Newsletter 2012

Business was terrible at the beginning of this year. It is not an unusual seasonal business trend but this year the doldrums persisted a bit long. Trade winds only started blowing in the second quarter. At last I put the kettle on and I could eat again! Fortunately the trend held and I could afford a holiday, in fact two holidays and a half.

The Gwatamatic
and allied accessories remain my primary source of livelihood. You can catch a glimpse of its manufacture and operation at http://youtu.be/7k0Dyi6UwuQ The value version of the Gwatamatic, called the Baby Gwata

looks set to overtake its heavier brother eventually. However the decent margins on both depend on the Gwatamatic patent which is only six years away from expiry. So I have to come up with another "big-ticket" invention before then.
Moreover, the Warren Buffet principle says never to rely on just one stream of income, no matter how good it happens to be.So for now I have subsidiary inventions growing but none of them is likely to grow as big as the Gwatamatic. They include the Kotomatic (an avocado harvesting implement), Steamatic(a steamer adapter), Kangamatic(a peanut roasting "tumble drier"), Gochamatic (a roasting apparatus for maize-on-the -cob and other foods with axial symmetry) and the Tsotsomatic (a camping stove). The Tsotsomatic only made its debut in formal retail channels on 1 December this year, three years after its invention.

You can watch the Tsotsomatic in action at http://youtu.be/kDJTGTqDFlM
Three years ago the Women's Association ladies of Chakadini Methodist Church ( a rural church that had no electricity supply at the time) asked me to design a cooking apparatus solution for their church conference catering requirements. It had to run on solid fuels, mainly wood, as efficiently as possible. That called for recourse to my school physics as well as a conversation I had in the late eighties with the then Dutch Ambassador' wife. Mrs Faber and her family attended the same church as I did. One day she told me how the flue effect could be harnessed to enhance the efficiency of cooking fires. The flue effect features in the solution I came up with for Chakadini Methodist Church. The result was the Dandamatic.

Its salient features are augmented ventilation (which obviates the need to split the firewood), flue effect, concentric rings that serve dual purposes of focusing the heat where it's required and grabbing saucepans securely. Virtually every saucepan can find somewhere it slots in on that hob. The resulting universal hobs can handle even traditional calabashes and woks. Three years ago the whole effort was a purely voluntary exercise. As time went on I recognized the commercial potential of the design. That is how the Tsotsomatic was born. The Tsotsomatic is just a light-duty portable consumer version of the Dandamatic.

This year has been the silver anniversary of my membership of Highlands Presbyterian Church.

I have never sustained membership of any other institution that long. However in the context of the church's core business of eternal life, twenty five years is really nothing.
Over that period of time we have been lucky to have a string of good ministers who contributed immensely to my spiritual growth. In my turn, I have contributed in modest ways to the life of the church. Probably the most demanding of which was a twelve-year stint as a sound mixing desk operator. This year my involvement over and above regular elders' duties was operating the video projector and sitting on the Chancel Committee (church interior renovation committee). I emphasize "sitting" because whether I actually did any work is open to debate. What is not debatable though is the outcome of the committee's efforts.

For my holidays this year, I used the same Christian holiday company I went to Israel with last year, Oak Hall.
I still had a great time even though I did not travel very far, the safari holiday was largely within Zimbabwe with a few days across in Botswana.

You can read more about the holiday at http://gwataboy.blogspot.com
I had been to many of the sites before but Antelope Park in Gweru was the most transformed since I was last there.They have a profound long-term lion conservation programme in progress.

Tourism opportunities like lion walking http://youtu.be/GmCJcBg--6E are only by-products of the wider conservation effort. That makes it particularly special for me because of its contrast with the plethora of money-making gimmicks all over the tourist circuit.

To recover from the safari I went to a reunion cum Christian conference in the UK.

Comparing notes with other delegates

at the conference, I discovered rave reviews of the Montenegro tour. Before then it was not even on my radar! Now I am determined to get there sometime before I die.

My other agenda in the UK was to look for components for my next gadget and also to explore Silicon Roundabout. While the conference was ace, I did not have too much luck with the other two objectives. Silicon Roundabout is supposed to be a nascent "Silicon Valley" taking root in London in the area between Shoreditch and Stratford. I scoured that area but found very little consistent with the hype in the press! Many people had never even heard of it! Perhaps I should start saving for a pilgrimage to the real McCoy, Silicon Valley itself!

To recover from the UK trip, I took my final outing of the year in South Africa . Driving on the road between Harare and Johannesburg, one can't help noticing how busy that route is, especially the volume of lorries. At first glance it almost suggests an economic boom! Sadly the reality is otherwise. The road traffic explosion is a direct result of implosion of the regional railways and airlines. There are convoys upon convoys of lorries trucking copper cathodes from Zambia all the way to the port of Durban by road! Copper is so heavy the roads have started collapsing too.
Air Zimbabwe finally gave up its ghost after decades as a financial zombie. In small ways and in big ways it could be a blessing in disguise. The long suffering Zimbabwean taxpayer no longer has to continue subsidizing a lost cause. More importantly, just like the collapse of the Zimbabwe dollar, the demise of Air Zimbabwe could help a subtle yet fundamental policy shift. Without a national airline we are nearer an open-skies policy than we have ever been. That could spawn competitive air fares to the benefit of both Zimbabweans and visitors alike. That is but a silver lining though. The bane of post-independence Africa remains our failure to maintain let alone build on inherited infrastructure.

An attempt to overhaul the inherited legal infrastructure of Zimbabwe is mired in deadlock among the major political parties. Some of the political party negotiators to the constitution-making process seem to negotiate by attrition! Notwithstanding this, we are likely to have presidential and other elections next year. Curiously individuals and businesses alike are dreading it. I wonder why! Reminds me of Russell Baker in his autobiography "Growing Up." Referring to his mother's competitive streak, he says whenever they played cards at home they had to let her win for the sake of peace in the home.

After my princely sum of 81 votes in the last parliamentary elections, I am still licking my wounds so I won't bother this time. I will stick to local government elections. I reckon there is more room to make a difference there. Having said that, 81 votes is a lot more than what Arthur Mutambara got. I think he garnered only 54. So in that sense I more than deserve to be a Deputy Prime Minister!

My maths degree took a back seat this year but I expect to resume it next year. At this rate it could be the turn of the century before I complete it! In contrast, my niece Chido (the one in blue)

completed her accountancy degree with the University of South Africa in record time this year. It took me at least a year longer to complete the same degree! That makes her living evidence that beauty and brains do mix after all.
Talking of bright women in the clan, I am spending Christmas with arguably the brightest of them all - my mother. In the year she sat her nursing final exams, she came out the top student countrywide. Even then I still think she made a career mistake. She is such a good cook, she should have been a professional chef. So I might have to contend with a fair amount of festive flab after the holidays.

I wish you all a good Christmas.