Movies, Miekles and Mugabe

As much as I love Zimbabwe, I've changed my ticket so that I can get to Nairobi a couple days sooner and thus have some more time in Zanzibar and/or Amsterdam. I really don't want to leave, but I just need the extra couple of days elsewhere.

Anyway Harare is a clean and cosmopolitan city that's perfectly safe during the day, but a bit sketchy at night. I decided to stay at a budget hotel in Avondale on the outskirts of the city, in what is basically an upper-middle class neighborhood. There are certainly more whites in the neighborhood then in your typical African neighborhood, but it's by no means a white enclave and it seems to be a comfortably mixed area with Africans, Rhodesians (white Zims), Greeks, Portugese, Italians, Arabs and Indians.

The George Hotel is very friendly, but the beds are a bit soft and they have baths but no showers. What was kind of odd was the fact that they had a sign in the bathroom warning of the water shortage due to the drought (which was 10 years ago) and they requested that visitors take showers instead of baths. That would've been fine with me if I had the choice.

There were two bars in the hotel, one that attracted a mostly African crowd and another English-style pub called the Freckle & Phart (heh heh - he said phart) which attracted a mixed crowd and had live music 3 nights a week. There was this great honky tonk blues band there the other night that was willing to take requests, but they didn't know 'Sweet Home Chicago.' However they did know 'Baby Please Don't Go' which was much more their style anyway and also one of my favorite songs.

There was also a shopping center with a movie theater across the street, which provided my entertainment and an alternative to bars for 3 nights. It's fun being able to go to the movies in a nice theater for only $1.50, but unfortunately most of the movies were so bad that I was surprised that I hadn't seen them on one of my flights. Coyote Ugly is hands down one of the dumbest movies that I have ever seen (but any movie with Tyra Banks has at least one redeeming quality), and Bless the Child with Kim Basinger wasn't much better. The good news is that I got to see Me, Myself & Irene with Jim Carrey and I laughed my ass off. Boston Bruins/Farrely Brothers fans will be delighted to see a cameo by Cam Neely in a repeat of his 'Sea Bass' role from Dumb & Dumber. Brendan Shanahan (Detroit Red Wings) was in it, as were Reggie Lemelin's nieces and Derek Sanderson's daughters (both were former Bruins players).

Back to Africa...

Once again I was able to get my assignment done in a relatively short time, and once again the 5-star hotels gave me the 5-star treatment. Both the Miekles Hotel and the Sheraton offered me press rates of $100/night, which isn't cheap but a much better value than what I had been paying so I'm treating myself to one night at the Miekles for my final night tonight (I was in the shower as soon as I checked in). They also bought me lunch. I'm probably going to have go soon so that I can get some pool time in before sundown.

And like Vic Falls, I've yet to meet a single person here who has anything nice to say about Robert Mugabe or the ZANU PF party. The opposition party, the MDC, is calling for an election this July instead of next year as scheduled, because there is so much anxiety about the economy that many people feel that things will be hopeless by next year. Mugabe will never allow it, and even if he did then the ZANU would surely steal the election. I asked my cab driver what would happen if Mugabe did steal the election, and he said that somebody would have to shoot him. Then he jokingly asked me to volunteer! I politely declined, even after my driver insisted that I would have my name inscribed in Heroes' Acre (the monument to the liberation outside of town) if I did.

Even if there is an election it won't be fair because the ZANU are not going to allow international monitors in to observe the election. I've advised the Zims that even if they are allowed then they shouldn't ask America for help - fair and democratic elections apparently are something we're no longer qualified to judge ourselves, especially when it comes to counting the black vote.

Ironically enough, the last white leader of the country when it was still known as Rhodesia, Ian Smith, still resides in Harare. Mugabe just seems convinced that if he's toppled that he'll be driven out of the country. Everyone says that he won't quit until he dies, so as frustration grows then so do the chances of his assassination.

One of my favorite activities in Harare has been to read the two daily papers, The Herald and The Daily News. The first is controlled by the government and the second is independent and thus has been accused by the government of being pro-white and anti-Zimbabwe. The Daily News offices were bombed last month, so their publishing has been limited. When you read the two papers you'd think that you were in two different countries, as the slant on the stories is so dramatically different. Even people I've met who were reading The Herald laughed and said that they were doing so merely for entertainment or for the classifieds.

One of my river guides in Vic Falls and one of my cab drivers here have asked me if Americans and/or foreigners think that Zimbabwe is a racist country because of Mugabe (who has called whites 'the enemies of Zimbabwe') and specifically what is going on with the farmers. I told them that while the media certainly portrayed the country that way, Americans are in no position to judge about land redistribution for indigenous peoples and that I had yet to encounter any feelings of racism whatsoever. On the contrary, people here have been especially nice to me as an American and are always very excited when I tell them how much I enjoy this country.

I really wish the people of Zim the best of luck with whatever happens. They are hard-working, educated and pride themselves on their status in Africa. I'm not going to shoot Mugabe for them, but I hope that they somehow get rid of him soon.