threat to the Gautrain’s viability I could see is excessive security. Sometimes security personnel seem to outnumber passengers!
The rolling stock on the Gautrain lines is identical to the trains I have used in Sussex in the UK. That put me in mind of some good memories. The main difference is in the train rules. Two of the Gautrain rules caught my eye:
“The use of helmets, hoodies, balaclavas and soiled clothes is not allowed.” I guess it is a fair interpretation to say that soiled clothes without the Balaclava are allowed. So there could be hope for tramps after all.
The other rule that I found interesting goes:
“Eating, drinking or chewing gum is not allowed.” The chewing gum part reminded me of Singapore.
By far the most interesting train rules of all time were found on Rhodesia Railways trains. I clocked a lot of milage on those trains between Salisbury and Gwelo on my way to and from Fletcher High School. The first rule on the list was “Please do not expectorate.” At that stage my English vocabulary was very limited, it was three years before I found out what to expectorate means. So for three years I carried on expectorating with reckless abandon!
Fletcher High School
was one of if not the premier Black school in Rhodesia. In October this year I was honoured to be the guest of honour at the school’s speech and prize-giving ceremony.
Looking at the current pupils
there took me back to the time I arrived at Fletcher at the age of eleven. I was two years younger than the average age in my class and Eddy Mazambani was probably two years older than the average age. So he looked really ancient to me. I never thought I would ever live to be as old as he was. One advantage of being so young was that he never considered me a threat to his dominance. So, unlike the older boys, I was largely spared his Neanderthal territorial savagery. He looked very much like a Neanderthal tear-away too, especially his jaw. So his nick-name was “missing link”. No one was ever killed, so that means he never found out. The current pupils looked so innocent there isn’t likely to be a present day Eddy Mazambani among them. If the pupils’ vibrancy is anything to go by, then there is plenty of hope for Zimbabwe.
However some things never change. The pupils heckled one speaker who used broken English. We were equally cruel in my day! So I had to be extra careful when I delivered the keynote speech later in the proceedings. Fortunately there weren’t too many cobwebs in my public speaking.
A month earlier I had been one of the presenters at the Innovation Summit in Johannesburg.
There was a lot more pressure there because of the high average standard of the speakers.
In September I received my first ever export order for a sadza machine. It was only for a Baby Gwata
but remains nevertheless a major milestone. For that building I had to design an adaptor flange
to couple an electric motor to a gearbox.
It turned out to be the highest precision design I have ever been required to do and it worked first time! The services of a highly skilled fitter and turner certainly helped too.
During the year, the Gwatamatic successfully migrated to a new PLC (programmable logic controller) based control system.
It has made the rigs considerably more robust. The old embedded control system was designed ten years ago when the national electricity grid was more stable. So it became progressively less appropriate as the quality of power on the national grid deteriorated. In contrast, the new PLC based system takes power surges and under-voltages in its stride. Clever these Koreans!
In May I was privileged to be invited to a reception at the British Embassy in Harare to mark the Queen’s official birthday. It also doubled as a farewell for Ambassador and Mrs Mark Canning
who had completed their tour of duty.
For the whole month of April 2011 I was away on holiday. It was the first proper holiday I managed in years. So it had to be special. I settled on a double bill of pilgrimages, to the Science Museum in London as well as to Israel. You can read all about it in a separate blog post below entitled Israel 2011. I also managed to squeeze in a tour of Wales that took me to former business acquaintances and friends Derek and Anne Jones in North Wales
as well as Professor Ian and Jean Wilson in South Wales. Professor Wilson
was my warden at the University of Surrey. For his sins, he also became my microchip procurement agent after he moved to a university in Hong Kong. He managed to find some very obscure microchips for me!
They all really pampered me so I have very good memories of Wales.
At the church in Harare I continued to serve as a commissioner representing our congregation on the council of the Presbytery of Zimbabwe. Sadly it was not an entirely inspiring duty because of administrative difficulties on the Presbytery. At least our congregation remains in good shape, so does my personal spiritual life.
My physical health has been good except for a foot problem that continues to hamper my running. A major contribution to my physical well being has been the arrival in Harare of Fruit and Veg City (a South African franchise).
It has really revolutionized my eating habits. Prior to that we were stuck with miserable shriveled fruit and vegetables and very limited choice.
I wish you all a good Christmas and great memories of the same thereafter.
Finally here are a few Christmas related photos from my Israel trip:
Manger Square in Bethlehem with the Nativity Church in the background.
The fields near Bethlehem, the very ones where an angel of the Lord appeared to the shepherds(Luke 2:8-9)
A shepherd in Nazareth Village
Jerusalem
