December 26, 2002

December 26, 2002

Hello again to all of you

It is 2:30AM and I am awake from the heat and a few mozzies bugging me in bed. So I thought I would get up and use the computer when it works faster as in the daytime there is such a load on the network and with this old 486 I am using it takes forever or crashes on me.

The Christmas season was very different here from Canada. First, the heat - over 30 degrees and down to about 22 degrees at night. Second, no decorations in the homes. No Christmas tree and no real giving of presents. No traditional meal to sit down to, no stockings. But there is a big awareness in the way you are greeted and "compliments of the season" is commonly offered when you meet someone. Lots of travel to the rural areas to visit families. With the fuel shortage this has curtailed a lot of people from getting there (or back) as not all the public transport is operational as their tanks are dry.

I invited all the club members from the Matopos Rotary Club (my adopted club where I am an honorary member) to a traditional Canadian turkey dinner on Christmas eve.

First problem, finding turkeys. Luckily a club member, Juliet Dube Ndeble who is a Doctor and the head administrator at the biggest hospital here called Mpilo (4000 beds!!!) heard a rumor that one store had them so we drove there and horray - four turkeys. I gave her one for her family and troubles and had three for my group. Second problem. They were frozen and I kept them that way until the Dec. 24th. My staff was supposed to take them out of the freezer and thaw them that morning. I arrived at 5pm to start cooking and they were still in the freezer. So I had to boil them in huge pots to start with. Third problem. When it came time to put them in the oven, the oven does not work and no one told me even though I had discussed the process with them. So - how to cook? I got Charles Chiponda to bring out his big wok for cooking on an open fire and set the wok over our braii coals with some oil in the work. Then I covered each turkey with a big pot we use for making sadsa with. Sadsa is the traditional corn flour staple they eat here. No problem getting pots as there is no mealie meal (the corn flour) to be had here. I turned then every 10 to 15 minutes and at 10pm we had three beautifully roasted turkeys. Made a huge salad of cucumbers, tomatoes and onions and was quite pleased with myself on how it all turned out. The turkeys were cooked perfectly and very moist.

Tomorrow I hire an electrian to check out our complete electrical system at Umgusa Lodge. We have problems with popped breakers and I suspect our amp service is not big enough. Also, we do not have enough lighting for the evenings and need to put up about 15 more lights for our customers. I bought some new bulbs today as they had none in stock to replaced burned out ones. They told me to get the ones with the pins as they are common here but were remiss in telling me they also needed some screw in type like we have. So you can guess it. When we turned on the kitchen light tonight it

burned out and no replacement. The entire evening was spent serving customers by candlelight. But they never complain here and accept this sort of thing as the way of life.

This was just one example of the frustration I had today at Umgusa. I arrived with my vehicle, loaded crates of beer and cold drinks (empties) and started to drive off to the store. My vehicle, which had run fine since I purchased it, started, but would not accelerate and only ran at idle regarless of how much gas you gave it. No one to fix it and 12km out of town and no phone (mine was with Bobby Chiponda in town). So there I was stranded and eventually we ran out of cold drinks.

With no fuel our boat at Umgusa has not been running and this means big lost revenues. Today someone untied the ropes mooring it and someone else had either forgotten to put the anchor down or untied it and at 7pm tonight I looked out on the lake and there was our boat driving down the lake towards the dam. I actually paid some men (in beer!!!) to swim for it and they paddled it back. Then I borrowed a car and drove to the marketplace to get some supplies. While there they phoned in an order (using a customers cell phone) for more braii packs. These are a cello pak of beef steak and sausage and our main seller for cooking. They orderd 40 and I thought they were just topping up to get through the evening. I arrived back with 40 and

within 15 minutes we were right back to a few left. So - back to the store - 6km away- and got another 75. All this is cash so I am constantly carring about 100,000Zim on me which is about 2" thick in their largest bill ($500).

All this went on with other minor frustrations to do with our General Manager who has turned out to be completely inept. Charles and I sat down with him on the 24th and gave him his notice for the end of the month based on his inability to follow directives or consistency in running the place when we are not there. His philosophy is to deal with it when it is a crisis. For example, he does not direct the men to chop up firewood in the morning so we have the proper size wood for our cooking fires. He waits until it is time to start burning, we are all busy with customers (who start coming in the afternoon) and then we have to try and take someone away from the busy bar or customer service to rapidly cut wood.

So these are just a few of the frustrations but the other side of the coin is a pure joy. Tonight I watched and joined in to dozens of people dancing to our music out there. From toddlers to seniors, all dancing to traditional African music. It is quite a sight and they truly have a suppleness and rhythm to them that has been denied us. They love to see me dance and cannot believe that this white guy will join in with them. Most days I am the only white there. We try and cater to families and on Christmas Day we had a huge crowd of families out there. Our playground was packed with children and not one piece of equipment was not being used. Swings, teeter-totters, climbing bars, tree-house, etc.

I plan to increase our inventory levels significantly starting tomorrow. We constantly run out so I am going to triple most stock levels, especially beer and cold drinks (pop). We have the storage space and I have made a deal with a supplier in town to deliver out to the lodge for big orders as my vehicle can only hold 50 crates (24 bottles per crate) and it is really overloaded when I do this. This way we should be able to order weekly instead of every 2 days. The weekends are very critical as that is when we do our most business. We are closed Mondays and Tuesday through Friday afternoon we are slow.

I am enjoying my new house. Three bedrooms,living room, dining room, bar room, kitchen, toilet room (seperate) and full bath and shower room. Need to get more furniture and this will come when I have time. So as you can see, I am busy with my life, but frustrated at times with the wasted time and energy trying to get things done that we take for granted in our society.

Count your blessings!!!!

I will sign off now and get back in a few days. I am off to Uganda on Dec 5th - that is another story. Elaine at Pathfinder Travel prebooked my flights before I left but could not issue the tickets for some reason even she could not understand. Now I know why. The flight that was on her screen from Harare (in Zimbabwe) to Entebbe (in Uganda) does not exist anymore. The two countries are mad at each other and have cancelled all flights between themselves. But they have not deleted them from the booking screen. So I had to re-route through Kenya to get there.

Love to you all

Doug