Update 21 April 2010

Contents:
1. A step backwards.
2. Success at last.
3. Back from the world of the dead

In Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s “The Final Problem”, Sherlock Holmes says to Watson,
"For years past I have continually been conscious of some power behind the malefactor, some deep organizing power which forever stands in the way of the law, and throws its shield over the wrong-doer. Again and again …… I have felt the presence of this force, ………….. For years I have endeavored to break through the veil which shrouded it,"

In the affairs of Zimbabwe we have had more than our fair share of similar deep organizing gnomes. No sooner do we look like we are on the road to recovery than a gnome throws yet another spanner in the works.

There are many ways of generating electricity. Thermal, nuclear, hydro, solar, wind and wave power plants are all different routes to the same electricity. Some ways are faster than others, some are cheaper than others and some have worse side effects than others.

So it is with struggles for political independence. There are many possible routes to the same end. Throughout history and throughout the world colonial empires have waxed and waned. In a sense Africa is a microcosm of that wider phenomenon. African countries have attained political independence in a variety of ways, some peaceful and others not so peaceful.

Zimbabwe took the armed struggle route. We made our bed and we must now lie in it. It is like choosing the nuclear power route. It is aggressive and quick. However if it is not well managed, the cost of its legacy could eventually exceed the value of the intended utility. I believe our lot at any point in history is largely the grand total resultant of choices we have made as well as choices we failed to make.

Since independence thirty years ago, we have been saddled with gnomes crafting unsustainable populist policies in areas where different professions would have been more appropriate. The recent collapse of the Zimbabwean economy can be traced to such roots.

Earlier this year we received yet another dose of the same, in the form of the controversial Indigenisation and Economic Empowerment (General) Regulations, 2010 gazetted on 29 January 2010. It is a particularly rabid form of affirmative action that proposes to expropriate 51% of some companies’ issued share capital. To add to the intrigue, some of the people believed to have crafted it are businessmen in their own right. A friend was wondering how they would feel if we went and seized 51% of THEIR businesses. There are many theories to explain this apparent contradiction. Probably the most plausible is that there are parasites in the system whose welfare depends on spoils of chaos. So it is in their personal interests to stoke up confusion.

Curiously the authorities hastily called public hearings on the new regulations. The hearings were an absolute waste of time and money, not least because they were convened AFTER the regulations had already been gazetted. I attended one of the hearing sessions

only to see what happens next.

Personally I have been opposed to affirmative action even in the best of times. I think it is an insult to its intended beneficiaries. It is an implicit way of saying, “You won’t come anywhere unless we give you a head start in the race.” I would be most offended if I discovered that I was ever awarded a privilege purely on the basis of skin colour. In the eighties I worked for a Harare firm of accountants. In those days black partners were few and far between. However that did not stop my fellow articled clerks attempting to classify the few black partners there were. They used two broad categories: Those who made it into partnership on merit and those who appeared to have made it on black-advancement tickets. In their cruel way, the young clerks pronounced their verdict on the whole idea of affirmative action. Unfortunately over the years the young clerks appear to have lost their mettle. The once wanton kittens have now made apathetic sober cats. They are hopelessly reticent when destructive legislation is wheeled in. I think the Zimbabwean populace in general has been thoroughly browbeaten over the years.

Analysts have dwelt at length on the Indigenisation and Economic Empowerment (General) Regulations’ effects on foreign investors. However they seem to have overlooked its effects on local investors. Local investors are probably even more jittery because they know the breed of characters they are dealing with. For example the recent Star Africa rights issue flopped spectacularly. It was more than 70% undersubscribed. Sure, the market is facing liquidity constraints but security of investment is bound to have played a role there too. The only significant foreign shareholder in Star Africa is believed to be the UK’s Tate & Lyle group holding 23% of the issued share capital.

Some years back I had a strange journeyman assisting me at work. He confided in me that he only ever stole from white men. However before long my tools disappeared.
The moral of the story is that a predator is a threat to everyone even if its favourite prey may be only zebra.

Now for the good news: Seven years ago I invented the Gochamatic, a helical grill that overcomes the limitations of planar grills. Though it was designed with roasting green maize cobs in mind, it can generally handle many foods that have cylindrical symmetry. Seven years ago my grasp of temperature control systems was limited. So I never got the temperature right, until 14 March 2010.

With the business trials of recent years, the silver lining is that I have learnt many survival skills. I have learnt to fix the car, and more.

For some work where I used to hire electricians, I have learnt to do it myself. In particular, I have gained considerable experience wiring industrial boiling pans.
So on 13 March 2010, I had a sneaking suspicion that it would now be a piece of cake to build and tune a Gochamatic temperature control system (using a binary search algorithm).
So I retrieved the Gochamatic prototype from the store room where it was gathering dust and rust.
By 14 March 2010, it was already running. I got the critical temperature after only a few tries. Once that happened, it worked like a dream. So it could be on the market in the next few years.

The Zimbabwe Open golf tournament teed off today, after nine years in the wilderness. I am not a golfer but I am excited because my brother is the chairman of the committee that resuscitated it. It was first played in 1984 and was part of what was known as the Safari Tour, a collection of events in Africa that were played by professionals based on the European Tour. Since the Zimbabwe Open’s cancellation prior to the 2002 edition due to economic instability in Zimbabwe leading to the withdrawal of sponsors, there have been many unsuccessful attempts to resurrect it. At last it has happened, this time as part of The Sunshine Tour. So if you go to the Royal Harare Golf Club and tell them you know me, they might let you onto the green.

Newsletter 2009

Contents:
1. There is life in the old dog yet.
2. A doctor in the house.
3. Baby Gwata arrived.
4. Participated in building a house of God.
5. Helped save forests
6. Participated in cholera prevention.
7. Discovered long lost relatives

In a moment of weakness a few years ago I enrolled for a degree in Mathematics with the University of South Africa. If I had known how much time and effort it demands I probably would never have started. This year I passed the Real Analysis module, easily one of the most difficult exams I have ever sat all my life. Real analysis is the mathematical study of infinite phenomena using the calculus. I was really pleased with my results. One of the tools we used extensively is called D’Alembert’s ratio test. It is used to test for convergence of infinite series. D’Alembert’s story is remarkable. Jean-le-Rond d’Alembert was abandoned as a newly-born infant. He was subsequently raised by surrogate parents and went on to become one of the leading French mathematicians of the eighteenth century. Looking at the street children of Harare,

I can’t help wondering how many potential D’Alemberts are going to waste.

It has been a good year for my family. My niece Nyasha Gwata passed her medical school finals this year. This represents a landmark for the family. She is the first doctor in the family. Prior to that the highest scholastic attainments in the family were masters degrees. It is not clear yet whether Nyasha will decide to come back to practise in Zimbabwe. Life in Zimbabwe is now infinitely better than last year but we are not out of the wood yet by a long way.

By far the biggest economic reform of the year was the official switch from Zimbabwe dollars to using US dollars. It is working like a dream. Apart from slaying hyperinflation, it provided incentive for formal business to come out of hibernation. Retailers and petrol stations in particular have restocked. It is such a pleasure to be able to drive up to the forecourt and fill up whenever you like. I know it is not profound but after last year’s ordeal,

we appreciate it more than most. It has all eased the pressure to emigrate. Previously one of the attractions of emigration was the opportunity to earn real money as opposed to Monopoly money(Zimbabwe dollars).

Currency reform is probably the biggest achievement of the new government of national unity (GNU). Significant achievements beyond that are unlikely because the government remains technically broke. So far there is nothing significant in the pipeline likely to change that. The GNU is drawn from only the biggest three political parties. Other political parties were not invited to the party. So my political career remains in the doldrums for now. However every dog has his day.

While life is much better for individual consumers, the same cannot be said of Zimbabwean businesses, particularly the big ones. Therein lies the rub. The new-found welfare of the consumer cannot be sustained without productivity at a national level. More than ninety percent of what we are consuming is coming from South Africa. Even the milk in my fridge right now has come from Stellenbosch, South Africa. Paradoxically, milk coming from 2000km away is landed at my local Spar cheaper than the locally produced equivalent coming from 4km away!

Many Zimbabwean corporations were born and/or bred in Ian Smith’s Rhodesia under sanctions (there were real sanctions then). The prime concern was to circumvent sanctions, not necessarily efficiently. After independence, the inefficiency of some companies and parastatals alike was compounded by the Marxist experiments of Robert Mugabe’s Zimbabwe. Government subsidies were wheeled in to keep consumer prices down and prop up non-viable corporations. In the nineties I was in the milling industry and we used to receive such government subsidies. All in all Zimbabwean companies have been sheltered throughout most of their history.

Now the climate has changed in more ways than one. In practice, the Zimbabwean economy(or rather what remains of it) is now more liberalized than the South African economy. The floodgates have been swung open almost instantaneously. As expected, Zimbabwean companies are not coping with the global competition and many of them will not survive the shake-out. The last time I looked, of the listed companies that had published their annual results then, only two had made a profit. The dying dinosaurs are saddled with overheads they cannot afford to retain or retrench. Needless to say it is a dynamic dilemma, so it is only a question of time before something gives. We are likely to witness spectacular takeovers and mergers if not outright bankruptcies. If the resultant contraction weeds out second rate managers, then it won’t be such a bad thing after all. What this means is that there are bound to be immense business opportunities for the emerging small and agile companies. Unfortunately the opportunities remain elusive to me so far. I will probably only recognize them after others have taken them, in much the same way as I often recognize strengths in ladies after someone else has already married them. That reminds me of the joke of the year: Marriage is like going to an a la carte restaurant with friends. You order what you want but when you see what the next guy has got, you wish you had ordered that!

For now the Gwatamatic continues to support me but only just. The potential customers are so impoverished that “potential customer” is now a misnomer. Accordingly I have developed a truncated version of the Gwatamatic that gives 80% of the functionality for half the price of a full rig. It is called the Baby Gwata.

It is an idea that I conceived sometime back but the first one was only delivered last month

Since last year I have graduated from worrying about my next meal to worrying about my next investment. I also worry whenever I have to fix anything. While food prices have come down considerably, it remains inordinately expensive to fix things in Zimbabwe, whether it is fixing the car, the house or haemorrhoids. Even an ordinary car service remains quite pricey. Whenever I get my car serviced in South Africa it hardly ever exceeds US$100. A similar service in Zimbabwe costs anything up to US$500. There is no small irony in the fact that many of the motor mechs in South Africa are Zimbabweans.

With business slow, I found myself with more time on my hands than usual. So I took up a bit of voluntary work. On one of the projects I started off as a minor donor. Somewhere along the way I let my guard down and found myself the de facto project manager.

It was a project to put up a new church building for the Methodist Church near my rural home 80km south of Harare.

It took a year to build and was officially opened on 22 December 2009.

In hindsight, I am glad I participated. The project is bound to have more eternal value than any sadza machine I could build.

While the project’s primary purpose was to facilitate spiritual food, it also had to address culinary needs. The ladies requested a heavy duty wood fired cooking facility. So I set out to design something more fuel efficient than traditional methods. The result is the Dandamatic.

The grating at the bottom improves ventilation and hence facilitates complete combustion. In practice this means more heat and less smoke. The concentric rings serve a dual purpose. They focus the heat as well as provide variable diameter “hobs” for different sizes of saucepans up to a maximum diameter of 60cm. The Dandamatic had a successful maiden run on 22 December 2009 and fed the thousand-strong crowd that attended the official opening ceremony.

The other voluntary project I undertook was coordinating development of an alternative water supply for my old school, Fletcher High School.

In common with the rest of Zimbabwe, municipal infrastructure in Gweru is falling to pieces and they failed to supply water. The headmaster of Fletcher High School found himself with 700pupils and no running water. As former students we passed the hat round and managed to purchase a heavy duty borehole pump for the school. The borehole is up and running now

but nobody knows how large or small the underground water reserves are.

It appears unreliable municipal water supply is the bane of Africa. I was in Tanzania a couple of weeks ago and saw the tell-tale water tanks atop many buildings. In Zanzibar the electricity was also a problem. They did not have mains electricity supplies for weeks. Fortunately they had a generator at the hotel.
However it broke down on my last night there. We get a lot of power cuts in Harare too. So I should have felt at home in Zanzibar but I didn’t, maybe because I was paying.

My experience of Zanzibar was chequered. For a start I arrived without my luggage. I had a cruel attack of deja vu as I stood at the airport carousel hoping against hope that there was more luggage coming. Fellow passengers had already collected their luggage and gone. It was when the attendant switched off the carousel that I realized I could not deny the truth any longer. I had a similar experience in Cyprus eight years ago, when I had to live out of a Woolworths carrier bag for four days.

Unfortunately there is no Woolworth in Zanzibar. I scoured Stone Town (the old city of Zanzibar) looking for a toothbrush and other emergency supplies. It took a major effort just to find a toothbrush. There are no supermarkets there, just a handful of corner shops that are not well marked. The silver lining was that it forced me to explore extensive portions of Stone Town. Otherwise I would never have trudged along in such sweltering heat for so long. I wondered whether any of the modest shops would stock a micro-screen shaver. The moral of the story is that in future, personal care items will be carried in my hand luggage.

My business sessions were due to begin within 48hours and I would need formal clothes. So my anxiety intensified with every passing hour. Fortunately, late the following day I was re-united with my suitcase in a short but moving ceremony at Zanzibar Airport.

Talking to others afterwards, I discovered that Kenya Airways have a bad luggage handling record. That may well be but a symptom of a deeper underlying problem. Jomo Kenyatta International Airport in Nairobi has become the hub of African connections. Sadly investment in the Airport has not kept pace with the growth in traffic. So the airport facilities appear stretched. The airport terminal building is perennially overcrowded. There are not enough piers for the aircraft and no buses to ferry people to and from the terminal building in cases where planes are parked elsewhere. We had to walk across the apron mingling with roaring jets and dodging tugs. The incidence of delayed flights

could be yet another symptom of stretched infrastructure. Our flight from Nairobi to Harare was delayed by two hours. I knew we were in trouble when five minutes before the scheduled departure time we were still in the departure lounge and I could see a cleaner dashing up the aircraft stairs carrying a vacuum cleaner. Even the departure lounge was overcrowded, with bodies sprawled all over the floor.

Once on board, the actual flights were not too bad though. At least nobody had to sit on the floor. The crew on board tried really hard. Incidentally, in common with other airlines, Kenya Airways also have their share of the following inevitable species:
1. The poseur – a guy who palpably ignores the on-board safety demo to prove to fellow passengers that he is a frequent flyer.
2. The colonizer – a guy who takes over two armrests. He even has his elbows straying into neighbours’ airspace, especially when he eats.
3. The cargo carrier – a lady who has a million pieces of hand luggage. She proceeds to squash or throw fellow passengers’ luggage out of the luggage bins to make space for her own.

I had glorious views of the sea from my room at the Tembo Hotel. Like the rest of Zanzibar, the hotel also features highly ornamental doors.

Freddie Mercury was born in Zanzibar. (In spite of his weaknesses, he was one of my boyhood heroes). However he seems to get limited recognition

in his hometown compared to say Montreaux.
Maybe it is because in Zanzibar they are battling to meet basic needs. They do not have the luxury of appreciating the arts. As I explored Stone Town, I saw lots and lots of young men just sitting idle along the streets.
It appears there is serious unemployment there.

Overall, I found Zanzibar dilapidated,
a bit reminiscent of Mombasa. The surprising thing is that in spite of its state, the island still enjoys significant tourist arrivals. For me it was like a breath of fresh air when I left Zanzibar and checked into the Holiday Inn in Dar es Salaam. It really is a good hotel, much better than the Holiday Inn in Harare.

Before I traveled, someone warned me that Dar es Salaam is essentially one big Mbare sprawled by the sea (Mbare is a seedy township in Harare). As it turned out I was pleasantly surprised because Dar does have some good bits. I was however left with the general impression that, for some reason, the British colonial authorities put a lot more planning effort into Southern Africa relative to East Africa. Harare’s layout is superior to all African cities I have been to north of the Zambezi River.

In spite of cultural differences, I think the Tanzanians are our close relatives judging by our common linguistic root. I found Swahili strikingly similar to Shona. Sadly there is no reliable record of our migration history.

Taking it all in all, it has been a good year for me in spite of and also because of the circumstances.
That’s it for now folks.
I trust you had a good Christmas.
Wish you a good New Year.

Update 23 August 2009

Contents:
1. Business
2. Other woes
3. Some positives
4. Tribute to Michael Jackson

Business(or rather the lack of it) is terrible. There are plenty of inefficiencies largely because business, as we knew it, remains in intensive care. “Big” businesses are not big anymore. Meaningful volumes of business are still hard to come by in virtually all sectors. Power cuts in my neighborhood are lasting anything up to twelve hours, which is a considerable improvement on normal. I have not had running water in my house since March 2009. Apart from that I am having a great time.

In mid-July 2009 I drove past my bank and suddenly realized that I had not been in there for several months. That is how informal the Zimbabwe economy has become. We are now a de facto cash only society. That means the only significant financial instrument available to run the economy is M1. If you think the credit crunch is unbearable, spare a thought for us in Zimbabwe. There is no credit at all here. In practice that means business transaction magnitudes cannot exceed small beer. Unless things change, youngsters starting out today have no hope of ever buying houses for example. It is a tragedy at a personal level and even worse at corporate levels. Whenever money comes my way, I keep it in the proverbial mattress. Like many others I am still wary after my experience with the banks last year. Severe restrictions on bank withdrawals left us depositors queuing and begging for money that was ours in the first place.

There is still no guarantee that similar peremptory measures could not be invoked again anytime. The Zimbabwean financial services sector desperately needs restoration of customer confidence.

Most countries that have made it have done so on the back of domestic savings on deposit with formal financial institutions. Foreign investment might help but it is domestic investment that seeds conditions conducive to foreign capital inflows. I remember an article in The Economist that summarized it well. A foreign investor was asking why he was expected to invest in Africa when the Africans themselves were reluctant to invest in Africa. Even African thieves stash away their booty in Swiss banks, not African banks!

Without formally pooled savings, it is not only the financial institutions that are threatened. Industrial and commercial concerns are struggling for working capital finance. Many are now moribund and not likely to make it. This is in turn threatening their suppliers and their suppliers’ suppliers and so on. In a nutshell, Zimbabwean industry remains snarled up and unemployment is not abating. The total market capitalization of all the companies listed on the Zimbabwe Stock Exchange put together was US$4billion last week. In contrast the market capitalization of Google (a dot com company listed on the New York Stock Exchange) alone was US$143billion. So Eric Schmidt’s petty cash float could probably run the whole Zimbabwean economy! Incidentally Google is only ten years old while Zimbabwean industry is 110years old. However, therein lies some hope for us. With a bit of innovation and discipline, just a handful of success stories could save the day.

Having said that, the road to national recovery is bound to be long and hard. It is with a touch of deja vu that I watch events unfolding in Zimbabwe. It all puts me in mind of the time I started my own business. I was starting from scratch with unrealistic optimism. Someone had told me that it takes three years on average for a green-field business start-up to attain positive cash flows. I was convinced mine would do it in six months. In the end it did take three years.

So it is with the Zimbabwean economy. It died last year and we are starting off from ground zero if not lower. Someone told me that it takes longer to rebuild than it took to destroy in the first place. Not to accept and understand this is to set ourselves up for disillusionment and frustration. This might seem rather pessimistic an outlook to take, but I believe that only when we have faced reality can we stand any chance of transcending it. Unfortunately the hollow political rhetoric, now emanating from both sides of the political divide, continues to espouse the idea of re-branding Zimbabwe for a panacea. To me it sounds as futile as trying to re-brand a slum before re-developing it. It is not likely to fool anyone.

When my brother and his contemporaries were studying in Nigeria in the seventies, they would bring back horror stories of life in West Africa. Looking back, the stories were generally symptoms of a demoralized chaotic society. Apparently West Africans of both sexes would not hesitate to relieve themselves along city streets in broad daylight without shame! We laughed long and hard when the stories were related. Now the same problem has arrived in Harare. Once again it is a symptom of ebbing morale. It is hardly surprising considering there is more than ninety percent unemployment and little prospect of jobs in the near future. Last year politicians blithely gave the people to believe that everything would be instantly honky dory once a political power sharing agreement was signed. So people prepared for a 100-metre sprint only to discover there was a marathon ahead of them. Some analysts believe the MDC went into the whole deal without knowing the score. So they are now in real danger of being tainted with the incompetence and failure of others (kusara nechitsveru).

Maybe the reason why people are relieving themselves on the streets is that there is no water in the water closets. There is plenty of water on the streets from burst water mains.

While there are perennial burst water mains all over I have not had running water in my house since March 2009. If nothing is done about it before the rainy season kicks in in a few months’ time, cholera may flare up again. Meanwhile the municipal authorities have had the audacity to send me water bills. I will strangle someone one of these days!

I recently witnessed busloads of people relieving themselves by the roadside. On 18 August 2009 the Zimbabwe Government introduced toll gates on most intercity roads. It was chaotic to put it mildly. I had to queue for 26 minutes at a toll gate in Harare South.
Inevitably multitudes in the snarled up traffic were taken short. They had only scant bushes by the roadside for cover. I watched so many disappear behind the same bushes that there must have been significant compromises there. You should see the state of the roads they are charging tolls for! It is like collecting rentals on shacks in a slum. They really should pay us to drive on such roads.

Last month I drove past the spot where Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai’s wife died in a car crash in March 2009. That stretch of road was still in really bad shape more than four months later. It was a death-trap with or without foul play.

In spite of our dire circumstances, the march of civilization continues. My rural home area recently got a cell phone base station. I know it is not profound under normal circumstances but considering how inaccessible that place was, it is a giant leap indeed. Previously it could take all day to get a message across to Harare. The base station is at Mahusekwa Growth Point (Google Earth Coordinates: 18degrees 18minutes 23.88seconds SOUTH; 31degrees 11minutes 52.00seconds EAST) that is about 9km as the crow flies from my rural home (Google Earth Coordinates: 18degrees 22minutes 51.87seconds SOUTH; 31degrees 14minutes 42.63seconds EAST). That is where I grew up. You can see how far I used to walk to Chakadini Primary School (Google Earth Coordinates: 18degrees 21minutes 34.85seconds SOUTH; 31degrees 13minutes 57.82seconds EAST) and how far I went after that to Fletcher High School (Google Earth Coordinates: 19degrees 30minutes 52.39seconds SOUTH; 29degrees 50minutes 56.66seconds EAST). My sixth form college in London (Google Earth Coordinates: 51degrees 25minutes 42.37seconds NORTH; 0degrees 06minutes 13.70seconds WEST). has since been closed and converted into a warehouse. In contrast, the University of Surrey (Google Earth Coordinates: 51degrees 14minutes 36.03seconds NORTH; 0degrees 35minutes 21.59seconds WEST) continues to grow from strength to strength. So is the University of South Africa (Google Earth Coordinates: 25degrees 46minutes 02.51seconds SOUTH; 28degrees 11minutes 56.50seconds EAST). That ends the educational history digression. The irony of it is that after all that effort I am not doing much with the education at the moment. You can see my garden in Harare (Google Earth Coordinates: 17degrees 49minutes 48.72seconds SOUTH; 31degrees 04minutes 23.32seconds EAST) where I kill time sunbathing. Now that spring is in the air, it is getting too hot to sunbathe. So I don’t know what I am going to do with my time; maybe look for a wife.

Prior to this installation, there are a few milestones in my life relating to cellular telephony. My first experience of it was in the autumn of 1991. I was attending a reception for University of Surrey alumni held by His Royal Highness, The Duke of Kent, who is the Chancellor of the University, at St James’ Palace in London. During the proceedings, I remembered I had to phone Sheila, a classmate who could not make the reception. So I sneaked out to find a public phone booth. I asked a passer-by where I could find a public phone. He did not know but was happy to let me use his cell phone instead. As far as I can remember, it was my first un-tethered phone call ever.The handsets were substantial in those days, but nevertheless thoroughly impressive to a bemused first time user!

It was eight years before I eventually got my own cell phone. Relative to local men about town, I was a late starter. I am told those who got in early reaped social dividends. Vaitogona kunyenga nadzo! By the time I came along the gadgets were already commonplace and so did not improve my chances of marriage. Now even the herd boys around the rural areas wield cell phones.

Back in the year 2001, Zimbabwean companies were still creditworthy. So we could roam on Zimbabwean SIM cards. A sublime roaming experience came to me while I was at Masada in Israel. Perched up there on that hilltop I was busy surveying the parched landscape when my phone rang. It was Barclays Bank in Harare! The signal was not even coming via an Israeli network. It was coming through a Jordanian network from across the Dead Sea. That was especially significant. On an Emirates flight I had noticed that they listed telephone dialing codes for virtually all countries except Israel. I was told that was because Arab countries generally refuse to recognize the existence of Israel. Now here was the power of technology dramatically breaching a conflict curtain! We are bound to see more of the same as globalization comes into its own.

For now the struggle just to stand still continues. Yes there is still hope for Zimbabwe, believe it or not. The threat of a failed state that loomed large last year has subsided. We no longer have to travel all the way to South Africa just to buy soap. Civil servants are back at work (but the hospital doctors have gone back on a pay strike). The multitudes of spivs that roamed the streets of Harare last year have all but disappeared. Street sweepers are back at work and Harare’s Central Business District does look a lot cleaner.

One foreign investor who once came to Zimbabwe scouting for investment opportunities was Michael Jackson. In the end he decided not to invest, even though Zimbabwe was still in much better shape then. I nevertheless remain his fan. Michael Jackson’s music forms part of the bedrock of my cultural heritage. We are generally most receptive to the influence of music in early adolescence. Michael Jackson ruled the pop charts during the time I entered that critical stage. When I listen to the drivel they call pop music today it makes me glad to have grown up in that era. The New York Times gave the opinion that MJ was a "musical phenomenon", and that "in the world of pop music, there is Michael Jackson and there is everybody else."

Michael Jackson’s Thriller was released shortly after I arrived at the University of Surrey. Thriller is the best selling music album of all time. So Students’ Union discos played tracks from Thriller a lot, which thrilled us. It still evokes great memories. One track called Beat It, in particular, reminds me of a classmate Alwyn Pereira.
Alwyn could dance so well to it, and indeed to many other tracks. I still can’t disengage the tune of Beat It from Alwyn’s poetry in motion. I remember Pete Gaskin

saying, “It is well worth coming to the Lower Bar even if only to watch Alwyn dance!” My admiration of Alwyn took a bit of a knocking when I discovered, to my horror, that he had an eye on a girl I was after. Fortunately she did not appear to notice his dancing prowess too much. However, in the end neither of us got her! I think she was too busy concentrating her energies on her studies. Ian (aka Scobies) reckoned she was just frigid though. My respect for Alwyn was restored and we remain friends to this day.