Becoming The Muse

If you were having coffee with me, I would be happy to have you visit my tangle of words. Make yourself at home, pour yourself a cup. I hope you weren’t caught outside in the rains that have finally decided to grace us after a very hot and dry spell…

…..waiting for the rain https://t.co/r8tW2DbIow

— ~B 🇿🇼 (@Beatonm5) October 16, 2023

There was a down pour punctuated with thunder and winds, which felt like we were in a flood of biblical proportions, that would have one asking if we missed Noah’s message to build an ark. Rain is weird, its like its trying to catch up and give you all the rain for the season in one day… is that why they say it never rains it pours.

There’s something about the rain too… when it rains drivers seem to forget the rules of the road and drive as if their cars have swollen up like beans soaked in water, taking up more space on the road or maybe there is secret set of traffic rules that activates when it rains, a sort of Mission Impossible: Rain Protocol.  

The public transport system takes advantage of this mayhem to hike prices for those serious about going home… Stay and get soaked or pay a premium to go home, people eventually pay, they will complain and mumble about the unfairness of it all, but they will pay.

If you were having coffee with me, I would tell you about an age-old debate that has never been concluded.. What should a person buy first: A car or A house? For a bit of context in Zimbabwe, people put a lot of value in home ownership, be it buying a house which can be quite expensive or buying land or a stand to build your own house, which is marginally more affordable than buying a completed house… especially in our economy which currently doesn’t have serviceable mortgage or loan facilities.

You will find shots being fired at someone who has a Landlord for having a LandRover and misplaced priorities. But when the rains come, so do the jokes about how the person who bought a stand or house first before the car got soaked in the rain or why couldn’t they just move with house like a snail to avoid being rained on…

If you were having coffee with me, I would tell you that when it rains it pours, there’s been flooding, trees falling, property damage, roofs being blown off, walls collapsing, people who have been rendered homeless overnight, lightnining strikes and others electrocuted because of the rains…

And of course just like clockwork the loadshedding masquerading as electricity faults has kicked…

small small rain and the lights go out

— ~B 🇿🇼 (@Beatonm5) October 5, 2020

Part of the importance put in owning property, is that it buffers one from the volatile economy where nothing is ever guaranteed. An asset, such as land will cushion you from adverse effects of the economy. First, you wont get homeless and second, you could also lease out for a supplementary stream of income.

Speaking of the unpredictability in the economy the president said the country will revert to the exclusive use of the local currency as the sole legal tender and ditch the multi-currency regime, as no country can develop without its own currency.

Meanwhile, informal traders unanimously rejected the $50 Zimbabwean note as legal tender and the only note currently in use is the $100 Zim note with Mbuya Nehanda on it.. of course there arent enough of those in circulation and so now there is a great change shortage in local currency…

From the creators of the surrogate Bond currency that was 1:1 with USD and backed with a $200 million dollar facility by the African Export-Import (Afrexim) Bank and creators of the Mosia-oa-Tunya Gold Coin comes the Zimbabwe Gold-Backed Digital Token, ZiG, backed by real gold reserves held by the Zimbabwe Reserve Bank.

The ZiG is not a new currency but rather a store of value that represents actual gold held by the central bank. The transacting public will be able to buy the tokens and make transactions with them via dedicated ZiG bank accounts. External auditiors will validate the availability and adequacy of gold to back the ZiG to ensure confidence in the systems.

If you were having coffee with me, I would tell you that I attended the Harare Open Book Festival hosted by Book Fantastics at Ela The Garden. It was a fun a literary event with a lot of panel discussions about the state and future of the Zimbabwean literary scape which you can watch out for in a future article.

 I also got to meet some local authors and people I know only from the internet. I still cant get past the feeling when someone is able to recognise you from the internet and say hey I know you from Twitter or that I read your blog.

Oh look the sun is out I wonder if I hang out my laundry if it will dry up before it starts raining again… what’s been going on in your neck of the woods?

 ~B