The Third World as seen from the saddle

As I see it, my job with this blog thing of mine is to try and make people smile, laugh and or feel good when everything around them is dark and otherwise crappy. Well thank God for granddaughters, and also thank God for people with hearts who care, and also for writing books and riding bikes. Because without all of those things, I would be hard pressed to find anything light-hearted and cheerful in a country where three young female political activists, one of them a sitting Member of Parliament, get arrested by the cops for staging a pop-up street demonstration. Arresting people for demonstrating on the streets during a Covid19 lockdown is a fair call I guess, even though I can think of a list of reasons to protest as long as my arm, and I have the reach of a gibbon.

But when the three activists get disappeared from the police cells, when they get beaten, tortured, stripped naked and raped with a gun barrel front and back, forced to drink urine and eat faeces before being dumped, still alive but only just, in the bush outside Bindura, levity and light hearted cheerfulness are hard things to pull off in a blog. Especially when a  senior policeman who brandished the arrest of activists around like a club at a press conference to dissuade similar protests going forward, stands up in front of the same journalists the day after the activists are found, and tells them the activists were never arrested in the first place, and if he created that impression in his press conference two days earlier, it’s because he was quoted out of context. And especially, especially when a day later, the police say first things first, they are going ahead with prosecuting the activists for organizing the illegal demonstration, and only after that, then maybe they’ll look into the alleged abduction.

And in another news, government flew in 60 tons of brand-new ten and twenty Zimbabwe dollar bank notes from Germany this week, to fix the cash shortages in the banks once and for all. Possibly for reasons of nostalgia, the new bank notes look remarkably similar to the old Rhodesian bank notes, back when our currency was stronger than the US one, or maybe they just found some old ink left over, Either way, depositors will be excited when they hear that they can now withdraw a maximum of $1 000 in cash per week, enough to buy 33 loaves of bread. Apparently, the introduction of new money into the system is called quantitative easing, designed to give the currency relief. But easing 60 tons of cash into our economy one time will be like receiving a 2lt coke enema. Already just the thought is giving our silly local dollar the proper runs. We’ll be over 60 to 1 by next week. Scary stuff considering we were 1 to 1 on the US not long ago. If we keep that up, this time next year we’ll have to fly in 1800 tons worth of quantitative enema, unless of course we move to bigger, bolder banknotes. I wonder if it is possible to squeeze 14 noughts onto a single bank note?

And in news elsewhere, Donald Trump still refuses to mask up because he spends a fortune on tanning his face, and because he doesn’t want sticky out ears like Shrek, or worse still like Cyril Ramaphosa.

Enough depressing stuff and on to the positives, like Zimbabwe’s total of confirmed coronavirus cases. Whilst not as good as North Korea who are still on zero, we’re doing okay on just 46 cases, far much better than Zambia who shot up to 761. In a related stroke of luck last week, 6 Zimbabwean truck drivers managed to get across the border into Zambia before testing positive.

As mentioned previously, thank God for granddaughters. Below, a conversation overheard between Cailyn and Jenny whilst walking through the dining room / classroom on my way to the kitchen. Currently Jenny is helping Cailyn aged 6 with her on-line tuition. Jenny was reinforcing recent criticisms levelled at Cailyn by her schoolteacher regarding her colouring-in techniques. For the record, I think the allegations are completely unfounded. Cailyn goes about her colouring with a sense of joie de vivre reminiscent of Michelangelo painting ceilings, except Mike didn’t skip on his way to the loo, and if Cailyn happens to go out the lines, bummer, put it down to artistic interpretation.

Jenny- “Cailyn, your teacher said you must really try colour inside the lines, honey.”

Cailyn with tongue protruding from the corner of her mouth – “Hmmm.”

Jenny- “Hey Cailyn, you just went out the lines. You coloured outside the frog, again.”

Cailyn- “Hmmm” but this time with undertones of exasperation.

Jenny- “Cailyn, are you listening? Have you got your ears switched on? You’re not supposed to colour outside the lines.”

Cailyn – “Nana, please stop telling me that, because you are really beginning to irritate me.”

And also thank God for people who care about those less fortunate. Huge thanks to the Meikles Foundation and the Rafiki Network for helping old age homes in Harare feed their residents. Thanks to them, the Old Legs will have bags of rice in our food packs this week, and sugar for a lucky few. The Rafiki Network have also partnered with Future Water Bars on an ambitious scheme to supply potable drinking water to senior citizens in Harare. Please see their appeal below.

And also, a big shout out to Patrick Thompson for his work building the 600lt water tank cunningly hidden in the belly of the Old Legs bike and luggage trailer currently under construction. And thanks also to Steel Warehouse for their assistance with the steel, yet again. The Old Legs trailer will be a thing of beauty, rugged enough to take on the worst roads on our Lockdown Tour in 2020, ditto on the Skeleton Coast Tour in ’21, ditto on the Luanda Tour in ’22. Please be impressed. I have never planned that far ahead since my life.

Carl Wilson is burning the midnight oil plotting our route on Google Earth for the 2020 Lockdown Tour. Last night on his computer, he arrived at Marineland, Kariba on Day 11 with 1004 km racked up. And by 10 o’clock this morning, he has just ridden into Main Camp, Hwange National Park. I was too scared to ask how many kilometres we’ll have logged by then.

For some reason, typing these last 2 paragraphs has exhausted me. Not least of all because I’ve not spent much time on my bike of late, courtesy of my busted ribs. But I was able to join the Herd for the first time in weeks on their Saturday Dawn Patrol, which thankfully only starts at 06.30. Oscar delivered up a 40 km track through the bottom bit of Domboshawa with 500 meters of climb and enough technical single track a.k.a. lumpy- bumpy downhill bits to keep you awake. I don’t enjoy technical, even though I went to Allan Wilson. And if you think I was slow before going down hills, now riding with busted ribs, I’ll put you to sleep quicker than counting sheep. It was depressing though to ride through once productive farms, perfectly located for the production of high-value horticultural export crops, reduced to selling water, only. For those who don’t know many suburbs in Harare haven’t had municipal water in 20 years. True story. Most of the farms don’t grow anything anymore, although we did ride past a sorghum crop, in itself a travesty in those deep red soils. But the kids living on those farms seemed happy enough, with any number of busted agricultural machines to climb on, instead of jungle gyms. Alas.

Also, to help you fall asleep at night, I can recommend reading a couple of pages of ‘Running Dogs and Rose’s Children’, currently available around the world on Amazon, on Kobo, on Ingram Spark and in Zimbabwe from Folio Books in Borrowdale and the Orange Elephant in Bulawayo. Hurry while stocks last. Well you don’t really have to hurry I’ve got boxes and boxes of books in the storeroom.

Because absentmindedness is almost a professional requirement for an author, I’m fitting in just fine as a wannabee one with L Plates on. I’m up and on my keyboard most mornings by 04.30. Currently I’m multitasking on two projects. First up is my blog book ‘Cape Town to Kilimanjaro – The Third World as seen from the saddle’ which will be available in a bookshop near you by September 2020.

But way more enjoyable than blogging, is writing fiction because you can just make stuff up, no problem. As at this morning I am on page 95 of the first draft of my first novel ‘War and Other Social Diseases’ with another 200 to go. Fiction is so liberating. If someone pisses me off, wham, they’re in the book doing villainous stuff, albeit with a slight name change, so I don’t get bust for libel. So pleased be warned.

I plan to have the first draft in the bag by December 2020. Two months for editing, two months for re-writes, and hopefully, the book will be in bookshops by July 2021. And between now and then, I am offering you a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to have a character in the book with heroic tendencies and good looking to boot named after you. To enter the competition, just go to my website www.ericgeorgedejong.com and send me a message asking me to put your name in the hat, to be drawn on December 31st. And you can also sign up there to receive my blog by e-mail. Too easy.

Until my next blog, please stay safe, enjoy and pedal if you can, especially you Patch Hughes in England. And when you can fit into your slim-sized lycra riding shorts, come back to Zimbabwean roots and pedal with us on an Old Legs Tour.

Eric Chicken Legs de Jong

Photos below – Our new very cool logo for the Old Legs 2020 Lockdown Tour, kids on combined jungle gyms on the outskirts of Harare where tractors also go to die, Folio Books now online,  water for the elderly and signposts from our  Lockdown Tour