Of Coffee With The Sun

If you were having coffee with me, I would be very happy for your visit which would be a welcome diversion from the heat… I dressed up as the sun ^_^ … you know, hello yellow.

I wonder if these are the effects of climate change, it never used to be this hot and there should have been a bit of rain by now. Feels like the country is slowly shifting into a desert region with perennial drought. By now the jacaranda trees should be canopying tree-lined leafy suburbs in their purple majesty…..

And the heat, I wish I could chill in a bathtub full of ice to stop me from questioning if this is hell. I should probably offer you an iced beverage instead of coffee. Meanwhile, you can answer the question, are you a good person? (Check out my last blog post On Being  A Good Person to see my line of thought)

If you were having coffee with me, I would tell you that electricity blues seem to have started again. The power utility hasn’t officially announced anything yet, but it’s now rare to go for a 24 hour period without experiencing a power outage lasting anything from few hours to possibly much much longer, a day or days even. 

ZESA should just come out in the open and tell us…
Breaking News: We are cutting you off the grid find your own electricity pic.twitter.com/rT5owNMsCC

— ~B 🇿🇼 (@Beatonm5) October 15, 2021

I would put the power situation down as a culprit in our climate change. See, people seeking recourse to the electricity outages resort to alternative power sources such as wood and boom, there goes the trees. Less trees equals less transpiration and less moisture therefore less precipitation, that’s from my understanding of basic Geography…

Meanwhile if you follow the global news on climate change you know there is a massive drive to clamp down on fossil fuel use due to its debilitating effects on the environment. Developed countries are pledging to cut investment funding for fossil projects (in overseas economies).

Fair enough but what does it mean for people in countries like ours; China and Zimbabwe have a $1,5 billion expansion project on the cards for Hwange Thermal Power Station.

Upon completion of the expansion of Hwange Thermal Power Station in 2025 an expected 300MW of electricity would be added to the grid. It’s a small drop in the ocean, stopping such a project would be a minor win for the environment and a greater humanitarian and developmental loss. Electricity is a basic human right, right?

While I understand why there is a need to switch to low carbon emission energy sources, this problem needs to be approached with the correct framework and perspective. From where I am standing, countries that industrialised on the backbone of fossil fuels are now dictating to others to stop fossil fuel use yet they consume upto 20 times more energy and also have the resource to switch to the alternatives.

If you were having coffee with me, I would tell you we definitely need to plant trees and more green thingies you know. I bet people would plant more trees if money grew on them, that’s why banks have branches.. *laughs uncontrollably* Ok.. that was a lot funnier in my head

Meanwhile, in our currency woes, the clampdown on illegal forex traders meant that in the past week the prices of things have gone a bit crazy. Let me see how best to explain it, so, the government wants people to trade at the official rate of 1:90 (the week before that it was at 1:88) and not use the black market rate of lets say 1:150 (just using that as an example in case the FIU is following)

Some service providers have responded to this by simply raising the United States Dollar price of a product or service to match the official rate.

This creates a sort of inflation in prices in the USD terms where something that had been $1 (when they used the black market rate) becomes $2 (using the official rate) but in the Zimbabwe dollar equivalent, it still costs the same price of ZWL$150… Wait What? You can read it again, I will wait… Welcome to our world of Mickey Mouse economics..

If you are wondering why we don’t just use the Zimbabwe Dollar, I would say, hmmmm, not much trust in the banking sector and even less trust in the local currency as one always lives life wondering what new statutory instrument they are going to draw up and what it will imply or if we will wake up one day with the local currency being meaningless paper, its happened before, maybe I am just traumatised…..

Its dark and hell is hot, that is the title of an album by the late DMX whose title I always found provocative. There’s no electricity and it’s very hot, I wish I had ice-cold water right now…. If you see my voodoo doll can you put it in the fridge? Mmmkay thanks bye

Hows the sun? Whats going on in your neck of the woods?

~B