What a day.

Let me describe my day. As we are in arrears with our rents. I was summoned to see Alfredo our landlord. I dolled myself up because it is considered awfully bad manners in this country if one attends a meeting in jeans and flip flops. So I tottered into his office, very unstable in my high heeled boots, trying to look unrealistically glamorous. Denzia came with me to translate. As I am so rubbish at Portuguese and Alfredo can't speak English we have to speak in three different languages. Shona, Portuguese and English.

As we sat down, he brought out the account of our arrears. He whistled softly through his teeth for about five minutes while I studied the toe of my boot and tried to catch Denzia's eye. He then pressed the tips of his fingers together and addressed us. Sensing this was the moment to plead my case, I allowed my eyes to brim with tears and let them slide gently down my cheek. Unfortunately my nose started to run at the same time and I had to hastily wipe it on my sleeve, as I had not thought of bringing a tissue that sort of spoiled the whole affect. Eventually it was decided that they would relieve us of assets in the form of irrigation equipment which to my shocked and dazed horror Denzia said I knew how to install, so we have managed to hold on for a little while.

As we departed my phone rang. It was the President of Zimofa where we have 25 horses mainly mares. It appears that they broke through the gate or somebody left the gate open and they spent the night in our neighbour Pedro's soya bean field. So I left Alfredo's office to sit down with Pedro. Pedro's demeanor was a lot meaner than Alfredo's. The meeting was conducted in his workshop and I sat on a crankshaft. He appeared very upset judging by the way he pulling at his hair.. I assessed the situation instantly and came to the conclusion that sobbing would not help us here. He has two large wives. The soya bean patch belongs to one of them with farming aspirations and Pedro is proud of her achievements. We looked at the damaged crop which consisted of a dried up patch of stunted and very unproductive soya beans. I have a horrible suspicion we are being used as a scapegoats here. So tomorrow we are off to have an official meeting with the President, the wife and a whole council of villagers. From what I gather Pedro is angling to get two horses for his wife in lieu of cash.

Pat unfortunately is fairing no better in Vilanculos. He has fallen into disfavour with a Mozambican woman claiming that a horse made a hole in her field with its hoof and caused her child to fall and cut his knee. She is claiming damages of US $1000-00. Ridiculous yes, but the horrifying thing this is all taken very seriously here, even though it is clearly bullshit or in our case horseshit. The time wasted and the meetings one has to attend, then sit through and the money they try to extract has you reaching for the valium. Unfortunately our limited cash flow doesn't allow us to simply just pay them off.

After Pedro's meeting the Landrover then decided to give up on us. For weeks we having been breathing in exhaust fumes and have almost asphyxiated ourselves several times. Its so horrendous we have to drive round with scarves over our face and I think the Chimoio residents think we belong to a zealous religious sect.. As the car shuddered to a halt, we jumped out and spent a lot of time pushing it up and down the main road trying to avoid pantechnicons. We eventually abandoned it on the side of a hill and Denzia and I hitched a ride into town because there was no way I could walk in my high heeled boots. Hopefully the Landrover will still have a full set of wheels in the morning.

On arrival at Casa Bella as I sank into a chair exhausted from the morning activities, the phone rang. It was our gorgeous Kate freshly arrived from Stellenbosch and had managed to get a lift to Mutare. It took me a few minutes to interpret what she was saying through her loud wailing but I gathered she had lost her passport and could not find it anywhere. There is nothing worse than losing your Zimbabwean identity documents as the country has no passports. They ran out of the material long ago, they just don't have the foreign currency. There are hundreds of people I know who are passportless and spend their lives at Harare Passport Office with flasks of tea trying to get a travel document.

As this new nightmare unfolded I managed to hold back on my own hysteria that was rapidly over taking me and refrained from screaming. As I was hyperventilating the phone rang again and the fortunately the person who had picked Kate up from the airport had detached the seats of her car and found the passport. As I digested this good news Pat phoned again to tell me about his latest unfortunate experience . The Mozambican woman did not accept his offer of 500 mtn for her child's grazed knee and was so incensed that she lifted her skirts over her head, bent over double and excreted into her hand, took careful aim and lobbed it at him. Oh God! That was it, I just had to laugh. He is presently recovering with a large whisky bottle. Mozambique is certainly not for sissies.

To clear my head I went down to the paddock and walked through the horses. They looked contented and smug, munching their grass totally unperturbed by their mistress's unfortunate day and their poor master covered with excrement. As old Bastion nuzzled my shoulder I gave him a huge hug. Hey Big Boy we will hold on for as long as we can!! That's a promise. The sad thing is how long can we hold on for? 

With Much love from Mozambleak

Mandy
Chimoio
Mozambique