Becoming The Muse

Coffee With The Grand Tour

If you were having coffee with me, I would welcome you to my tangle of words, make yourself at home. Have you had the opportunity of having a Grand Tour of Zimbabwe, our teapot shaped country. I live here and there’s still sights unseen… Its super easy to take one’s backyard for granted, until you see things from another’s perspective…

On the 13th of September 2024, the final episode of The Grand Tour titled One For The Road was released. The first and only episode of season 6 of The Grand Tour is a special episode of the motoring show that was filmed in Zimbabwe last year. In One For The Ride, the trio Jeremy, Richard and James travel across Zimbabwe concluding their journey in Botswana where it all begun 22 years ago when they had their first special.

Zimbabwe is the last country on the alphabet and sometimes it feels like we are always trailing behind, but watching this show was a refreshing reminder on the beauty and majesty of the place I call home… Its not perfect but it has its moments.

If you were having coffee with me, I would tell you that enterprising tour operators are already taking advantage of the hype generated by the TV show to create signature packages. One such operator is Mavros Safaris which is offering a private-guided expedition across the country, to experience an “acoustic journey through Zimbabwe,” in the footsteps of The Grand Tour.

If you were having coffee with me, I would tell you that I had a mini-grand tour myself. First travelling to Chiweshe where KAAZ i.e. KOICA Alumni Association of Zimbabwe was donating medical supplies to the locals at Mother Theresa Clinic . KAAZ members consist of Zimbabweans who have studied in Korea through Korean government assistance, other funding opportunities and even self-funded studies in Korea.

On the way back, we stopped at the Mazoe Dam Resort for lunch with a view..

@beatonm5

Mazoe Resort Dam #mazoe #zimbabwe #visitzimbabwe #zimtiktok

♬ Mama Africa – Arike MamaAfrica

The next trip was to Kadoma town for a fun day and charity tournament at Jameson High School organised by social soccer clubs. The soccer team known as Zwitter FC derived from Zim Twitter was formed through connections from the social media platform formerly known as Twitter. Sometimes, its not just social media, connections formed online can grow into lasting friendship and impactful interactions.

Clibert a former student of Jameson High School and player in the Zwitter FC together with his friends from Orion Black donated a shiny new soccer kit to the Jameson High School soccer team. This was his way of giving back to the school that raised him, as well as offer encouragement to the students to concentrate on their education, behave and most importantly not do drugs. The evening ended with a friendly match with the youngsters trying out their new sports kit.

If you were having coffee with me, I would tell you that it was a day well spent, met some cool people, saw new places and faces and I think I will definitely be attending more soccer matches as its such a vibe.

If you were having coffee with me, I would tell you that our president had a grand tour of his own too, in celebration of his 82^nd birthday and ascendancy to the SADC chairmanship. Over 50 000 people converged on the historic Great Zimbabwe monument for the launch of Munhumutapa Day. The celebrations were capped by an all-night gala at Nemanwa Growth Point and headlined by sungura icon Alick Macheso. Munhumutapa Day will be celebrated on a rotational basis in all the country’s provinces on September 15 every year.

A helicopter which was scheduled to transport the president after the Munhumutapa Day celebrations, suffered a technical fault and crashed shortly after takeoff. The president was not aboard the helicopter which only carried crew members and there were no fatalities.

Something about the wreckage bore a resemblance to a helicopter engineered by the late Daniel Chingoma, Mhondoro Yemvura of Taisek Engineering who was known for his attempt to craft a helicopter known as the Zimcopter using repurposed scrap parts.

Word on the street is that the aviation authority ordered that the airforce would shoot down the craft if it was found to be airborne without authorisation. We might never know if the craft could indeed fly as the man and his dream now rest in peace.

 While the self-taught engineer is mostly known as the helicopter man, his other engineering exploits did not gain that much publicity, for example crafting affordable water pumps that required no electricity or fossil fuels, to run in market gardens that have watered vegetables that have supplied Harare and other parts of the country. The man is gone but his legacy lives and one day, someone will follow up in his footsteps and dare to dream – to fly.

Whats been happening in your neck of the woods?

~B