THIN-SKINNED AND NOSY

A Media Educational in Zimbabwe

1

MATTHEW CANNON

©Matthew Cannon 2013

No element of THIN-SKINNED AND NOSY ~ A Media Educational in Zimbabwe (and out

of it): Part 1 may be altered, copied or circulated without the author's consent.

Wednesday the 11th of October 2006

It feels like somebody spiked my drink and beat the crap out of me last night. I literally can't

walk, my legs are so painful.

But I've got to get my skates on because we're soon being taken to the Matopos by Driver 2

and ZTA Byo, and everything has to be packed beforehand since we'll never, ever return to the

Mock-Tudor Hotel.

My joints loosen as I persevere with the packing. This illness is better for movement, worse for

doing nothing – that lets it settle like flies on sores on a standing horse.

To the usual items in my daypack I add a small carton of orange juice from the

„complimentary‟ bowl in the room (because I'm assuming there are vitamins in it) and a thin

magazine produced by a Zimbabwean hospitality association that appears to be in cahoots with

the ZTA. The magazine's cover star is the famous performer who'll probably headline the Big

Five concert in Harare. It says under his picture that he's been chosen as the association's

ambassador. I might read about him later, and here's some more reading material. I pick up the

newspaper lying outside my door.

Perched at the end of the table we sat around last night, I can barely get the tea from the cup

into my mouth. But everyone else seems as fresh as a daisy this morning, regardless of all the

vinegary wine that must still be in their systems. True Bluebird isn't being mentioned.

I won't try joining the conversation again. My words came out at the machine gun pace that

always proves I have a temperature.

I approach the buffet, behind which three chefs in tall white hats are frying away. Breakfast

will be tinned litchis followed by egg and huge amounts of bacon, washed down with a second

cup of tea. I'm so out of it already, I figure putting this food in my body can't hurt. And it's

something to do.

Sitting in an armchair in the Mock-Tudor Hotel's entrance hall, waiting for Old School Bus 2,

necessitates another form of escapism: reading the Bulawayo daily that claims to have been

chronicling events since 1894.

Veld fire burns down school

is the big news, but the story at the foot of the front page, entitled,

Cult camps for Second Coming

is the one I read first. It's an account of a visit to a religious sect near Bulawayo, which the

reporter says was headed by two women with whom he'd hoped to have a good interview.

However, the interview did not bear fruit as the women kept on repeating that they were waiting for the Second Coming of Jesus, which they said was imminent.

The cult's guiding scriptures are...: ‘No-one can serve two masters at a time. Either he will hate the one and love the other, or he will be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve both God and money.’1

The reporter explains that the sect, thought to have broken away from the Seventh Day Adventist

Church in 2001, staged a protest outside the Bulawayo police station in January this year after

four of its members were arrested.

They warned the police and the army that their reign was over and that God would destroy them.

A bad black and white photo shows a group of people among dense, prickly bushes, using

umbrellas to protect themselves further from the camera's eye.

The next story that's hard to avoid is on page 2 under the headline:

GMB receives 47 000 tonnes of fertiliser

Its opening paragraphs are:

The Grain Marketing Board has received at least 47 000 tonnes of fertiliser, imported from South Africa to complement local supplies as preparations for the 2006/07 farming season intensify.

The price for the fertiliser will be announced in due course as the Government is still working out a formula.

Classic. Apparently the fertiliser is

...part of the Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe's revolving US$45 million fertiliser and grain import facility, which the central bank signed with [a South African bank] in June this year.

Shit! Is that true?

But my mind becomes more fugged as I read the rest of the article, which the writer,

credited only as „Harare Bureau‟, tries to complete without divulging anything unpalatable about

farming in Zimbabwe.

What's on the editorial page?

Zanu (PF) pops the champagne as MDC continues mourning The MDC's seventh anniversary commemoration in Harare on Sunday was a time of mourning for the British-backed opposition party while for the ruling party, Zanu (PF), it was a time to pop the champagne.

The seventh birthday did not rekindle the fire in the opposition party that stormed into Zimbabwe's political landscape seven years ago and nearly caused an earthquake, as it almost wrested power from Zanu (PF).

My knees are jiggling – where's Old School Bus 2? What are they saying here about the ZTA?

ZTA launches clean-up campaign The Zimbabwean Tourism Authority yesterday launched a clean-up campaign that will see volunteers from various institutions cleaning streets in most parts of Harare and other major cities until the end of the Travel Expo.

Below this is an article about the United Nations, which makes me notice another peculiar aspect

of the paper. It has twelve pages in total but all the international news is crammed into half of one

of them, and a quarter of that half is an advert for the Travel Expo. I suppose it's not much good

telling readers what's happening elsewhere if you're keeping them in the dark about what's

happening in Zim.

The bus arrives. Driver 2 instructs us to move our bags from the foyer to a storage room.

He'll fetch them before he takes us to the airport.

I knew we were going to the Matopos but I hadn't realised we'd be visiting Cecil John Rhodes'

grave. Most of the Buyers probably haven't heard of the guy, as odd as that seems in this part of

the world, but seeing his grave is worthwhile to me because of the story I've been toying with

doing about the monuments to him around Cape Town. It began with that photo I took up at

Rhodes Mem, then got pushed along by my friend who said the statue in the Company's Garden

disgusted him. I'm still not sure if I'll do it or not; the usual mission to get it published, the

editing-to-death without being consulted and the piss-poor pay have all discouraged me. But

maybe today will stimulate new ideas for the story and extra photos too.

About forty minutes south of Bulawayo, Driver 2 pulls onto the side of the road and turns off the

engine. He wants to give us some background on Rhodes and the national park in the Matopos,

which he admits is the area's pre-Independence name. He should be saying „Matobo Hills‟.

Driver 2 has a weary way of speaking. I don't think it's that he doesn't enjoy this job, but

rather that he's troubled by other things. He's got draggy, dislocated feelings – depression is what

I'd start with if I was going into it, which I'm not. Still, I'm glad somebody's trying to provide a

semblance of context (although my bullshit filters are prepped for action if I need them).

I hold out my digital recorder in Driver 2's direction as he compacts Rhodes' life into mere

minutes.

„When he was a young man he had a heart condition, so he came to South Africa and, well,

in his early twenties he became a multimillionaire, he made a lot of money through the gold and

diamonds in Kimberley, so he had the resources to make all those ventures. And so in 1890 he

organised the Pioneer Column, which came out from South Africa, and the first stop that they

made was in Masvingo, where Great Zimbabwe is situated, and it was known as Fort Victoria,

that's where they first stopped. Then they went up to Harare, which they called Fort Salisbury,

and then gradually they colonised the whole country. And this was one of his favourite places,

the Matopos in particular – as you will see, the rock formations. So he died in 1902 and he was

only forty-nine when he died of heart failure. And it's interesting because if you talk of Cecil

John Rhodes you get different opinions from people – he might have a different opinion, she

might have a different opinion. Some will say, “Look, he colonised the country, he was bad, he

was racist, he shouldn't even be buried up at Matopos, they should dig him up.” A few years ago

there was a pressure group, the media were saying, “He should be dug up from World's View, he

should be thrown into the Zambezi River or flown back to England.” And then some people say,

“Why not just leave him there and make as much money as we can from people coming to visit

him?”‟

As the group laughs gently, Driver 2 adds: „Because you cannot change history, be it good

or bad, you cannot change history, you have to leave it. So he's still up there, I don't know for

how long.‟

Driver 2 describes Rhodes' farm, which included our flat, dry surroundings and the low

hills rising from them, then talks about his funeral procession from Cape Town, the final leg of

which was completed by ox-drawn gun carriage.

„But certainly he had, um, a lot of love for the country, okay? Whether, you know,

colonisation or not, he had a lot of love for the country. You will see when we get to the grave,

there's a picture there where they say he used to sit up at those boulders for hours because it was a

favourite place of his. He'd ride around on horseback, and that's how he came to find the hill

which he named World's View, or the View of the World. Before that it was a sacred hill, it was

known as Malindidzimu, which means “the dwelling place of the spirits” to the locals, but he

decided to take over the hill and he named it the View of the World, or World's View. So that's

where he's buried.‟

„I prefer land to niggers‟ are other words belonging to Rhodes that occur to me. Did the

man who wrote the book about his cult status mention them at that talk in Cape Town, or did I

see them in the book itself when I was skimming it? Or maybe Rhodes was quoted in the review

of the book that I cut out of a paper. Ja, I think the quote was in that book review, and it's

probably still somewhere in all my stuff in the boxes on the spare bed. Those were the precise

words, though – they're not easy ones to forget.

„We're almost in the park,‟ says Driver 2. „We'll first go to some Bushman paintings in a

cave and then on to the grave.‟

We make a brief preliminary stop inside the park's boundary. „These men were soldiers in the

Second World War, white soldiers,‟ Driver 2 says about the memorial on our left. „All the history

in the Matopos is only to do with white people, there's nothing concerning a black point of view.

It's all white soldiers, Cecil John Rhodes and so on. So there's been a call to try and change that

because Mzilikazi – the first king of the Matebele – his grave lies near here, but nothing has been

done about that, so National Monuments and Museums are trying to come up with something a

bit like all the others.‟

„I mean this is what happens in Southern Africa!‟ complains the Other African, jabbing the

space in front of her with a flat hand, palm upwards.

But I'm thinking, National Monuments and Museums aren't breaking any speed records, are

they? They've had twenty-six years to do something about Mzilikazi's grave. Maybe it's another

Bulawayo versus Harare thing, part of the laughing sort of rivalry that True Bluebird referred to.

We're cruising through light grass, dark blobs of scrub and small, bare trees growing on

koppies topped with precarious granite arrangements. I imagine colossal, cupped hands hovering

beside a boulder that may need a nudge to gain steadiness.

I love boulders. I want to get off the bus and jump around on them, then lie down and take

their hot, ancient groundedness into my body. The Buyers are photographing the scenery but they

aren't totally won over by it. Maybe it's because the colours in the park are lagging behind those

on show in Bulawayo's sprinklered suburban gardens. Here, the palette is a washed-out blue,

grey, orange, beige and just enough evergreen: the colours of the paintings in my room, and of

my childhood.

The memory of a winter-afternoon hike to a gorge in the wilds of the estate in Natal is back.

I don't get it often. We were sitting on some big rocks by a pool, eating naartjies, and I've decided

that this was the day that my awareness of nature... the little orange leaves spinning themselves

into three dimensions before landing around me and on the surface of the pool that I could dive

into and swim in if I wanted to, if the water wasn't so cold, and the sound of the waterfall

somewhere in the gorge – oh please, why does this trip keep tying into my childhood landscapes?

Does my personal shit always have to be involved? Can't I just be fucked up by Zimbabwe

because that's what Zimbabwe is, fucked up? But what's strange is that this memory is a good

one, a clean one... the little orange leaves spinning and landing and floating across the pool, and

the cool gorge air after the sun warmed us on the way in. While we were eating naartjies, we

stopped talking and sat there peacefully. I did find a version of that peace when I was older, but

look what it took to find it, and to lose it again. Maybe I'm desperate to find some of it here too,

it's a compensating drive, I'm trying to find anything that's peaceful and natural and good among

these depressed, faking-it Zimbabweans and struggling hotels and the food I'm eating and

crapping straight out and the Buyers who knew squat about Zim and don't like what they're

discovering and me – I don't know what to do with what I'm feeling here except to let it sicken

me.

Driver 2 tells us that the cave we're going to is called Pomongwe. There are many other places in

the Matopos with rock art „...but you'd have to walk for about forty-five minutes to an hour to get

to them, and we don't have time. But once you get there it's like an art gallery, the more remote

paintings are very good paintings. Now with these ones in Pomongwe, a lot of people come in

and touch them and breathe on them, so most of the paintings have disappeared. It's just to give

you an idea.‟ Driver 2 also says there's a museum that we can visit afterwards, which has copies

of artwork from other caves.

Can't we skip lunch and all the Site Inspections, or whatever else we have to do today, and

walk for an hour to get to the better paintings? I'm anticipating the next section of the trip with

pure disdain, reckoning that the millions of tourists who've trudged a spitting distance from their

buses to touch, breathe on and flash cameras at the paintings in Pomongwe before trudging back

out, underwhelmed, will have sapped the cave of its fascination. I don't even want to think about

the museum.

Possibly the most reliable thing I've learnt from travelling is how lemming-like tourists are,

which means that making the smallest alternative effort, such as turning before the cliff-edge, can

produce great results. Famous palm-fringed beach in Goa? Teeming with braindeads. But walk

over some rocks and there's an equally beautiful beach with three people on it. Sunrise at the Taj

Mahal to get the photo that „everybody‟ wants? Dog show. But go an hour after sunrise and you

can actually see the place and give its design the reverence it's due. Sunset? Nah! Go an hour

before it rather, but be warned, if the beauty of the flowers carved from a rainbow of precious

stones and set in the central chamber's creamy marble doesn't make you swoon, the smell of a

day's worth of bare tourists' feet will. Yes, an hour after sunrise is best for the Taj Mahal. I know

because I went to it many times, and I could do that because I ignored the recommendations to

avoid Agra altogether and instead got there not long before the monsoon, when even the

scamsters were too hot to hassle me, and everything, not least a hotel on the doorstep of the Taj,

cost almost nothing. But then I like the heat...

I was dreading our package-deal stop-off at this cave, but I was completely wrong about it. Not

because we're the only people here, which is no surprise, and it is a short walk from the bus and

most of the rock paintings are faint and some have been defaced, but because of the cave itself –

this incredible, incredible cave! When I was a Stone Age man searching for a place to rest, this

was the cave I chose. I want to collapse on the soft white sand in here now.

Pomongwe is inside an enormous crescent of flowing, dark grey granite that's not perched

on top of a koppie but down on ground level. The cave is perfectly shaped, like half of a round

loaf of bread that's been cut vertically, with the cut surface as its opening. And why is the interior

of a dark grey mass of granite glowing pinkly and peachily? I don't know, but it looks and feels

sublime.

A giraffe is sharply defined and a few of the human figures are still quite clear. I ask what

one abstract form is, but Driver 2 says there's a big debate about this, maybe parts of it have

faded or maybe we can't interpret it. „Some of these paintings are said to be between seven

thousand and ten thousand years old,‟ he tells me.

„Ten thousand years ago, some guy went like that, right here!‟

„You can spend a whole week in the Matopos if you're interested in rock paintings,‟ says

Driver 2.

Where do I sign up? But the art isn't affecting me as much as what I was wrong about. This

cave has something that can't be drained by tourists, that can't be destroyed by the likes of the

vegetable who wrote his name over a painting. This cave is so, so old that it can't be tainted by

anybody. I've been in caves before, but never one like this.

„They would've had ceremonies in here. The Bushmen were trance-dancers and this is ideal

for it, the sound would've been amazing.‟

The Portuguese Man agrees. „The sound, and probably a fire too.‟

„Ja, people all around it, dancing, singing, clapping.‟

We both look up at Pomongwe's ceiling and point to a large circle just inside the mouth.

That's what thousands and thousands of years of heat rising from a hearth and spreading radially

does to rock.

„But this cave is more a church... a chapel or a church,‟ says the Portuguese Man wistfully.

So it's not only me. But what I'm in awe of is that it feels profane as well as sacred –

everyday. People trance-danced, sang, clapped, screamed, played, made love, fought, cooked,

ate, slept, painted, told stories, made tools, laughed, cried, died and were born in here for

thousands and thousands of years. This cave holds everything human, and the calmness of it is

sinking in between my shoulder blades, relaxing my face, closing my eyes. I really could curl up

in this sand and sleep.

Home.

I stay inside Pomongwe when everyone else leaves and bears right to view more paintings

nearby. Then I run out to the left and spring onto the undulating rock containing the cave. I take

pictures of it and imprint the texture that so many people walked on into my hands. I can see

them striding to spots along the skyline. Some are sitting there, some standing and shielding their

eyes from the sun as they look out over the hills.

I'm expected to get back with the programme.

Inside the site museum are storyboards and examples of what archaeologists have dug up

from middens around Pomongwe, but I can't digest them because the historical record is vibrating

metres away from this small, dull building.

The only thing in the museum that distracts me from the feeling of the cave is a reference to

a botched preservation attempt. Linseed oil was applied to some of Pomongwe's paintings in the

1920s, in the belief that it would promote their longevity – but they disappeared. I spare a thought

for two imaginary students, sweating and steeling themselves for a confession: „Jones and I must

tell you something, Professor. It seemed a good idea at the time, but, er, how to put it? There's

been a mishap.‟

What does the Guide Book2 say about the highlight that arrived when I was so low?

Many waves of humans through this area would have made use of a cave like Pomongwe.

First, the Stone Age hunter-gatherers (the Guide Book won't commit to calling them San), then

the Torwa, a Shona group that broke away from Great Zimbabwe and established a new state.

Later, in the 17th century, another group overwhelmed the Torwa; these were the Rozvi with

their „Mwari cult‟ and sacred rain shrines deep in the Matopos. Various Nguni raiders came up

from the south in the early 19th century, culminating in the domination of the region by the

Ndebele (or Matabele as Driver 2 calls them) under Mzilikazi. But Mzilikazi's people comprised

not just Zulus but other Nguni groups as well as Shona, Tswana and Sotho speakers. Although

they were all supposedly subsumed into a Zulu-based culture, aspects of their own backgrounds

would have shone through. According to the Guide Book, Mzilikazi himself incorporated

offerings to Mwari into his religious repertoire via the Rozvi priests who were still ensconced in

caves in the Matopos.

A short entry specifically about Pomongwe says it's estimated to have been inhabited by

people for 50 000 years. Or more, I'd say, and it still would have been used when it wasn't

inhabited by them, when living in nature was no longer the sole reality for human beings. I'm

sure the first European explorers and hunters sheltered there, if no-one else was inside it, and

Rhodes probably did too, whether or not anyone else was. And think of the day trips by sun-

riddled schoolchildren and their teachers, or of families having picnics in and around Pomongwe

– maybe my mother visited it with her parents and brother in some 50s car. Was it too obvious a

hide-out for soldiers during the war? So much human behaviour has been seen by that cave, and

what about the animal behaviour before it? The mammals, proto-mammals, reptiles, bugs, slugs

and slime...

Beneath a protective structure at the side of the World's View parking lot is a selection of

photographs in perspex frames, but we head straight for the path up to Cecil John Rhodes' grave.

Where it begins, I spot an inscribed tablet affixed to a sizable stone. In the middle of the

tablet, which has a cross at each corner, are the words:

THIS GROUND IS CONSECRATED AND SET APART FOR EVER TO BE

THE RESTING PLACE OF THOSE WHO HAVE DESERVED WELL OF THEIR COUNTRY.

What does that last bit mean? I can't understand it, not even syntactically, let alone conceptually.

Can anything ever be „deserved‟ of a country? If so, who judges „who have deserved well of their

country‟ or otherwise? All the country's people? The country itself somehow? Surely not a living

person before he's laid to rest in „this ground‟?

I hand the responsibility of making sense of the statement over to my camera, since my

mind is doing what it did in the face of the article about the 47 000 tons of fertiliser this morning

– turning up its nose.

I follow the others along the path, which leads to a wide rock slope that's not hard to climb.

The Other African and I look at the grave together. It's inside an incomplete ring of

boulders and covered by a brass plaque set on a low stone plinth. The epitaph, surrounded by

bundles of angry scratch marks, is simply:

HERE LIE THE REMAINS OF

CECIL JOHN RHODES

But it doesn't feel like a burial site to me, it doesn't feel „consecrated‟ at all. I knock on the plaque

and hear an echoey sound, then shoot some pictures.

The Other African jumps onto the grave and does a sexy shimmy, laughing naughtily. I

miss the moment and ask her to do it again, wondering if this constitutes a posed photo.

Twisting around, I see another structure. I thought Rhodes' grave was the only unnatural

thing up here.

When Driver 2 comes over, I question him about the boxy little house made from ugly

bricks.

„That's the Allan Wilson Memorial, another monument to white people,‟ says Driver 2 in

his tired way.

„Did they die fighting?‟ I ask, because a number of figures are bunched in a frieze on the

side of it.

Driver 2 nods.

„You'll always have a problem removing something like that,‟ I say. „If it's to do with

people who died fighting, the topic's much too hot.‟ Hoping to draw out more details of the

clashing opinions on World's View/Malindidzimu from him, I continue: „And tell me, all these

marks on the grave here – do people write things like “fuck you”, and then the metal has to be

scratched clean?‟

Driver 2 just nods slowly again.

The rocks are spattered with orange and acid yellow lichens. Big, full-spectrum lizards are

frying their bellies and grilling their backs under the sun, unperturbed by us and our looming

cameras. They've seen it all before.

I'm glad to have new pictures for my story if I need them, but I really don't feel any human

history where we are now. These monuments are as good as gone, this place is ruled by the

elements.

I want to explore, to hike off on my own, or at least sit still with the view for ten minutes. I

wander to the edge of a flat slab of rock and stare out over studded ridges and valleys fading into

a pale sky.

I do know about peace like this, I'm made of it, in fact. The noise has always been on me,

not in me... but now they're shouting that it's time to go. It's always bloody time to go! They're

keeping us busy, just as ZTA Joburg promised. There mustn't be any of this pausing-to-reflect

business.

I trot down the slope to catch up with ZTA Byo and ask if she'd mind phoning ahead to

check that the hotel in Harare is expecting me this evening.

I'd eat my blue towelling hat if she did; I'm trying to get ZTA Byo to mention a hotel name

entirely of her own accord. The Other African said earlier that she also stayed at the Curveball

Hotel prior to leaving Harare, where she met ZTA France too – the smoothie who hugged ZTA

Joburg 2 as I was saying goodnight to her before I went into the nauseating bar – and he

apparently told the Other African that our group is staying at a different, „better‟ hotel during the

Expo, one linked to the conference centre where the Expo and Big Five concert are taking place.

Whether this is true and what ZTA France has to do with it, I have no idea, but the Other African

seemed fairly sure about it. I'm worried that if there is a change, it'll screw up my chances of

meeting the Contact I phoned from the Telephone Woman's caravan in Vic Falls. I said I'd be at

the Curveball Hotel tonight, but considering the Other African's news, and how „flexible‟ our

itinerary is anyway, that could very possibly be wrong – plus the better hotel isn't in the Guide

Book. I'm so over this incoherent secrecy shit! I desperately need to have a proper discussion

with somebody.

ZTA Byo isn't up on the hotel arrangements in Harare because she's not attending the Expo,

but she says she'll make some calls and let me know.

We flip through the photos of Rhodes' teased-out funeral pageant from Cape Town, as well

as of the legendary acquisitioner when he was alive. My favourite shot shows him with two men,

one of whom is described as his financial advisor, the other as

...his personal helper, Tony.

Tony is a handsome Medium Melanin (or maybe Portuguese, if there's any difference between

the two) lad who's looking straight into the camera from under a curly black fringe, not with the

„guilty intruder‟ expression typical of servants in antiquated pictures, but with the relaxed,

confident gaze of a guy who knows exactly where he stands with his boss, so to speak. I hoot and

try to involve the group in my scandalously insupportable allusions to how sultry Tony helped

Cecil personally, but they don't get what I'm talking about so I give up.

I'm experimenting with my recorder's functions and catching the conversation inside Old School

Bus 2.

„It's twelve o'clock,‟ says ZTA Byo, „and we must be at the art gallery in town at one for

lunch, so...‟

„But we'd love to see the camp,‟ the Austrian Buyer cuts in.

„The camp?‟

„The lodge,‟ says the Other African.

„The lodge, ja. It's really important if you want us to send people,‟ explains the Austrian

Buyer.

ZTA Byo bursts out laughing at this condition, and rejects it.

„Just a quick look so we can experience what the lodge is like,‟ insists the Austrian Writer.

„Afterwards we can go to the lunch,‟ states the Portuguese Man swiftly, drowning out ZTA

Byo's disagreement.

„Yes,‟ confirm the others.

And that's that.

I tap the Other African's shoulder. „We're a rebellious group, huh?‟ I say, and whistle

disapprovingly.

„What?‟

„We're a rebellious group, we're doing whatever we want, we're not obeying orders,‟ I

clarify loudly enough for the whole bus to hear, and tack on some stagy tongue clicks.

It's the Other African's turn to chide me for my sarcasm. „Hey wena!‟

Driving to the Matopos this morning, we couldn't help noticing the lodges near the road

(one of them abandoned halfway through construction, though why this was so was avoided by

our guides). Presumably these are the places that True Bluebird told me I wouldn't see, and I'm

still asking myself why not – what's the cover-up, what's the deal? Something to do with the

„membership‟ that ZTA Byo and True Bluebird were arguing about yesterday? How does that

relate to True Bluebird's striving to pull business back to the city itself because these lodges are

still getting by with „medium‟ success? And what about the locals who stay in them? They'd have

to be the regime elite, or connected to it, to be able to afford pampered weekends in the Matopos,

wouldn't they? There's just so much illusion here, so many splits. I mean what did True Bluebird,

and the ZTA for that matter, expect the Buyers to do today? They made it patently obvious at the

Castle Hotel lunch that the only clients they can sell trips to are those rich enough not to care

about costs, and hence who want to stay in the most luxurious accommodation possible. Even

though the Buyers are wising up to Zimbabwe's weirdness, they'll suppress any qualms if they

find the right locations and packages, because it's their business to do so, but they can't make

money from sending people to stay in B&Bs and chalets in the suburbs with diagonal yellow

stripes on the duvets, and their clients wouldn't be interested in doing that in the first place. Even

if the Buyers wanted to, they couldn't ignore something fundamental to their purpose for being in

Zim – so of course they asked to visit the upmarket lodges near the Matopos, especially since

they could see them from the bus. And then ZTA Byo tantalised the Buyers further by telling

them about a particularly nice lodge, the one to which they've just press-ganged her into taking

us.

The lodge is indeed the sumptuous bush retreat that the Buyers have been dying for. It's a

collection of bedroom suites, lounge bars and decks squirrelled away in the nooks and crannies of

koppies linked by swing bridges and stone walkways swathed in shrubs and fat succulents. The

suites exemplify a notion of caveman cool: rugged walls and sparse but carefully chosen decor,

like bowls on long, low tables and beds with artfully deranged mosquito nets. Lights are hidden

behind boughs so that shapely shadows are thrown onto the thatched roofs, and when I go to the

loo in one suite, I have to squeeze past a boulder to get to it.

While the rest of the group members drink their fill of the lodge, the Other African and I make

for the big swimming pool below. I plan to take off my shoes and socks and wade into the water.

I don't know why the Other African has had enough of the Site Inspection. Maybe she doesn't

feel great either.

We pass the Austrian Sisters on the way down, who shake their heads and shrug, meaning,

„Why didn't they show us this at the very beginning?‟

It does seem illogical, but there could be numerous reasons why they didn't, and I'm

cottoning on to a new one as yet another forgotten episode from the recce in '93 edges back in.

My cousin, her husband and I visited a place that had granite koppies everywhere. It wasn't

nearly this ritzy, more of a private game farm with cottagey accommodation, probably self-

catering. But the keyword is „farm‟, which, in the „invasions‟ context, I've always associated with

cattle, tea, fruit or veggies growing in neat rows (as in the picture on the back of the blue note I've

got that won't buy me a sweet). It's just occurring to me now that game farms must also have

been taken as part of Mugabe's land grabs, which is bringing a whole new element to Zim's

tourism industry politics. Could this lodge be classified as a farm? Sure it could. Anything's

possible if the local headman has enough clout.

There was a morbid twist to our visit that day. The owners, who were friends of my

relatives, took us to the most dramatic koppie on their property, and some guests staying at the

game farm, a Capetonian family, came along. I didn't say much to the mother of the family, but

I'd met her before – was she an administrator at university or did she work at the college I went to

for my last year of school? I can't remember, but I happened to know her from somewhere in

Cape Town. My cousin's husband, an expert tracker, decided to explore the small caves and

tunnels through the koppie that we were standing on, and he suddenly yelled up that he'd found a

skull and some bones – yes, a skeleton, a full human skeleton! The game farm's owners were

spooked too. Whose skeleton was this, and how long had it been lying inside the koppie on their

land? They said they'd have to investigate, but then they stopped talking and everything went

even more wonky. The three of us left the farm soon afterwards, and as we drove off my cousin

explained that the owners had quietly told her that the woman I'd recognised had recently lost a

son, and the holiday in Zimbabwe was supposed to help the family get over his death. God, I

haven't thought about that skeleton for years. I never heard any more about it. Who was stuck in

that hole in the koppie? Somebody who slipped and fell, or were they murdered and dumped

there? A Bush War casualty, maybe? A victim of earlier fighting in the area? What happened?

When?

The sun is burning like my temperature and the iciness of the water is more of a shock than

a relief. I can't separate my intuition from my sickness now, but I don't like this place, it's not

right. And I can identify the feeling coming from it. It's what's there when you walk into a room

and everybody's just stopped talking about you. Not that anybody's talking about me here today –

that's the way I'm getting the guilt – but there's definitely a huge elephant in a craggy corner of

this lodge.

The others join us at the pool.

The Austrian Writer says the LM man who took over showing them around after the Other

African and I left the tour is the owner. So that guy hasn't had his „farm‟ grabbed, but does he

have to keep certain palms greased to hang on to it? What else is he doing to make this business

viable?

Somebody mentions that the owner said they host hunters here. There's nothing about

hunting in the brochure, so maybe that's it, maybe he's offering trophy hunting at this lodge to

augment its poor turnover. How much for a leopard? And a black rhino?

The Buyers are exhibiting no such circumspection. They're in an exuberant mood because

they've finally found a venue that will wow their affluent Euro-clients.

The orange juice from the Mock-Tudor Hotel tastes slightly off – fizzy, but not rank enough to

know for sure. I drink it anyway.

The Buyers are tearing into the achingly regular venues we were subjected to yesterday and

heaping more praise on ZTA Byo for delivering the goods today.

„She likes to show people her friends' places,‟ sighs ZTA Byo, in clover because True

Bluebird has been dissed again.

Okay, but she hasn't got the monopoly on nepotism, I think to myself.

As we arrive in Bulawayo, I see „MUGABE OUT NOW‟ spraypainted on a wall beside the

road. It was done at top speed.

I'm not hungry but I'm going to eat lunch at a café in a gallery that also houses some artists'

studios. The building, which isn't far from the scene of our flight to non-freedom, is a double-

storey affair with caste-iron trimmings to its verandah and balcony. Inside are large rooms with

wooden floors, pressed ceilings and tastefully distressed doors with nice old brass handles.

The café in the courtyard is staffed with coolly detached waiters. We could just about be in

Cape Town.

I go to the toilet. There's static in my ears and my face is grey except for a rosy blotch on

one cheek – lovely. I need to pee again before I leave the room. My body's cooking and trying

anything to get rid of heat.

There's no-one in the courtyard when I return. They've gone indoors because of the wind.

Bad news. I want movement and space, not confinement inside a little box.

The Portuguese Couple, the Old Frenchman and I are sitting together. The Other African,

the Austrian Sisters, the Old Frenchwoman and ZTA Byo are at a second table. The Portuguese

Woman and I have hardly spoken since we met, and she said one word then: hello. She gets

nervous whenever I'm near her and puts her husband between us if she can. And he's looking

uncomfortable too, sitting opposite my laconic pal the Old Frenchman and me with my rapid-fire

verbosity and cadaverous face.

Some of the dishes on the menu, including the vegetarian option, are unavailable, so

another lump of meat is going to land in my tummy and fester. Why have anything at all?

Because it's free food and it might make me feel better.

Inevitably, the Portuguese Man turns the awful conversation to the wonderful lodge in the

Matopos. I mutter about touristy hype, and become bossily inflammatory on hunting. „You have

to ask more questions,‟ I say. „I mean it'll be a bit of a problem if you send your safari clients to

that lodge when a whole lot of hunters are staying there, hey? Imagine them chatting over dinner

in the evening – “We saw some absolutely beautiful animals today.” “Oh ja? We shot some

dead.”‟

The Portuguese Man pauses for a second, smiling humourlessly, then does one of his

vehement eruptions, like when we passed the petrol station with the line of empty cars near

Hwange. „But it's not important! This stuff you're talking now, it's not important!‟

„Well, maybe you and your clients don't care what's happening in Zimbabwe,‟ I retort,

hissing instead of shouting because ZTA Byo is two metres away, „but I'm supposed to be writing

about “this stuff” for South Africans, so it is important to me.‟

Moments after our spat, the Austrian Sisters call out that ZTA Byo has just said we're all

going to the Big Five concert in Harare.

Yay! Why didn't anyone say so before? Fuck this shit, I can't sit here. I jump up and tell

ZTA Byo that I'm off to look at the art.

Close-up photos of the human body, a collection of sculptures and some paintings and

installations are on display. One or two pieces are excellent – and reasonably priced, whichever

currency or conversion rate you choose to use – but generally the standard is mediocre. However,

I'm not in the right headspace to contemplate art, or anything at all.

When the others find me, they're with a dour man who's giving them a guided tour.

Unsurprisingly, there isn't time to do the most revealing thing, visit the resident artists in their

studios.

Old School Bus 2 is waiting in the road. The noise between my ears is like a washing machine

and being inside an aeroplane is a horrifying prospect but I have to keep moving and flying is

moving and then in Harare this hellish runaround can STOP.

I'm scarcely conscious of leaving ZTA Byo outside the gallery but I do register the Other

African checking that Driver 2 collected our bags from the Mock-Tudor Hotel.

The only upside to my state is that can I dodge whatever they're planning for us tonight

without pretending to be sick. But the Contact and I won't be able to meet unless I start feeling

much better than I do now, namely like death warmed up. Anyway, he might be busy, and there's

the wrong hotel issue too, but I really need to talk to him, to anybody sane. The poor guy doesn't

know what he's in for.

Thank God the latest throe's kind of passing as Bulawayo shifts around the bus.

Driver 2 drops us at the airport – goodbye and good luck, downhearted man – and here's a new

ZTA employee. She wants our air tickets but otherwise seems even less interested in us than ZTA

Byo was.

We leave our bags near the counter because ZTA Byo 2 is going to check us in. Fine, let

her do it, the hall is congested with people getting ready for the flight to Harare and it's calmer off

to one side. Oh, and she can jump the queue, I see.

The Other African has somehow found out that ZTA Byo 2 is actually above her

predecessor in the ZTA's pecking order. It's hard to believe it, watching her work. In fact it looks

like there's a problem because the check-in guy is getting tense. And now ZTA Byo 2 is standing

there dumbstruck. No, come on.

The Other African beats me to it. She speaks to the check-in guy, then turns around and

says her ticket is valid but the rest aren't and the flight is fully booked.

I can't tolerate being stuck here. I step forward and ask, „Can you try mine again, please?‟

as politely as I can, pointing to the tickets on the counter and stating my surname. „I got it at the

airport in Joburg a few days ago and they assured me it was confirmed.‟

„No, your ticket is also fine, but not these tickets,‟ says the check-in guy. „These are

invalid.‟

What about ZTA Byo 2's ticket? It's okay too – silly question. So the two South Africans

and ZTA Byo 2 are on the flight but the other group members aren't. You'd have thought any

glitches would have been sorted out when three of them visited the Air Zimbabwe office in town

yesterday.

ZTA Byo 2 can pull strings, can't she? She won't let the national carrier's dysfunctional

transfers offend these Buyers, will she? Surely there must be something she can do, something

better than repeating to the stressed check-in guy that this isn't right, which is irritating him even

more.

When we explain the situation to the Europeans, they take the news... quite well. The

Austrian Writer smugly says: „We can stay the night at the lodge we visited instead!‟

The Other African and I glance at each other, thinking they're missing the point. As

someone who's been playing catch-up ever since I arrived in this country, I know how quickly the

hospitality will run dry if these Buyers fall out of step with the in-crowd.

The two of us return to ZTA Byo 2 to goad her on behalf of the group. She says there's

hope because about twenty passengers with booked seats haven't shown up and the check-in is

closing soon. But loads of people are still waiting to be processed, as far as I can tell from all the

Expo-related talk around us.

The Other African and I have been asked to move on from this section of the airport. We say

goodbye to the others and that we'll see them tomorrow, if not just now, and step through a gap in

a hardboard partition into the departure lounge, which has a few rows of plastic chairs and a bar

counter in the corner.

We discuss the Europeans' attitude to the ticketing stuff-up. They don't understand what's

going on, I say, and the Other African moans about ZTA Byo 2's inefficiency and wonders if

she'll take the flight or stay behind with the Buyers. Her guessing game is pendulous because

ZTA Byo 2 keeps entering and exiting the departure lounge.

As the Other African and I get up to walk towards the glass doors leading to the apron, the

Europeans come through. „There were exactly six seats left,‟ the Austrian Buyer says. I don't

think the Old Frenchman bothered to tell the Old Frenchwoman about the close call because she's

looking very calm.

Passengers are trying to find enough space in the luggage compartments or struggling to get

comfortable in their seats. I'm sitting next to a middle-aged HM man in a suit who's squashed

against the window and smothering the armrest between us. I clench my teeth as my head

liquefies again.

Three people board the aeroplane long after their voices. They're fifty-something guys with

fulsome moustaches and the-wife-does-it haircuts, and they're wearing clothes from the range

appropriate for safari guides, farmers, members of LM-supremacist organisations, hunters and

other hard-living frontiersmen: velskoene, long socks, shorts or trousers, collared shirts (short-

sleeved or long-sleeved), jerseys and jackets, all in khaki or beige – with a touch of greeny-blue

for the oke who likes to be a bit different. They're talking so loudly, it's as if there's nobody else

in this sardine tin.

The signs on the plane's ceiling have Chinese language characters next to them that I'm

analysing for any pictorial reference to going, departing, taking off.

I've finished my emergency tablets, so I attract the stewardess' attention and ask her for a

headache pill.

„We don't have medicine on this aircraft,‟ she says vapidly.

I force myself to swot up on the main map of Harare in the Guide Book, and decide to engage the

big man next to me, who must be a businessman because of his suit and his immersion in lists of

figures on sheets of white paper. Maybe he can show me where the Other African's „better‟ hotel

is. I need to know because of the Contact, but also so I can plot some excursions from it as well

as the Curveball Hotel.

The Businessman stares at me with bulging eyes, but then he looks at the map, points to the

hotel and says: „The name here is wrong, this is the old name.‟

I tell him it's an old Guide Book and ask if the hotel has a functions venue attached to it.

The Businessman grumpily says it's a conference centre and that it's the location for the

upcoming Tourism Expo.

„Ja, that's what I'm going to Harare for. Isn't the Big Five concert also there?‟

The Businessman nods.

So it's possible that I won't have to leave my hotel at all, which makes me even more

determined to do it.

Since unemployment is so high and petrol and other supplies so elusive, how is somebody like

this Businessman operating now? And what about forex, what does he do with his earnings from

international transactions? Change them for Zim dollars in the Reserve Bank because the black

market's illegal? Please. But the real question I want to put to him is the one I'd put to the tourism

industry overall if I was given the chance: to what extent are you staying in business by sliding

kickbacks to the ruling party network?

It's a morass, and it brings to mind a Nigerian man I met in Cape Town who told me a story

about paying a bribe to speed up his check-in at a South African airport, which also enabled him

to use the First Class lounge facilities while he waited for his flight. He said a cleaner approached

him when he was standing in a long Economy check-in queue and he followed her without

thinking twice. The cleaner showed the Nigerian where to go and obviously shared what he paid

her with the First Class check-in clerk and the guard outside the lounge. I said: „But even if it

seems like a small thing, apart from the fact that it increases the stereotype of Nigerians being

crooks, the more anyone does what you did that day, the more corrupt the system will become,

slowly but surely.‟ The Nigerian, a charming young guy, was amused by my view and certain of

his own. „You're not getting me,‟ he said patiently. „In Nigeria there isn't “the system” and “the

corrupt way”, okay? The corrupt way is the system. If you fight it, you lose.‟

Yes, so Mr Businessman – you're very well fed, I must say – exactly what sort of work do

you do? And how do you conduct yourself? Do you have plenty of low friends in high places?

I've got to be so careful about what I come out with here. This man is going along with the

conversation, but a very different reaction from him is a flick of my tongue away. Now is not the

time to vent my feelings about this country, and besides, he might not be a Businessman, he

might be a politician – or a postman. No, politicians travel with hangers-on and postmen have to

do exercise as part of their job.

I tell the Businessman that I'm excited about the concert on Friday because I'm a fan of

Zimbabwean music, and the South African bands (whose music videos I've seen often on TV

here) are good too. The Businessman proudly informs me that a member of one of these bands is

Zimbabwean. „Oh yes,‟ I reply, keeping to myself the memory that he was once deported from

SA for not having the right papers.

I ask the Businessman about another Zimbabwean artist I like, some of whose rarer albums

I want to get while I'm in Harare. I say I saw him live in London years ago and that his music is

what I put on when my need to dance is at its most intense.

The Businessman listens closely, then gives me a summary of this musician's career,

beginning with the fact that he became famous in the 70s, when his songs fuelled the fire of the

Second Chimurenga, the War of Independence. „But he lives in America now and he wouldn't

play at a concert like the Big Five. He just looks at all of them and says, “You are corrupt!”‟

claims the Businessman, punctuating the air with a fat index finger.

I cut to my favourite Zimbabwean musician, the woman scheduled to perform on Friday

night, who's known for combining traditional mbira with modern instruments.

„She lives in Germany these days, although she still comes here quite a lot. She plays

mbira, okay, but the problem is she plays drums too, and that does not sit well with a male

chauvinist pig like me,‟ says the Businessman, his morose face not telegraphing his sense of

humour in the slightest.

I laugh and keep the momentum going by asking what kind of music he listens to.

„There's all kinds of music in my house because of my children,‟ he explains. But his

favourite artist is the country's biggest musical export, the Hospitality Ambassador who's also

performing on Friday night. „He is not so political,‟ asserts the Businessman, dipping his head to

one side.

„Are you going to see him on Friday?‟

„I won't be in Harare on Friday, but I have seen him many times.‟

„Do you think he'll headline the Big Five concert?‟

„He will.‟

I say goodbye to the Businessman after I've got my hand luggage, appreciating the chat that

helped to pass the time and my wooziness during the flight. He nods back with the supercilious

look he gave me when I interrupted his number-crunching.

I don't know if they were on the plane with us or waiting for her here, but a few other tour groups

are in the „care‟ of ZTA Byo 2 too. We all walk through the domestic section of the airport and

sit on some steps in the half-darkness outside.

I ask if anybody has headache tablets handy, and am grateful that the Portuguese Couple is

willing to donate a pile of them to me. Three go down my throat immediately. I hope they work.

ZTA Byo 2 borrows a stranger's cellphone to find out where our transport is.

A luxury bus stops nearby. The Portuguese Couple gets up and pushes its luggage trolley

along the pavement towards the bus, unaware that nobody else has budged. Everybody, including

the members of the other tour groups, wants to see how long it is before the Portuguese Couple

spots the

POLICE

sign in the bus window – and we hose ourselves when the two of them finally execute a very

tight turn and come scuttling back to the steps with faces like gargoyles.

A much smaller bus than the police one and our Old School models parks in front of us. Whereas

amazement might have registered days ago, it now feels more or less right that this banger has to

carry about thirty people. And there's no trailer, so our luggage also has to squeeze into it.

My daypack is by my feet and my backpack is wedged between my thighs, the seat in front of me

and the roof. It's a coarse pillow for my head to loll around on.

My worries about which hotel I'm staying at have been surpassed by the idea of sharing a

room wherever I end up. But the troubleshooting Other African is on the other side of my

backpack and ZTA Byo 2 is close to both of us, so after the Other African responds to her name

in ZTA Byo 2's roll call, she tells the feckless woman that she's not sharing a hotel room. „And

he's ill,‟ the Other African adds, pointing at me. Consequently, when ZTA Byo 2 reaches my

name, she asks if I'd like to share a room. Um, let me think... I gather my illness and direct it

through my face as I say, „No!‟ which ZTA Byo 2 makes a note of.

Thank you Jesus, the ancestors, the angels, the devas, the nymphs and any otherworldlies

I've left out. I'll be as good as gold from now on, promise.

I lift my head. It's not the Curveball Hotel but what is it?

We move through the forecourt into a foyer decorated with chandeliers, leather couches and

stout, mirrored pillars. People are nattering and a pianist is tinkling away jazzy-wazzily in a

lounge bar to our right.

This is the place that ZTA France told the Other African we'd be staying at. While we wait

for our keycards, the word is that there's a „welcoming cocktails‟ function in an hour. I ask the

Austrian Sisters to fill me in tomorrow if I miss anything important.

ZTA Joburg 2 appears on the scene. After a quick greeting I tell her that I'm not feeling

well and am going to bed instead of having welcoming cocktails. ZTA Byo 2 didn't do or say a

thing when I told her as much a minute ago, and I need somebody in the ZTA to get the message

so they'll leave me alone for the rest of the night.

ZTA Joburg 2 okays my absence but also says: „We'll check on you later.‟

„No, don't do that. Thanks. I'm just going to sleep now,‟ I assure her, pushing towards the

lifts off the back of the foyer.

I ride up to my floor and walk down a wide, carpeted passage to my room, which is the

very last one on the left hand side. My own room, for three nights and two days. Some shadows

are dispersing already.

The entrance is a warm wooden tunnel incorporating a wardrobe on the right and

continuing into a bathroom on the left, which has a separate shower and bath, spotlights, soft

carpeting, heated towel rails – hey, this is quite rock star!

The bedroom isn't as pimped, but its neutral character, dressed with „ethnic‟ touches like a

patterned bedspread, is perfectly fine. The double bed faces a black desk and a bar fridge, and

beyond them is a television, a two-seater couch, a chair and a coffee table. The far side of the

room is dominated by big windows.

It's too dark to see clearly but I can make out a road behind the hotel and some trees,

buildings and lights in the distance. Unfortunately only a little square of glass opens on hinges at

the top of a frame and locks with a thick metal arm. I press my forehead against the hinges and

look down through the mingy gap at two swimming pools in a paved area several floors below.

One is large and kidney-shaped, the other is small and round with dolphins on the bottom of it.

There's definitely water in them. I pull the metal arm up again and clamp the window shut.

Mozzies.

The room has various curiosities besides the afterthought of a working window. The fridge

is broken, an interconnected mechanism is going on with the lights – turn one off here and

another comes on somewhere else – and both a smoke detector and an ashtray have been

provided. But otherwise the room is great, very comfortable, the homeliest space I've been in

during this trip, except for Pomongwe cave. That cave! It's unbelievable that I was in there this

morning.

I embrace the novelty of fully unpacking my bags and hanging up my clothes, and discover

a safe on the floor of the wardrobe in the process. Cool, it has a red screen that you can key your

own pin code into. What choice contraband has been inside this safe before my boring travel belt

and camera?

I feel like I could handle talking to the Contact, so I phone him. I remind him about the call from

Vic Falls on Sunday and ask if he can still make it tonight, stressing where I'm staying. He says

he can come in a couple of hours. I tell him my room number and that I'm very much looking

forward to meeting him.

I eat two health bars and take another red and white Portuguese pill. They're doing the trick,

or it's them plus placebo effect plus relief that the road trip is finished, because no medication on

its own is strong enough to compete with the psychosomatics I've been experiencing. Whatever,

I'm glad I'm feeling better.

I should think carefully about what I want to ask the Contact. But that's crazy. Am I

suddenly going to forget everything that's been bombarding me?

I shove the window open again. I thought I was hearing music and there is some down

there, a band's playing near the two swimming pools. The musicians are out of sight but lights are

flashing across the palm trees and people are gossiping raucously – drinking talk. Is this the

welcoming cocktails function? Could be, but my God, what's this band? They're so good!

A guitar melody is running rings around keyboard chords, the drums are kicking in, the

bass is bouncing and the lead singer is nailing his high notes, and there's another hook, male

backing singers dropping harmonies to the frontman's soaring falsetto. The crowd's well into it,

laughing and even ululating, but what the hell is that? It's like a car alarm going off, it is an alarm

but it's adding to the killer sonic mash and I have to dance around the room, shaking my butt to

the infectious racket that's spiralling up and up and up until an explosion rips through an amp and

the music stops.

The bassist rolls out a reggae line while the others work on the technical hitch.

The two or three songs they played after the restart were more tame, and now it sounds like it's

over. I close the window.

I find an international music video channel among the usual ZBC dreck on television, and

pray that something decent comes on after the tedious clip advertising the music video channel

itself.

Not bad, they're featuring ten hits by an LA band that's been going for more than twenty

years without losing too much heat. I turn up the volume. I'd rather be dancing to live Zim jive-

genius, but crunchy funk rock with tender singalong parts will do. Oh, you think Hollywood's a

plastic nightmare, you think California's a fuck-up? It's Babylon here too, dudes. It's all Babylon

now.

I shave and shower in detail, after which sleep is begging me to give in to it for a short while. But

I wouldn't be able to wake up if I did.

A receptionist calls and says someone's waiting for me.

„We should probably go talk in my room,‟ I suggest after the Contact and I meet in the

foyer.

I don't know whether to have the TV on; what if a Zanu guy doesn't dig what he's hearing

through the wall and spreads the word? Could that happen, is it possible? Of course it is! But I

haven't heard a peep from the room next door since I've been here – but maybe that's because

whoever's in there hasn't been talking or because I've had the TV on most of the time. When I

lived in that hotel converted into bachelor flats on Kloof Street, I could hear every damn sound in

the four flats around mine.

But it doesn't feel right to have silly music videos playing while we're speaking about

serious stuff, so I switch the TV off.

I suspend introducing myself properly once more to offer the Contact a beer. I call room

service and order a couple of bottles of the brand I like, after asking if the Contact does too. The

friend who gave me the Contact's number told me precious little about him, and he knows less

about me. Some tension is to be expected, so I've got to try to put him, and myself, at ease. Other

than getting us a drink and sketching the background to why I'm on the Media Educational, the

best I can do is be honest about how it's affected me.

„I'm sorry man, the truth is I'm all over the place and I need to talk to somebody who might

be able to make head or tail of what I'm saying. The ZTA's main aim is to impress these Buyers,

as they call them, who've got a totally different take on things from me – not that they're stupid or

anything, but they're upmarket European travel agents, looking to sell luxury package deals –

safaris, sunset cocktails in Victoria Falls – to clients when they get home, you know? And so the

ZTA's trying to convince these Buyers the whole time that this is a great idea, that everything's

absolutely fine in Zimbabwe and they must sell those package deals to clients when they get

home. But as I'm sure somebody in your position knows only too well, it's not possible to do the

“see no, hear no, speak no evil” thing here now, it's not possible to hide everything or to, kind of,

steer even the most clueless foreigner away from what's going on because there's too much of it,

so the Buyers have gradually picked up on it, but because they're here on business, they can't or

they don't want to... I don't know, this trip hasn't been good for me at all. It's been horrendous.‟

I launch into the dilemma of writing a travel story about Zim – how I was told to promote

tourism for the sake of the ordinary people employed in the industry who are supporting large

family networks with their income, but how it would be extremely difficult for me to promote

something that depends on tourists not learning more about the country's predicament. Also,

where does the government's corruption begin and the tourism industry's end? And then there's

the safety issue. I'm supposed to assess how safe it is to travel here, but how can I tell when the

ZTA is pretending that everything's perfect, or else saying that tourists shouldn't concern

themselves with politics, in other words, that they mustn't worry if everything's not perfect, they

must just have a wonderful time?

The Contact talks for a while about what he does. He's officially based in the

communications industry, but is involved with human rights advocacy too. And he's evidently

well-informed.

„I'd like to check some statistics I read before I left. Could you confirm or deny them, if you

don't mind?‟

„I'll try.‟

„Great. Unemployment – this one article said Zimbabwe's unemployment rate is seventy

percent...‟

„At least.‟

„And HIV, is it true that one in five adults has HIV?‟

„Yes.‟

„And for women it's up around forty percent?‟

„Yes.‟

„So forty percent of the women here are HIV positive, and there's obviously a shortage of

ARVs and so on, right?‟

„Right.‟

„And is the average life expectancy somewhere in the thirties? About thirty-four for women

and slightly more for men?‟

The Contact nods.

„You know what? I'm turning thirty-four in a few weeks, so if I was a woman in Zim,

everything from then on would be a bonus.‟

We look at each other in silence.

There's a knock at the door.

„Room service. What sort of tip should I give?‟ I ask, getting up. The Contact tells me as I

grab my travel belt from the safe.

I open the door slowly. The room service staff member comes in and puts the beers down,

and we have a short, pleasant chat. I sign the slip and hand the tip to her.

„That's who benefits from keeping tourism going,‟ observes the Contact, pointing at the

door.

„Ja, I know, and it's really hard to argue with that, but it's just the clash of it! Holidays are

meant to be fun and relaxing and invigorating – so what must I do? Tell tourists to come and

have the time of their lives in the middle of all these other people living in shit? Is that what I

must do? Okay, you can say, “That's life, one's dying, one's being born,” or whatever, but it's

different when it feels like this. It's so bad, the vibe here! I find it completely sick, you know? It

made me sick when I arrived, I literally got sick, I vomited within hours of arriving in Harare last

Saturday.‟

The Contact's eyes are on the carpet. „It's not an easy question,‟ he says. „It's very tough.‟

We're talking about „corporate social responsibility‟ and alternatives to the luxury tourism model.

The Contact asks if I can concentrate on operators who are uplifting their employees and the

communities around them.

„That's what I've been thinking about, because I can't do a picture-postcard story. Maybe if I

say, “Go to Zimbabwe, but be aware of what's happening there and support the guys who are

running their businesses ethically.” But you see, it's hard to know if anything's being run ethically

here now. Is it? You tell me! Anyway, ja, maybe that's the best compromise. At least it would be

on the side of keeping jobs going, keeping money coming in for the room service staff and cooks

and drivers, and supporting the better operators, the more aware travel scene overall, even if

some money lands up in the wrong pockets too.‟

However, a more aware form of tourism tends to appeal to independent backpackers, not to

the Buyers' mainstream, rolling-in-it clientele, and how possible is it for backpackers or self-

driving travellers to have a good trip in Zim? It's certainly not cheap, and what about getting hold

of petrol? Or what if somebody has an accident and needs medical treatment? What happens then

in a country where chemists and aeroplanes don't have the most basic first aid supplies?

Because it's tied to such worries, I try to convey a larger one about something I've tuned

into more strongly every day: the contrast between Zimbabweans' depth and surface, the extent of

the persona everybody has on, the attempt to maintain an appearance of normality no matter

what.

„People don't get how ludicrous it is! They're like headless chickens, they don't know if

they're coming or going so they put on a vacant happy face in the meantime. And I'm sure the

media's a huge contributor – the crap on TV and in the newspapers here boggles people's minds.

It's a classic case of can't-see-the-wood-for-the-trees, they're right in it all the time, pounded by

distorted information over and over again, so they can't remember what it's like to see straight, or

they've never even known there's such a thing as seeing straight. Shit! Mugabe!‟

The Contact, who's recently been out of the country, is nodding. „Everything's very

different when you see it from outside compared to inside,‟ he says. „Like with petrol, if I need it,

maybe I go round the back of so-and-so's house, I do whatever I have to to sort it out. But to you,

to somebody from outside...‟

„To me it's, like, madness! And that's what self-driving tourists would have to do, hunt for

petrol everywhere, but in a normal situation they'd go into a petrol station, two minutes, done.

Seriously, you'd have to be somebody who enjoys chaos – or who really wants to check what it's

like here – to get a buzz from travelling in Zim now, otherwise the only option, as I see it, is the

blissfully ignorant, luxury Vic Falls safari scene. And even then, I think you'd have to be some

kind of, I don't know, rhino-skinned halfwit not to click that something's incredibly wrong. It's

impossible!‟

I've got to shake out another piece of my mindfuck. I mention an article I read in the Paper

about a policeman who was willing, anonymously, to admit that he and his colleagues sometimes

beat MDC supporters when they had them in custody, but just on the soles of their feet so there

would be no evidence to be convicted by if the victims pressed charges. „I don't understand that.

If the regime likes what this policeman's doing when he beats an opposition guy, if they want him

to do it, I don't understand why the case gets to court at all. And if it does get to court, can't they

slot a crooked judge in there to make sure the policeman wins? What's he worried about, you

know what I'm saying?‟

„Well, yes, but the people at the top are still trying to make it look like the system's not

corrupt,‟ explains the Contact.

„I guess that's it, but why do they bother when it's so obvious that corruption's everywhere?

It's the same “appearance of normality” thing. You know, they can do something like force

people out of their houses on a massive scale – what was it, Operation...?‟

„Murambatsvina.‟

„Ja, the government can literally bulldoze thousands and thousands of people out of their

houses, but a policeman's still worried about getting into trouble for hitting someone who's

protesting against the same government! And that's actually another example, the newspaper I

read this article in at home, [the Paper], you know it, right?‟

„We get it here.‟

„You get it here, that's my point! There's all this propaganda shit in the state newspapers, all

this nonsense that makes your head spin – then down in Bulawayo I see [the Paper] calmly being

sold alongside them on the street. This contradiction again!‟

But the Contact is under no illusion and doesn't want me to be either. „Things are very, very

bad,‟ he says, his face changing. „There are people starving to death in the rural areas of

Zimbabwe.‟

I'm feverish with the opportunity to talk about so many topics, my sickness is being positively

rerouted, although I also keep thinking it's weird to be having this conversation with a complete

stranger.

I ask about the Contact's safety. „Are you scared, I mean are you careful where you go,

what you do?‟

The Contact replies that he used to wear a cap pulled down low and speak with one hand

over his mouth. „I'll meet you at eleven at the corner of...‟ he demonstrates, before dropping the

secretive act with a laugh and saying, „I couldn't go on like that.‟ He tells me how much

encouragement he gets from other people who are working against the regime – or for what the

regime is against – and from his belief in what he's doing. Never in his life has he felt as driven as

he does now.

After hours, when yawns are spoiling our discussion anyway, the Contact has to make a move.

We swop deeper numbers and addresses, then I thank him for coming and apologise again for

saddling him with my built-up angst. He says it's alright.

I walk the Contact to the lift. The doors open, we shake hands, the Contact steps inside, the

doors close and he's gone.

I stumble back to my room.

Thursday the 12th of October 2006

I wake up early, feeling infinitely better. Got to go down for a big breakfast because it's the only

free meal of the day.

First things first – location, location, location. To the left of the pools is a green and brown

tennis court, and beyond the hotel's boundary is what could be neglected parkland or no man's

land. Schoolchildren are walking along one of many paths cutting the stubbly, orange-brown

earth into shapes, and a man is riding a bicycle in the other direction. A minibus is also moving

slowly over the dirt even though there's a road nearby. Behind the open land is a single row of

buildings. That block is still under construction. Who's paying?

I lock the safe, throw in the towel against the senseless light switches, kick the newspaper that's

outside my room into the entrance way and shut the door.

Once I'm out of the lift, turning left and following the right noises down a wide corridor

brings me to where breakfast is being served, but I have to give pieces of personal information to

a staff member before I'm cleared to enter the dining area.

I walk through the high-ceilinged space, at the back of which chefs are preparing hot food

in alcoves. There are counters laden with fruit, juice and cereals too. I'll have lots of my usual:

tea, fruit, eggs and bacon – and some unappetizing buns today where toast should be.

The Austrian Sisters stop at my table. „You look so much better,‟ remarks the Austrian Writer.

„You looked terrible yesterday.‟

They don't think I missed anything last night, except the tip they got about a man who

changes money. With some excitement, they tell me his name and that he'll apparently be in front

of the hotel at 3 o'clock.

Because it's best to assess a lead like this myself, I don't push them for more details, I just

say: „Okay!‟

After finishing the meal and signing under my room number on a „complimentary‟ chit, I walk

through a door in a thick glass wall and out into the morning sun.

The Austrian Sisters are sitting and eating with the Portuguese Couple and the Other

African. We discuss what's happening today, starting with registration formalities for the Expo.

The Austrian Writer suddenly becomes jokingly conspiratorial and asks: „Do you see who's

behind us?‟

True Bluebird is tucking into her breakfast a few tables away.

„I'm off,‟ I say, widening my eyes. „Cheers everybody.‟

I leave the pool area and go down a staircase and up another to a path beside the tennis

court. The hotel's lower levels, three or four terraced slabs fringed with plants, are above me to

the left. Looming over them is a shiny screen formed by what must be thirty storeys of dark glass

pocked by the little windows that guests have opened.

The way ahead is blocked. I retrace my steps, pass back inside, thread through the dining

room and walk across the swanky foyer towards the front of the hotel with my head tipped

forward in thought.

I'm aware that someone is next to me, almost brushing against my shoulder. The person

realises the same thing and we both look up to account for this invasion of space. All I can see

are the large, pink-rimmed glasses and mournful eyes of True Bluebird. We mutely agree on non-

recognition, put our heads down and keep moving. She peels off to talk to a receptionist and I go

outside.

Oh, there's the city proper, I'll just stroll over the grass to reach it, it won't take long. Huh,

they've got a full-on security checkpoint halfway down the drive.

Palms and cycads are growing straight out of the well-watered lawns around the hotel, as

are two types of light: tall red poles with a couple of giant ping-pong balls stuck to them and

knee-high poles with a single ball each. One of the lower balls has a dent in it. The hotel's facade

is made of goldish rectangles. Tapping the closest panel reveals that it's not metal but an odd

material somewhere between hardboard and fibreglass. I decide that this place could be described

as an evocation of the 21st century by 60s movie set designers. So it was probably built in the

80s.

The lawn to the right, near the public entrance to the adjoining conference centre, is

covered with tents and stalls. People are putting the final touches to the outdoor component of the

Expo.

I go back inside. Opposite me is the Fool's Gold Hotel guests' short cut into the conference

centre. Through the pair of large doors is a warren of passages, hallways, staircases and rooms.

It's the kind of environment I usually get lost in, which might be a good thing for a change.

I drift with a crowd along a carpeted, wood-walled passage towards a queue jutting out of a

room. Queues are not to be sneezed at in these circumstances; nobody bugs you because you're

doing something, meanwhile you're actually doing nothing but observing your surroundings like

a man possessed.

There's the Old Frenchwoman. She's waving back at last.

Registration involves completing a green form in order to get a plastic identification card

that has to be worn for the duration of the Expo. The form must be signed by ZTA Vic Falls,

who's in charge of this procedure, and everything else going on, seemingly. ZTA Vic Falls smiles

when she sees me and I reflect it, but neither of us wants to chat. Anyway, she's too busy fielding

questions and checking people's green forms.

The Old Frenchwoman approaches ZTA Vic Falls, gesturing feebly at her form. ZTA Vic

Falls grabs the piece of paper and inspects it. „No, you haven't signed it. You have to sign it!‟ she

shouts so that the foreigner will understand. Next, she clutches her own throat and jeers, „We are

sending you to the slaughterhouse, you are signing your death warrant!‟ then doubles over and

guffaws at her gag.

Crumbs. I've generally avoided making notes, but that I've got to get down. I put what ZTA

Vic Falls said to the Old Frenchwoman in my notebook, using even scribblier handwriting than

normal in case anybody behind me in the queue is reading over my shoulder.

Somebody else asks ZTA Vic Falls about the concert tomorrow night. „It's the Big Five, it's

going to be the mother of all parties!‟ she bellows, leaning back and basking in the limelight right

now.

I write „media‟ as my job description, „freelance‟ as the organisation I work for and leave

the incomprehensible parts of my death warrant blank.

A satisfied ZTA Vic Falls adds her signature.

I'm inching forward. The two men administering the production of the identification cards

are seated at a long table on the left hand side of a room watched over by the Portrait of the

country's top dog. It's a chance to study this false idol, whereas normally you're obliged to revere

it in passing, suppressing any comments or queries to the contrary, emperor's new clothes-

fashion.

President Mugabe is wearing a nice dark suit and the strip of moustache popular with only

the hugest dictatorial crackpots. He had more hair on his head when the photo was taken, but

other than that the Portrait isn't too dated because Mugabe is annoyingly spry in real life for an

82-year-old.

The caption, which I might as well copy into my notebook in the scribbliest writing never

seen by man nor beast, is:

His Excellency, the President of the Republic of Zimbabwe, Comrade Robert Gabriel Mugabe

With Comrade Mugabe's help, I have a brilliant idea. I hate posing for photos, and am always

told that I'm not smiley enough when I do, so once I'm seated in front of the small digital camera

on top of the first administrator's monitor, I'll glance up at the Portrait and let a good old „fuck

you‟ run through my mind. If everything goes according to plan, the cheap thrill this generates

will spread to my face and be preserved inside my identification card forever. I just hope

nobody's psychic around here.

______________________________________________________________________________ 1) All newspaper quotes in this section are from the Chronicle 11 October 2006

2) McCrea, Barbara and Pinchuck, Tony The Rough Guide to Zimbabwe London: Rough Guides 4th

edition, 2000