The Third World as seen from the saddle

I made a little old lady cry this week. Little and old are apt descriptions for this lady. She is 81 and just 5-foot tall, provided she’s standing on a box. Despite her age and her medical condition, my little old lady still works full time as the matron in a hostel that looks after handicapped adults. She has to work full time, because she has no pension, and no savings. She used to be a farmer’s wife but lost everything in Hyperinflation Round One. She told me she loves her job and the ‘kids’ in her care, even though they give her headaches. Her work especially gives her headaches. It’s hard to run a hostel with no lights, no water and no money for food and repairs. Alas. My little old lady works 7 days a week and hasn’t had a holiday in 14 years. Then she castigated herself for complaining. ‘No one likes a moaning Minnie’ she told me.

I visited her because her doctor told me she had certain medical problems but could no longer afford her treatments. Her doctor follows the Old Legs Tour and was hoping we could help. My little old lady has a thrombosis in her legs and is on blood thinning medication and requires a monthly infusion to administer them. Her medicines cost her $720 a month and her infusions a further $550. Which is snag when your salary is just ZW$ 350 a month. For those who don’t live in Zimbabwe, ZW$ 350 is equivalent to just US$ 15, and dropping steadily.

My little old lady started crying when I told her the Old Legs Tour would find a way to pay for her medicines and her visits to the doctor. And that I would speak to one of the Round Tables to see if they could help her hostel get back on its feet. And that we would also try and get her some sort of a pension. Around about then, she turned the tables on me and got me crying when she told me she didn’t need extra help past her medicines and the doctor, because she was already blessed with free board and lodging, and better we help others less fortunate. Good Lord, but it did get wet underfoot in her little office.

I was asked this week by someone living in Europe how bad things in Zimbabwe were? About as bad as my VW Combi I told him.

I bought the Combi when I was young and irresponsible, as opposed to old and irresponsible. I bought it mostly because it had tinted windows. In a brief aside, parents beware of boyfriends with tinted windows. But back to my Combi. On the test drive, my keen ears which also went to Allan Wilson Technical High School, picked up on a loud knocking noise from the back of the van. When asked about the noise, the owner who shall remain nameless, but if you must know, his name was Danny Pappa, told me he was a drummer in a rock and roll band and the noise was coming from his drum kit, still lying in the back of the van after his last gig. Because he had his hand on his heart, I bought the Combi. Oddly, the noise in the back of the van persisted on the way home, even though the drum kit had been removed, but thankfully I was able to drown it out with the loud and also very cool sound system.

When eventually I got my new Combi home, I had a slight mishap en route when the steering wheel unscrewed from the steering column causing me to plough off the road into a hedge, I set about fixing it up so it was even more cool. At great expense, as in more than sixty bucks, I glued some shaggy rug carpet to the ceiling and inside walls of the Combi, apart from the one corner where I ran out of carpet. I then told Jenny to pack her bikini because I was taking her on an all-expenses paid holiday to Durban, although she might have to help me with petrol money, and food money and obviously money for drinks. ‘But don’t worry about accommodation, we’ll sleep in the van,’ I told her.

Alas. On the way out of Harare, my uber cool sound system stopped working and the noise in the back of the van came back with a vengeance. Quickly the noise spread to the engine and 10 kilometres outside Beatrice, the Combi died, to never go again.

If my Combi was a country, it would be described as failed. And if Zimbabwe was a car, it would be that Combi. Like my Combi, it needs a complete overhaul, and a new driver. And if anyone tells you different, they’ve been bullshitted by tinted windows, shaggy carpet on the ceiling and a loud sound system.

My accountant who is a sober chap, concurs with my analogy. I called on him after meeting with my little old lady, to sort out annual returns, blah, blah. His offices are on the outskirts of the CBD. He was running on generator when we got there. Thinking of the million fuel queues I’d passed getting to him, all kilometres long and around the block, I told him ouch. Clearly, I touched a nerve. My accountant grumped that he hasn’t had electricity in his offices during working hours since February, not once. The main road outside his office is potholed to hell, so he needs 4-wheel drive to get to work. He hasn’t had municipal water in years and cannot remember when last he saw a refuse removal truck. And worst of all, now when he goes to the Company Registrar’s Office to do his business, he has to take his own printer with him, and his own bond paper. But apart from all of that, everything in Zim is just peachy, like my Combi.

The only thing that makes Zimbabwe bearable are the people who live here, the idiots who buggered everything up in the first place aside. People like Robbie Burrell, who is going to the Tin Roof prison tomorrow, where he’ll stay, until he posts $50000 bail, all of which will go to the pensioners. Please help bail Robbie out before the 21st because he’s supposed to play the Mann Friday concert that night. And people like Brian Wilson at Steel Warehouse who delivered up 50 Christmas hampers for our pensioners as promised.

And people like Carl Wilson and Jeff Brown who are riding from Harare to the Skeleton Coast on the Old Legs 2020 Tour. Jeff Brown was born in 1956 and schooled in Bulawayo at Milton Junior and Gifford Technical High School, which was almost as good as Allan Wilson but easier to spell.

After school, Jeff worked for Air Rhodesia, Air Zimbabwe, Air Express International and DHL. In 1999, he opened up a bike shop in Harare and ran it through to 2016 when he got head hunted by World Bicycle Relief a.k.a. Buffalo Bikes where he is involved on the Product Development side. I am hoping that Jeff will be able to tell me the names of the many bicycle tools that live in my saddle bag. On the bike, Jeff has ticked off Zim Sun Cycle Race x 5, the Argus x 14, the Joburg 94.7 x 7, and the Blue Cross x 8. His motto in life is Live to Ride and Ride to Live. I think Jeff might get to Swakopmund and Sossuvlei before me.

Carl Wilson is 55. He says he was often seen near Vainona High School where he got many O Levels but can’t prove it because he lost his certificates. Carl is the only Vainona boy to have climbed Kilimanjaro without his mom. Carl is married to Michelle and daughter Kirsty is getting married next year. Carl started riding in 1996 and competed in the last 2 Cape Epics. I also worry that Carl will get to Swakopmund before me.

I’ll introduce you to more of the Old Legs Team in my next blog.

Photos below - Robbie Burrell the convict, Carl Wilson, Steel Warehouse Xmas hampers and a photo of my grandson Colton, instead of Jeff Brown. I’ve lost Jeff’s photo but back in 1956, he looked just like Colton does now.