Becoming The Muse

If you were having coffee with me, I would welcome you to my corner of the internet and hope you excuse the faint smell of washing powder in the coffee mugs… It means that they are clean right?

You might be wondering why the dishes were cleaned with laundry detergent, yeah, about that, I may have appropriated the remaining dishwashing liquid as a shampoo and then used fabric softener as a leave-in conditioner for my hair washday. Making the best of what is there as had run out of my regular haircare products and the budget is not budgeting.

Today winter decided to do wintering things, it rained. Its rather odd to have rain in the winter season, but I guess it’s the closest equivalent to having snow in winter. Recently I was thinking about how I hadn’t needed to wear a jersey cause its been a warm sort of winter –global warming that you?- Today the weather woke up like Winter Is Here. I am surprised yet I shouldn’t be, it usually rains after washday.

If you were having coffee with me, I would tell you that the electricity has been on some very good behaviour of late. Apparently the new power generation units at Hwange Thermal Power Station are now online, giving an added boost to the national grid.

The power utility company says they are monitoring and doing comprehensive tests on the new installations, such that there might be intermittent switching off of the units, as and when necessary, resulting in a temporary shortfall in supply. So we are not out of the dark yet.

They also want to refurbish Units 1-6  which were commissioned between 1983 and 1987 thus restoring generation capacity to 900MW plus extending the life span of the power station by another 25 years. A small part of me says we should be concerned about extending the life span of coal powered electricity generation given the climate crisis but a larger part of me is just grateful for having reduced load shedding.

An unintended consequence of having constant power means using more electricity units in a month plus the electricity tarrifs got a 100% hike in June which means on average you will find your electricity bill has doubled or more.

If you were having coffee with me, I would tell you that the cricket sport has gained a lot of support in the past weeks as Zimbabwe’s cricket team The Chevrons have been displaying world-class skill in the 2023 Cricket World Cup qualifiers that are being hosted in Zimbabwe. They were on a winning streak which ended after a losing to Sri Lanka. Down but not out, they need to win their next match against Scotland to qualify for the 13th edition of the Cricket World Cup.

An interesting coincidence is that in the week that The Chevrons beat the USA cricket team, narrowly missing breaking the record for the biggest margin of victory in a one-day international, the local Zimbabwean currency experienced its first gain of the year, gaining by 9.4% to the United States Dollar.

Optimists say that the local currency is showing signs of stability and that the excess local currency which has been fueling hyper-inflation and the runaway black market rate has been curbed by the cocktail of economic measures put in place by government’s monetary policies. The more cynic people say that it’s a temporary bubble caused by addressing the symptoms rather than the root problem.

If you were having coffee with me I would tell you that its election season and the clock is running on the countdown to the harmonised presidential elections which will be on 23 August. There are 11 presidential candidates and all of them are men, not very progressive of us.

There were a few favourite candidates who did not manage to file their nomination papers due to the challenges in raising the USD 20 000 fee and the technicalities of acknowledging only payments made in USD saw some candidates not getting their nominations approved.

If you were having coffee with me, I would tell you that the lone protestor, Itayi Makombe who caused a traffic jam on June 5, playing a traditional drum and shouting “Free Zimbabwe” while standing on top of his car was convicted and sentenced to serve 6 months in prison.

2 months were suspended from the sentence on the condition of good behaviour and the remaining 4 months were suspended on the condition of serving 140 hours of community service. He was also fined US$200 or its equivalence in the local currency on a second charge of possession of a firearm without a valid licence.

The magistrate presiding the case castigated Makombe’s disorderly behaviour saying the country was now heading towards elections and as such the court did not accept such behaviour. The conviction and sentencing of Itayi Makombe, has raised concerns about freedom of expression….

Whats been going on in your neck of the woods? I am watching the full moon while waiting for the electricity to come back.

~B