Thank Goodness It's Over. The Rising Trend of Unelected Leaders, Farewell Keith Holland and Mozambique 2003.

Keith Holland and I on the banks of the Zambezi contemplating the world

So it is over; in my eyes, thank goodness, a total damp squib final to end weeks of football. Last night, today is Monday, Argentina and Spain were meant to challenge each other in the final. It seems Argentina would do that by playing defensively for the full 90 minutes and in extra time, without conceding or scoring. Imagine a rugby match without a try! I presume, at full time, they planned to win the trophy with their penalty-taking skills. Shit, it was boring, and despite my best efforts, I was happy to go and prepare supper as something more interesting to do rather than watch. I do not watch football, and last night's game confirmed that I have been right to abstain. At least I can now get back to my evening TV viewing; even Gardener's World is more exciting when Monty Don’s dog moves. What I cannot get my head around is the huge, or is it vast, salaries these ‘prima donnas’ get; I presume it is to make an effort to win, if not to entertain the crowd. I find it hard to define how Argentina played last night, but then again I know nothing about soccer.

“Passive defence rarely brings victory, be it in war or games. A contradiction of this is the aggressive defence found in rugby which forces mistakes on the opposition.” - Peter McSporran

Back home in Zimbabwe, for some reason I still think of Zimbabwe as my home; I certainly have a stronger affiliation to that country over the one of my birth, Scotland. I now consider Portugal as home, so maybe I should call Zimbabwe my old home. Anyway, the President and his henchman are busy entrenching themselves. As if it's not bad enough that the world has accepted that country’s leaders for the last forty years as bona fide despite stealing every election by intimidation since independence, either by loading ballot boxes or miscounting, that is; stealing the people’s votes. Further, the country will no longer vote for the President; that will be the party in power, and, being ZANU(PF), they will unlikely, at any time soon, hand power over voluntarily or democratically. They have never allowed it in the past forty six years, even when losing an election. Now the present corrupt leadership and parliamentarians have extended their terms to seven years in office after holding a sham referendum which never was. Mind you, today we also see yet another British Prime Minister taking over without a vote by the people, the third one in recent years, all of whom did not last that long. Will this new one also have a short lifespan as PM? Who knows, but by not being elected, we do not know what his policies will be in advance, except that he has promised to reopen the North Sea oil fields. But he also says he is going to re-nationalise some utilities, put more money in people's pockets, and let the people have more say, although he has his post thanks to giving them no say in his election, or non-election into the role. He has also hinted at further tax rises to pay for his socialist plans and take Britain back to before Thatcher. Do they not read history? Is he too young to remember the inflation, blackouts, weakening pound, strikes and unemployment? I do as a young man trying to study in the dark. Ah well, politicians do not change their spots, wherever they come from.

A very similar picture of Keith on his Celebration of Life schedule

On a sadder note, I was reminded of Keith Holland’s recent passing upon receiving, from Suzie Heynes, the order of events for his Celebration of Life, which he sure did know how to enjoy. The thing that caught my eye was the picture of him, and although not from the same photograph, it was very similar to one of him and me on one of our annual fishing trips to the Zambezi, sent to me recently by one of the other participants of these trips, my old friend Neville Baker. Suzie was one of the two people giving a tribute to Keith, and I thought her words were very appropriate. Goodbye, Keith, old friend. I store so many happy memories of us together at the Mutare Show, the river and cattle sales, where you never sold me any cheap enough for me to make money.

The oily sheen of the Zambezi under the bridge at Tete crossing the Zambezi

In August 2003, after a hectic three years, Rozanne and I decided we would go on holiday, and our place of choice was Mozambique, where we would subsequently take our annual leave for the next fourteen years. I was slightly familiar with Mozambique, having fished at Magaruque in 1987 and gone fishing at Pamene as a guest of my old friend John Meikle, who I know has been deeply affected by Keith’s death, as not only staunch members of the Mutare Club but also had common interests in wildlife and birding trips. I should mention that during the war I also made some unofficial visits, and while I was excited, I felt some trepidation each time we crossed the border clandestinely. 

Rio Savane

My in-laws also declared a wish to go, and so we duly organised a booking at Rio Savane, on the coast some thirty kilometres north of Beira, where we were to learn the real centre of the mosquito empire was located and the best mud crabs I ever ate, being easily found in the mangrove swamps. I am getting ahead of myself, because the trip down was not without a couple of tales. We decided, rather than go through Zimbabwe and all its roadblocks, we would travel to the Malawi border and enter Mozambique through Katete, where we found they had run out of the required import documents to allow the car through. After much pondering, they said we could just go, but I insisted on some proof we had cleared the border, so eventually they gave us a grubby piece of paper with the customs stamp saying they had cleared the car there. I am relieved this paper was not requested at the roadblocks we encountered. To cross the Zambezi, we had to go through Tete, where we stayed the first night at what I was to learn, after frequent visits in the future, is one of the most inhospitable towns in Mozambique due to the unmitigated heat and the mosquitoes. After booking into a very uncomfortable and mosquito-infested room on the banks of the Zambezi, which somehow has an oily sheen here, I only discovered it was run by muslims and did not serve beer. Tete has two claims for fame: it has coal, and it is the main manufacturing hub for Mozambique Leaf Tobacco, part of Universal Leaf Tobacco. Why they built it there, I do not know; to counter the heat and low humidity, it must have been very expensive to process the tobacco there.

Bob and Shirley at Rio Savane, where Bob unrationally ate crab

Seemingly there was a huge tax break given to locate there and it was rumoured much of Malawi’s tobacco crop would be processed there. Wonderful what tax regimes can do. Anyway, we got round the no beer problem by hiring one of the waiters to go into town and buy us some beers at a shebeen. After spending the night at Tete, we met up with Rozanne's folks in Chimoio and headed down to Rio Savane, where, while we enjoyed the sea, the crabs and the large local clams from the mudflats, uncomfortable beds, actually just boards, with thin mattresses coupled with swarms of mosquitoes offered little sleep. To give them their due, there were screens on the windows, but as the walls were of timber roughly put together, the mosquitoes were happy to enter through the numerous cracks. I ate crab nearly every day, and one evening Bob, my father-in-law, who was allergic to crab, decided to risk it and eat some, very much to his health's detriment.

Rozanne and Selby looking for clams on the empty beach at Rio Savane

By the end of the week, his leg had become painful, and a week or so later, in South Africa, he learned he had cellulitis. On leaving Rio Savane we refueled in Beira and headed off to Inchope where we had arranged to meet up with the Whaleys, Joe and Wendy, the Greens, Lyle and Roseanne, the Vermaaks, Lee and Phil and Tinks Bezuidenhout to spend the rest of our holiday at their camp at Inhassoro, some 250 kilometres to the south, which was to change our recent views on Mozambique and became our place of choice for future holidays while living in Zambia. More about that next week.

Disclaimer: Copyright Peter McSporran. The content in this blog represents my personal views and does not reflect corporate entities.