A couple of epic African 'fails'!

So another road trip, and more fantastic vehicle sign-writing - but that will come tomorrow. Because today - I have the story of a couple of 'fails' for you.

The first is a simple thing - the case of the 'fail' mobile phone tower in Nyazura. And I have absolutely no idea why it is failing - I only know that every time I pass it - the angle of the dangle gets a little bigger each time.......

In fact, it is so bad that in order for the folk of Nyazura to get any decent signal at all, they have to hold their heads at a funny angle when talking on their mobile phones!

Then there was the 'fail' marketing programme run by a local Fast Food chain. I will not mention names, but they sell their 'Family' portions in 'buckets', and the recipe for their chicken was first thought of by a military man whose name started with "S" and ended with "aunders".

Because I may get sued - I cannot name the franchise - but here is a small clue......

Apparently this fast food chain (whose name I will NOT mention) decided to have a promotion in which they promised a 10% discount off every 'family bucket' of chicken that they sold - providing the customers brought their own 'buckets'. This was quite a clever promotion, because many families (humans being what they are) went and bought two buckets of chicken, where only one was really needed, so that they would then get a 20% discount.

HOWEVER - the folk from Magormandaiza village - just off the main highway, worked out that if you bought buckets big enough to buy 10 'family' portions of chicken - the whole village would eat for free!

And then they further worked out that if you bought more than ten buckets' worth - the Fast Food guys would actually have to pay YOU money!!!!!!

A little more time with a calculator - and it became apparent that if you went and ordered 1,267 family buckets of chicken - they would owe you so much money that you would effectively own the franchise! How simple is that? The problem then became - 'where to find a bucket big enough to hold 1,267 family portions of chicken'? Not possible - did you say?

Where there is a will, in Africa, there is always a way......

However, this proved to be a big 'fail' because............when they got there the food chain only had 3 'family' portions left - and once the fellows returned to the village, they realised that it had cost three hundred and forty two times more to buy the bucket than they saved on the chicken!

Have a great day!

Look out Charlie's Angels!

Apologies for the silence - I have not had internet connection for one reason or another for a couple of days.

Today's post is all about my family, as I have been contacted by 'long-ago' friends asking to see the crew. Fortunately we attended a 21st last Saturday, and so these pics are right up to date.

This is a somewhat blurred photo of the family - my three girls and my wife. For those who know us - the order is Co, Da, De and Ca. And yes, my youngest is my tallest!

Charlie's Angels - here comes the competition!

Here, then, are my girls with their cousins - Natalie (whose birthday it was) is the only person who bothered to look at the camera, and Sam on the far right.

Dancing there was a-plenty - who says us Zimbos can't flick a hoof with the best of the rest of the world? Top of the playlist was 'Dancing Gangnam-style'. Can you tell?

What happens when you 'party with a big stick' - and then have to travel 4 hours home the following morning through a sunny winters morning in Zimbabwe?

Predictably.....

The kids of today just have no stamina.

Have a great day!

Suffering from piles....

This past Saturday our family went to Harare for a 21st Birthday - and more of that later. However, what is of interest today are some of the curious sights that greet the traveller on Zimbabwean roads. So today is simply a journey down the highway - between Penhalonga and Harare. How many times do you see these on your roads.......?

We drive on the left, and when a vehicle is about to turn onto a main road from a secondary road, you need to 'yield', as the Americans say. We say 'give way'. And to be sure that your vehicle actually stops running onto the road, sometimes the best solution is to stand in front of it until all traffic has passed.........

Should you stop on the road - for example at a traffic-control point where they are fixing the road, you will be swamped with vendors selling everything from apples, tomatoes, bananas, green vegetables and so on.

Once upon a time, someone had a great marketing idea - simple enough in the conception and execution. The idea was this; find some tomatoes, get a small enamel dish, and place the tomatoes in the dish, in a little pyramid - and then place this arrangement on a rickety box by the side of the road out in the middle of nowhere. With this presentation strategy, you will sell more tomatoes than if they are simply lying on the ground.

The concept worked.

Rather too well.

In no time at all - everybody copied the first 'thinker', to the point that this tomato-selling point, (which has sadly long since out-grown the hut built to shelter the produce from the sun) in the middle of nowhere, adds a dash of colour to the otherwise bland African bush...

I suppose this is just a bad case of piles?

Quite incredibly the only thing available for sale in this mini-market is little piles of tomatoes. How on earth do you select a) which vendor you are going to buy from, and b) which pile of tomatoes is the best one?

Then there is the particularly African love of slogans or statements written on the back door of vehicles. The thinking behind the phrases is often cryptic enough, but why on earth would someone adorn their vehicle with this particular phrase (which is on the back of all 'Livewire Tours' vehicles)........

In other countries, I believe, they have vehicles called 'passion wagons', or 'love-mobiles'. We have them here too, but what do you call your car if the lady in question refuses your attentions and you press on regardless? Simple really.....

The mind boggles!

Have a great day.

Can Kidz? Of course KidzCan!

We had several responses to the question of the collective noun for a group of grasshoppers - the first past the post being from 'Berea Digital Collection' in South Africa - who suggested "cloud". Hmmm - not so sure. How can a cloud be flopping about on the ground as my grasshoppers have been doing all week? (Though possibly that would be a "fog of grasshoppers"?)

From Robin Steinert in America we had "riot", and from my kitchen staff we had "munch". However I do think that a "munch of grasshoppers" is more wishful thinking than with any basis in fact!

It was, indeed, my own suggestion that was selected as the correct terminology - "hop". Quite honestly, a "hop of grasshoppers" simply sounds right, and so I have given myself the prize of a week in Penhalonga - with very few expenses paid!

Sorry for that.

Now today's blog. Earlier this month I lost my camera - and during that period I travelled to Peterhouse, the boarding school that my children attend, for the 'Jenny Calderwood Memorial Run/Walk'. Today's pics are therefore thanks to Catriona Borman who sent them through to me.

This is a fund-raising function for KidzCan - an organisation which assists with looking after children with cancer. The function is named after the wife of the previous Rector who passed away from cancer, and is growing from strength to strength every year.

Everyone who attends this particular KidzCan function pays money to walk or run either 5km or 10km through the Marondera bush. At the start, everyone also buys a helium-filled balloon, and these are released just before the walk/run. This year there was a very moving speech by a father who had lost his child to cancer while the child was still at school.

The signal for everyone to release their orange balloons was a bubble of balloons (bet you didn't know that 'bubble' is the collective noun for a bunch of balloons??) floating into the sky - and pretty soon they were overtaken by the solo balloons....

At the given signal - everyone released their balloons in relays (totally unplanned) - and they were let go over a 10 minute period, such that the first ones were out of sight by the time the last ones slowly drifted skywards....

Once the balloons were aloft - everyone set out to run or walk. This is the start of the 5km walking crowd making its way through the African bush - by the end of the walk, the line spread back well over a kilometre and a half.

So this week's question is this - just how many people ran/walked for kids with cancer? Obviously the correct answer will win this weeks prize - which be a chance to wear my clothes for a day. In order to calculate the correct number - just count the heads - this is roughly a quarter of the crowd, and then multiply your answer by four.......

Isn't community spirit such a wonderful thing? Congratulations to Peterhouse and KidzCan for a truly wonderful and uplifting event.

Have a great day yourselves!

A bunch, a clompie, a huddle, a heap? You tell me!

Winter is upon us poor Zimbabweans, and as always there is something in flower. This time it is the red hot pokers in my garden. Hmmmm - I wonder why they call these flowers 'red hot pokers' - because they aren't hot at all. In fact they were very cold with the morning dew....

 

 

 

This is another pic of the red hot pokers - but can you see something strange here?

 

 

 

Of course you spotted the clump of grasshoppers hanging onto the stalk of one of the plants.

 

This is what they look like close up.....

 

 

 

Later on in the afternoon I found the same group of grasshoppers on the grass - still all huddled together. This is a defense mechanism because they walk around in a bunch (first person to give me the correct collective noun for a clompie/group/bunch of grasshoppers gets their name published in the next blog!) and they look like a large animal - so much so that the birds leave them alone. The ones at the back walk over the ones in the group until they are at the front, and then they get walked over by the others. As they are at the bottom of the heap, they eat the grass, until it is time for them to move forwards again. So the mass moves slowly around the garden.

 

 

 

 

This is the same bunch - after I waved my hand over them a few times. 

 

 

It was all very funny to see them scatter - but unfortunately a bird came and ate them all up once they were on their own. Nature can be so cruel at times!

Just kidding - have a nice day!

Who's been sleeping in MY bed???!?

Some days just don't make sense!

There is a mad woman living in the Imbeza Valley, pa-Gowera. Which means 'at Gowera's place'. In Zim we say 'mad', while the rest of the world says 'mentally ill'. But it is the same thing really.

Treatment for mentally ill folk in Zim is generally non-existent, unless they start posing a clear and constant danger, and then they are whipped away and locked up. Thus it is that Theresa has been able to wander around the valley with impunity - and yesterday she visited La Rochelle.

Somewhat cooked in the head, Theresa is generally harmless, but every once in a while her family get sick and tired of her, and send her out and about. This must have happened in the last week, and so she made her way to La Rochelle, where started staying in the small cottage by the entrance gate to the hotel - until the National Trust gardeners noticed that someone was sleeping in their store, and locked it.

Deprived of a roof to call her own, Theresa walked around the outside of the hotel until she came to an open door - which just happened to be the door of Stateroom - the large room just after the bar. We leave the outside door open in the daytime to air the room.....

Wandering into the room, she obviously tried the bed, just as Goldilocks once did, and found it wanting. We know she tested the bed because she left a dirty mark on the bed covers. But not good enough....

and so she went out of the door of Stateroom, across the passage, to where the door of Room 3 stood invitingly open.....

Testing the bed, she must have found it "Ju-uust RIIIIIGHT!" - whereupon she settled down and fell fast asleep. This is what we later found.....

She then woke up feeling a little peckish, and drifted through to the Reception, where she met David the waiter. She asked him for some food (as you do in hotels) but unfortunately for her, David recognised her as 'the penga woman from down the road', and kicked her out. It was only later that we discovered the bed and towel as pictured above!

So - if you ever want to stay for free at La Rochelle - just help yourself!

Have a great day.

The day of the shredded pup.

Today is not for the squeamish!

As regular readers of the blog will know, I have 2 white-eyed dachsunds as my pets - their names being Caramel and Honey. Distinctive as a species by their 'horror-film' glowing eyes, they are an integral and important part of my family..

What regular readers may not know is that their sisters also live on the property - one of whom is called 'Dooby'

A couple of days ago, Dooby went a-hunting, and came back severely shredded. So much so that she needed 15 stitches to put her back together again.

15 stitches in a small dog is quite a lot.

 We do not know what attacked her - thought the current suspects are monkey (probably not), Serval cat (again probably not as there aren't any rips from sharp, retractable claws), Genet (possibly as they are on the property) or long-tailed mongoose (my own suspect - because I know they live in the Dell - down by the aloes, have sharp little teeth, and are more than prepared to fight if cornered).

Whatever it was, I am guessing that she found and attacked something, and the thing retaliated with a vengeance. Here you can make out her shaved and stitched lip




Dooby also had a couple of stitches in her ear - visible despite the grainy pic. (Sorry)

Her side received particular attention, and needed several stitches to hold everything together....

The worst damage, though, was to her butt - and the overlying skin was ripped away right down to the muscle - such that there was actually nothing that could be sewn.

Hugely tender, and moving very slowly, I am pleased to report that Dooby seems to be on the road to recovery.

But anyone wanna bet whether she will go 'hunting' again in a hurry, or not?

Have a great day!