The Third World as seen from the saddle

Oh, to be six years old again. When you’re six, the world is a simple place with everything either black or white, with little or no grey. Jenny and I have been invaded by grandchildren Jocelyn, Cailyn and Colton for a week. Cailyn aged 6, helped take the edge off the tense death overs in Sunday’s SA vs Australia T20 cricket by telling me all about how the world came about. Apparently, according to Cailyn, it all started a long time ago when Mary was walking with her boyfriend, Joseph. An angel landed next to Mary and told her she was pregnant. Mary rolled her eyes in surprise and said “What?” Then Mary had a baby boy who she called God. When God was all grown up, he made the world and everything in it, and everyone was happy ever after. The end. While Cailyn was busy acting out Mary’s rolling eyes and her “What?”, Australia conspired to come second in the cricket.

The adult world we live in is alas, slightly more muddled. In Zimbabwe we celebrated Happy Birthday Robert Mugabe Day on Friday the 21st, although celebrate is somewhat of a misnomer. If they moved the holiday to September 6th, maybe.

Even though the EU removed Bob from their pesky sanctions list last week, freeing him up to finally travel Europe, I’m guessing Bob would be pretty pissed off with life, were he still with us. First up, the road that leads to his Blue Roof mansion is now fast filling up with potholes, as can be seen in the photographic proof below, taken on a recent training ride. Three years ago, the road to the Blue Roof, along with the road to Zvimba, was the most well-maintained piece of tar in the country and permanently brand new. And even more likely to send Bob apoplectic than the potholes, would have been the removal of the Robert Mugabe Way signs in KweKwe, removed to make way for yet another Emmerson Damudzo Mnangagwa Avenue, the country’s 10th. I’m guessing the only thing that would put a smile on Bob’s face in Zimbabwe today is the proliferation of the phrase ‘Far much worse than Bob.’

Unlike Bob, and along with Grace Mugabe and 2 others, Veep Chiwenga still headlines on the EU Sanctions list. Apparently, the Veep fell over in his office last week in yet another medical emergency but was rushed to hospital in South Africa, instead of his usual emergency hospital of choice in China, because of the ongoing Pangolin Virus crisis. After emergency medical repairs, the Veep popped into a police station in Pretoria to lay charges of attempted murder against his wife, seven months after the event. He also toured the two mansions she bought him. To help Grace get over the bitter pill of continued sanctions, daughter Bona bought her a brand-new Mercedes Benz for Valentine’s Day. But if the potholes outside her mansion worsen, as they surely will, maybe Bona should’ve gone with a 4x4 for mum instead.

President Ed is in a hurry to get his legacy up in black and white on the streets of Zimbabwe for good reason; his presidency is going very pear shaped, very quickly. Last week’s Herald urged us not to panic about the fuel situation as there is adequate fuel in Msasa. Apparently, the challenge is that most fuel delivery trucks currently do not have fuel to deliver fuel to service stations. Fuel will be plenty once delivery trucks get fuel. However, I think they lied as fuel queues in town are now longer than ever. I trawled them last week on my bike looking for photos of fuel delivery trucks stuck in queues for my blog and saw not a single one. I didn’t see any maize delivery trucks either, leading me to believe that Finance Minister Ncube was also telling porky pies when he stood up at Davos a month ago saying he’d walked the talk and signed maize contracts the world over so that no one in Zimbabwe would go hungry during the looming famine. A month ago, we were down to our last 100,000 tons of maize. The country eats 80,000 tons a month. And still no trucks pouring in. Watch this space.

Zimbabwe’s domestic servants have had their minimum salary scales adjusted upwards just in time, to ZWD160 per month, a.k.a. US$ 6.40. Divided by 26 working days, and we’re talking 24 US cents a day, or 3 US cents an hour. The cops did slightly better with their salary review; the lowest constable now earns ZWD 3200 per month. Which is better than a doctor, but not as good as Minister Ncube who apparently receives an off-the-books monthly cash stipend of US 27.5 K, plus a US 50K allowance to keep the wolf from his family door in Switzerland, plus business class flights there every 6 weeks to check on them, plus, plus, plus. And he’ll need all of that to pay his penthouse suite board, lodging and room service bills at the Meikles. I was going to buy a beer there last week but failed to raise a loan to cover. Apparently, the Minster of Swimming also does okay. Not doing okay are the 40 bus drivers who got fired from the state-owned public transport company ZUPCO for not having driving licences, despite more than 4 years of unblemished service. Small wonder ‘far much worse than Bob’ is gaining traction.

And in news elsewhere, the ANC in South Africa are proposing legislation that will force Angus Buchan to sell 70% of his tickets to his Mighty Men Christian Men’s conference to blacks, so as to make sure that his congregations are representative of the country’s demographics. Beauty Khumalo, the Chairperson of Africans for Jesus welcomed the initiative, saying Apartheid had given whites an unfair advantage in reaching heaven, through better churches, bibles and theologians. And next door, the eighty-year old Prime Minister of Lesotho is on the run for murdering his old wife, while his new wife and accomplice has already been arrested. The UK took their first bold post-Brexit step by ordering in proudly British blue passports, from their French Dutch supplier in Poland. And in the US, it looks like the elections will come down to which billionaire spends the most on advertising, unless of course a communist wins the Democratic Party nomination, and providing the Russians don’t participate this time around. All of that almost makes me glad I live in Zimbabwe.

Back home, things continue Zimbabwe tough for our pensioners. Big thanks to Mike Odendaal in South Africa, Charles Taffs, Benny Basson, Angus Melrose and all at Netrade for helping those less fortunate.
You get tough, and then you get Zimbabwe tough. One of our pensioners is the epitome of Zim tough. In his late seventies, he lost his home, his pension and everything in the 2008 hyperinflation. He’s looked for jobs but failed. Now to try make ends meet, he’s secured the use of a 12m x 20m near to where he lives and he’s planting out a garlic crop to sell. He’s asked the Old Legs Tour for help with inputs and advice on how to grow the crop.

Outside of learning about garlic, we’re busy, busy, busy with final arrangements for the 2020 Old Legs Tour to the Skeleton Coast, via a town called Gokwe, the Victoria Falls and the Caprivi Strip. I have great pleasure in introducing you to Gordon Kent, the newest Old Legs recruit all the way from Toowoomba, Queensland. He writes – ‘Gordon was born in Mazowe a long time ago, after being chased by police pre-delivery. Early farm years gave way to city life and school was completed at Churchill Boys High. Gordon met and married Clare in 1978 who provided 3 children, Joanne, Grant and Stacey. As a businessman, Gordon was involved in fruit and vegetable business with a retail outlet and a pre-packing facility in Harare. in 2001 having lost most of their producers in the land grab, the Kent family made the tough decision to uproot and start over in Australia. Gordon has worked for the last 13 years, managing TUFF bull-bar sales across the width and breadth of Australia. Clare works as nurse. Gordon and Clare are lucky to have all 3 children and 5 grandchildren in Toowoomba.

Gordon got into social distance sport back in the early '90's and has completed a bunch of triathlons and marathons like Comrades, the Blue Cross ride and other charity events, including a couple of 100km Kokoda Challenge cross country hikes. A smashed pelvis from a motorcycle accident in 2007 which required weeks of traction proved to be a big motivator to regain fitness and to overcome the challenges of one shorter leg.
The plight of Zimbabwe’s pensioners is well known in Australia. The ex-Zim community in Toowoomba run an annual Zim Cricket Fun Day fundraiser for ZANE in which Gordon participates enthusiastically, but with not too many wickets or runs to his name.

Gordon has followed the adventures of the Old Legs Tour since they rode through Hotazel en route to the Cape. He laughed out loud when Chicken Legs urinated next weeks' beer on the way up Mt Kili. He laughed louder at the video clip of the same Chicken Legs dancing for a Pepsi. He was very jealous of great mates having great fun doing a great thing while ticking off bucket list items. So even before they’d finished pedalling to Mt Kili, Gordon signed up for the Skeleton Coast Tour. Big thanks to TUFF for granting Gordon leave to pedal to Namibia. Gordon has started training hard, ditto his fund-raising efforts.’

If you see Gordon pedalling in and around Toowoomba, please support him. Please also tell him pedal harder.
Training for CarolJoy Church in Germany has also proved tough, especially during Storm Ciara, or Storm Sabine as she was known in Germany. On one of her training rides, the wind won, and CJ had to come home on the train. Bummer, CJ, the trains don’t run quite so efficiently in Namibia.

I wish there were trains in Domboshawa. Carl suggested a 40 km ride there this last weekend. Foolishly, to get my kilometres up for the week, I rode to Carl’s house first. Judging by my legs afterwards, kilometres in Domboshawa are obviously a lot longer. Carl said it is good training for riders to ride outside their comfort zones, so he had me ride headlong down a sheer granite precipice that was littered with the skeletons of errant ex-mountain goats and mountain bike riders. I wanted to scream all the way down but had to keep my mouth closed tight, for fear of my heart falling out. Carl also rode outside his comfort zone. Normally he rides flay out fast on rides like the Cape Epic but now has to get used to riding slow and stopping often, waiting for laggards at the back to eventually catch up. By the time Carl gets to the Skeleton coast, I expect he’ll be well rested.

A lot of people are asking what our route is looking like, so herewith a breakdown of Days One to Seven. Day One is 160 km to Kadoma, all on tar. We’ll camp at the Kadoma Golf Club and Spar Kadoma are putting on a dinner for us. Day Two is 153 km, some dirt, some tar, from Kadoma to the City of Gokwe, where we will be putting up at the Shingai Catholic Training Centre. On Day Three we ride 137 km, half tar and half dirt to the Sengwa Bridge, followed by 106 km on dirt on Day Four to Manjolo, which is just past the middle of nowhere. We’ll camp rough at Sengwa and Manjolo. Day Five is 136 km, all on dirt, to our night stop, a fishing camp at Deka Drum on the beginning bit of Lake Kariba. Day Six is 101 km of tar and dirt into Victoria Falls for our first rest day. We’re hoping to be joined by a bunch of riders from Vic Falls for the ride in from Deka Drum. In Vic Falls, we’ll be styling instead of camping. Perennial sponsors Ilala Lodge are hosting us for a dinner at their excellent restaurant, and we’ll be accommodated at the newly opened and exciting Pioneer Lodge. Our rest day will be busy, hopefully with talks to the kids at the Vic Falls Primary School in which we point out that riding bikes in the bush is way more fun than computer games, followed by another talk about our Kilimanjaro Tour to older, cycling enthusiasts at the Look Out Café in the afternoon. And then we pedal across the iconic Falls Bridge into Zambia. But more of that in my next blog.

To get ready for all of that, Dave, Carl and I have our first big training ride this weekend - a 125 km ride out to Hippo Pools on the Friday, outside my comfort zone riding single track around Umfurudzi National Park on the Saturday and then 125 km back into Harare on the Sunday. Alan Crundall and Gordon Kent will try and replicate the ride in Australia, ditto CJ Bradshaw in KZN, SA. And Carol Joy is planning another long training ride in Germany, hopefully without the train this time. To get to grips with the rigours of logistics, Jenny and I will camp at Hippo Pools with Jocelyn, Cailyn and 8 month-old Colton. Which should be lots of fun. And then we’re off to Joburg on Monday morning for the official launch of Running Dogs and Rose’s Children on the Tuesday the 4th. Writing books is therapeutic, but launching them not so therapeutic. Please, please, if you are in or around Johannesburg on Tuesday, please come down to Skoobs Theatre of Books, Montecasino, Four Ways at 18.00 and have a beer with me. For sure I will need one by then.

Until next time, survive, enjoy and pedal if you can

Eric Chicken Legs de Jong.

Photos below – Bob’s pothole, Gordon Kent and outside my comfort zone.