Becoming The Muse

Coffee With Harare Kopje

If you were having coffee with me, I would welcome you to my tangle of words, the sun, feels as if its on powersaving mode, winter is here this side of the globe…even if our winter sun might compare to some’s summer sun. I winter where I summer. Grab a chair and enjoy the view.

The view is brought to you courtesy of my morning hike up the Harare kopje. Once upon a time this place used to offer the best viewpoint of Harare city skyline. The historical site was marked as a potential tourist location on the 13th of September in 1890 by settlers who founded Salisbury (which is now present day Harare)

Prior to the Pioneer Column’s arrival, the area had been residence to the Mbare people under Chief Mbare and then later to Chief Gutsa‘s people who had taken possession of the Kopje from Chief Mbare. The city of Harare derives its name from Chief Neharawe, who, with his people, occupied the kopje at the time the Pioneer Column arrived and seized the land.

If you were having coffee with me I would tell you that the legend also has it that the Sunshine City of Harare also gets its from the Shona word for one who does not sleep – haarare.. Its said that when settlers initially tried to occupy the land they would always find the chief and his man ready to battle and wondered if he ever slept. Apparently they used the kopje as a lookout point which gave them a vantage point for miles and miles. Its not surprising that the area now houses some secret military base and access is restricted to the public.

If you were having coffee with me, I would tell you that since we were in the neighbourhood, we would also drop by Colcom City the home of Colcom Foods a leading Zimbabwean Food beverage company whose history dates back to 1943 when it started as a National Pig Breeders Co-operative.

Colcom is currently running a Sunday Brunch Special which could easily be one of the hottest food promotions in Harare. I saw the promotional flyer on social media and thought this was a chance to treat myself to the kind of brunch, I only just dream off…

I absolutely recommend and will definitely go again – but go early it gets packed later in the day, as one can imagine.

If you were having coffee with me I would tell you that enjoying my Sunday Brunch, was a double treat because our president had announced that he had approved Elon Musk’s Starlink Satellite application to provide services in Zimbabwe. This would make Zimbabwe the 100^th country in the world and the 9^th African country to adopt the Low Earth Orbit (LEO) satellite internet which rolls out in Q3 of 2024.

This also comes on the heels of the announcement of a local telecommunication Liquid Intelligent Technologies, securing a distribution deal with Eutelsat OneWeb to also offer satellite internet – looks like the race for satellite internet is on, even though one wouldn’t say Eutelsat and Starlink are direct competitors, they might use similar technologies and have somewhat similar goals, they target different clientele and have different objectives.

Why is this a huge deal? Because affordable internet should be a basic human right and I am not simply saying that as a digital storyteller, who needs cheap affrodable internet… Access to internet has a way of connecting the world to the global village and affordable internet bridges the digital divide and advances technological solutions..

If you were having coffee with me, I would tell you that the decision to licence comes as a bit of pleasant surprise, considering how the government had seemed to pursue a rather aggressive stance against the satellite internet, from requesting that the service be shutdown in Zimbabwe, to threats of raids and crackdown on people illegally using Starlink. Their reasoning was that the service should not be provided without proper licensing and approval, now that its been approved that unpleasantness should behind us.

Some people argue that even though the Starlink subscriptions for internet are cheaper than a large number of unlimited internet packages available in Zimbabwe, the price of the hardwear might mean that many wont be able to afford it. However, I am of the view that, the benefits will trickle down, we are soon going to see a reduction in internet prices as internet service providers outcompete each other to try and secure their customers from jumping ship.

There’s nothing like the threat of losing a subscriber base to push service providers to offer competitive prices and promotional packages.

Instead of one individual bearing the cost, subscribers in a community could also pool resources together and buy the Starlink Kit and peripheral devices such as the Starlink Ethernet Adapter to setup a Wifi Mesh Network that can extend the internet range to allow more users to connect to one terminal and enjoy the benefits.

What does Starlink mean to you? Whats been going on in your neck of the woods?

~B