Yesterday I enlisted the help of my char to tackle an annual task – moving the bookcase in my bedroom and vacuuming the carpet. We do a chain-relay routine where she gets down to the bottom shelf, which I cannot do, grabs a handful of books, passes them up to me, and I stack them in wobbly piles on the bed, until the shelves are empty. We then move the bookcase away from the wall, cluck over the thick layer of dust, and she wields the vacuum. I was relieved not to find any tiny mouse skeletons because that’s where Chocolat’s mice find shelter when they escape momentarily. The tiny spaces a mouse can squeeze into always amazes me.
When I’ve cleaned the shelves, and dusted the books, we then restack the shelves. I take the opportunity to weed out unwanted books (yes, there are such items, but not many) and this year I hesitated over The Mottled Lizard by Elspeth Huxley; it’s a charming account of a childhood spent in Kenya, but oh dear! The spine is torn, the pages have browned to a deep caramel colour, the cover is limp, and creased. The two giraffe have faded to a greenish-blue, it’s a sorry sight. There’s a price on the cover: 5/-. Five shillings! Can you imagine that? Inside the cover on the facing page is rubber-stamped: Rhod Price 6/-. I suppose the import charges to Rhodesia from Britain warranted the surcharge. Underneath that is another rubber stamp image, in pale red, barely legible: Carlton Exchange, Bulawayo. I have no memory of the Carlton Book Exchange, but I must have know about it, and probably used it. My eldest daughter, who remembers everything Bulawayo related, will be able to fill in the gaps for me.
The book was published by the Four Square publishing company in 1965. Although the book looks like a relic from the Boer War, it’s not actually that old.
Perhaps another contender for the title in this bookcase is one of my favourite books The Sunshine Settlers by Crosbie Garstin. The first page informs us that this edition is a Facsimile Reprint, issued by Books of Rhodesia, Bulawayo 1971, of the 1935 edition. It has been slightly amended by addition of black and white line drawings by Daphne James. I remember my Dad owning a copy of the original 1935 version, which I read as a child, and loved. The book was burnt when my Mum’s house burnt down in the early 1960’s – house fires ravage family memorabilia; you can buy a new stove, you can replace your clothes, but books, letters, photos are irreplaceable. Ditto the handsome brass box, with a tortoise shell pattern engraved on the lid, and ditto the two brass urns, with elegant tall necks, decorated with an engraved pattern of curlicues and flowers, all the way from Persia, a gift from Uncle Bill who worked in the oil industry, a million years ago when the country was called Persia. Oh well …
So when the Books of Rhodesia copy came out, I pounced on it with glee, and have read, and re-read it happily over the years. It describes pioneering life in Rhodesia in the early years, just prior to the First World War. My Dad came out to Rhodesia in the late 1920’s, and life on the farms hadn’t changed that much in the intervening twenty years. Life was just as hot, dry, dusty and challenging as it had ever been, but viewed through Crosbie Garstin’s twinkling Irish eyes it was all a splendid adventure. Try and read it if you can find a copy; sorry, but I’m not lending you mine!
Tag Archives: Bulawayo
A COUPLE OF THE OLDEST BOOK IN MY BOOKCASE
Filed under BOOK STATISTICS, BULAWAYO, HUMOUR, READING
LIVING IN BULAWAYO: HOW TO GET BY
We were accommodated in a relative’s spacious house in Burnside, enjoying the magnificent thatched verandah, the swimming pool, the resident maid.
- The beautiful thatched verandah looking on to the pool
Although our stay was brief, I gained some fascinating insights into daily life in modern Zim.
There are bizarre anomalies. For instance: a big, flat screen TV in the lounge, connected to DStv (satellite) television, but in the back yard the maid is washing clothes in a zinc bath, parked on the dusty earth, with a green hose pipe delivering water onto the laundry…… from high tech to basics.
You need to be resilient and inventive to live comfortably in Zim. You definitely need your own generator, because there are regular daily power cuts that are arranged on a wildly complicated timetable. A local explained the system to me, but it left me baffled. There was a gas stove in the kitchen, in addition to the electric stove, and we had to use the gas daily, when the power went off.
To my surprise there is now a SPAR store in Leander Avenue, a new addition to the area. It provided us with good Portuguese rolls, and one of the best croissants I ever ate in my entire life. Further down the Hillside Road was the newish TM Supermarket, a big store, in a new shopping centre where all the shops were filled with merchandise. As opposed to the tatty, bedraggled, old shopping centre at Bradfield, where more than half the shops were closed, or empty, and those that were operating were grubby and third rate.
No more empty shelves, and anxious shoppers clutching kilogrammes of useless Zim-dollars, queueing on a rumour that there might be fresh supplies of cooking oil, or mealie meal. Those days appear to be over. I walked round the TM Supermarket looking with interest at the shelves. About 75% of the goods were South African imports, while dairy products, fresh produce, biscuits, cereals, mealie meal were local brands. I saw no convenience frozen foods, and only one small freezer compartment offered a selection of frozen peas. No Woolies ready-meals here!
We compared the food prices and they were much of a muchness, even taking the US dollar/rand exchange rate into account. However, diesel and cigarettes were cheaper than in SA.
You need to be on your toes when driving as there is often a happy disregard for road rules, especially in the city centre. Not to mention the traffic lights, some of which are not working. I commented on the number of dented and bashed up cars driving around, and a local explained that panel beating was just too expensive. Fortunately the climate is so dry that rust damage is not an issue. I suppose if you are a local resident you learn to avoid the suburban roads that are dangerously potholed, or where the tar surface has worn away leaving dangerous little islands of black amidst the corrugations. No doubt you learn which culverts to avoid, where the guard rails are dented, broken or missing, where the vegetation has choked the storm-water drains which must lead to flooding in the summer. Roads and public buildings are just not maintained. If you don’t like this, then you’d better go and live in another country.
I commented on the random patches of olive green pain I kept seeing on electrical sub-stations and walls around the city. Someone dryly informed me that although no government buildings (e.g. hospitals & schools) had been painted in over 20 years, the olive green paint disguised MDC political anti-government slogans, and the blotting out had occurred within two or three days of the slogans appearing. To my amusement I saw a whole rash of pro-MDC (opposition party) / anti-government slogans decorating a long stretch of wall that bordered Bulawayo’s one and only mental hospital, Ingutsheni. It seemed appropriate somehow.
Nothing about Zimbabwean politics or government makes much – or any – sense.
Once you have grasped that the country is run by a cabal of despotic, greedy, corrupt people and that outraged Western bleating is not going to make any difference, then you have begun to grasp the realities of life, politics, and the bottom line in Africa. Westminster style democracy? Don’t be silly. Get a grip. Take a reality check, and then swallow a very large chill pill. You’re going to need it.
Filed under ZIMBABWE
SETTING OFF DOWN MEMORY LANE
Memory Lane is not always the sweet, flower-strewn path we would wish it to be. Sometimes it is filled with potholes and dead-ends. Our family visit to Zimbabwe in mid-August provided memories that were sweet, some sights that were bitter, but it was worth the effort. We had a wonderful holiday in Zimbabwe.
My sister and I had not been back to Zimbabwe for over 30 years. Eldest daughter Helen (ultra efficient trip organizer) and husband John visit Zim regularly, at least once a year. Younger daughter Laura and son Tony had also not returned for many many years. My three children were all born in Bulawayo, then Rhodesia, now Zimbabwe. John is also a born & bred Bulawegian. I spent 31 years in Bulawayo, almost half my life span. Here is a picture of our party, taken at Bon Accord Farm, in the Shangani District, on a bitterly cold day – 7˚C, the coldest I have been all winter – but as you can see, we were all
cheerful, and smiled for the camera.
Back row = John, Helen, Laura, Tony; Front row = Julius, Alison, Eugene & Jennifer
I’m wearing Laura’s winter hat which the family decided made me look like a goblin; I hate to admit it, but I think they were right ….
But I have consoled myself that when you reach the age of 70, you can discard all illusions or aspirations of glamour and simply be yourself. So it’s official: I have been reclassified as a goblin. The hat proves it.
Watch this space – next instalment to follow …….
Filed under TRAVEL