Toilets, Drums and Monkey business.

These photos were taken recently in the public toilets on the South African side of Beitbridge border post. That’s the one made famous by my YouTube which has topped the 200k hits. I suppose it sums up the money situation in Zimbabwe very well.

These short bits were lifted from www.zimbabwesituation the last couple of days:

The country's currency plunged to a new record low on Monday, trading at an
average Z$28,4 quadrillion to the U.S. dollar and triggering massive price
increases.

The hyperinflation figure as of July is officially pegged at 231 million
percent. The Central Statistical Office (CSO) is yet to release the
September, October and November figures. Independent economic analysts argue that the CSO figure is unrealistic and that inflation could be running into
several billions if not trillions.

The city of Bulawayo was engulfed in tension over the weekend, following
bloody clashes between riot police and people queuing to try to access money
from their banks.

Scores were left injured on Saturday when heavily armed riot police ran
pitched battles with anxious customers who were losing patience after
failing to access their money from the city banks.

In Harare, the military police on Saturday battled fellow soldiers who were
creating problems in bank queues. Reports say baton-wielding military police
beat soldiers in uniform. At Coal House in central Harare, where two
building societies are located opposite each other, fights erupted as
members of the public cheered.

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Crazy shit!

When my Mom flew back a short time ago I made her get some US dollars at the airport. Phoning her (amazingly the phones still work), she told me that without them they might have starved. There is a bit in the shops, but only for US$. How the general population manage too survive is amazing.

Meanwhile, the world’s bloodiest conflict since the Second World War has kicked off again in the Congo. Five million dead so far but thankfully for Africa it is all the Whiteman’s fault once again. So, according to what I see on TV and read on the net, if we didn’t have mobile phones, the Congo would be a peaceful prosperous place. One imaginative individual came up with the perfect solution – go back to the Bush Telegraph days.

Working closely with Nokia, several models were being created. The smaller ones for ‘phoning’ someone in the same room as yourself, the bigger ones if the person you wish to speak to is upstairs, such as your son. You would beat out ‘boom, boom, boom’, followed with ‘ploop, boom,slap’, which means ‘hurry up, the sadza is getting cold.’

Cell phones need cells to make a network, so a new style of ‘call-centres’ is being planned. The idea is to have a telegraph pole situated at the end of every street in the UK and an illegal Zimbabwean immigrant perched on it with a drum three meters in diameter. Their job is to receive a call and pass it on. A test run of the technology was applied during the recent United States presidential election.

A message ‘Don’t vote for the Blackman, he will invade your farm and homes’, was sent without adequate anti-virus protection and arrived in millions of peoples’ ears as ‘Do vote for the Blackman and get a free home and farm.’ As a result, when the news reached Kenya, all of Obamas’ relatives up-sticks and packed for the move to the USA. Above is a picture of them on the way to the airport to check in their baggage.

Nokia admit ‘there are some teething problems’, but that hasn’t stopped Sarah Palin suing them for a full cupboard of designer clothes.

Presently the whole manufacturing process has been put on ice after the entrepreneur who started this all died after inhaling anthrax spores that seemed to have been on the imported animal skins he was using. (This is true – check this

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/london/7705328.stm )

Production will resume under new management as soon as the British authorities give it a clean skin of health.

Last laugh.

Yesterday I was looking at eBay, category - Zimbabwe. It is amazing how much of the silly money is up there for silly prices! Then I came across a blinder. There was someone flogging a Zimbabwean gorilla. As the photo shows, there seems to be some kind of mistake. There are many guerrillas in Zimbabwe. Former ones now renamed as ‘Wovets’ from the words ‘war veteran’.

This one is the alpha-male.

Unlike gorillas, these guerrillas do not face extinction and they just wander around pissed and stoned, taking over farms and trashing them, whilst having a bit of rape and torture too entertain them whenever the power supply to the TV and DVD player is off.

I pointed this out to the people who were selling this gorilla. They blamed the manufacturers for giving them the wrong details. They then changed their description. That was not so clever, as I had told a few people to go check it out for a laugh. Still, never give up; never surrender, so I tracked down the maker.

Blow me down with a warthog tooth! Hansa Toys USA have it on their website, labeled - Gorilla, Zimbabwe. Here is the link –

http://www.hansatoysusa.com/public_catalog/product_detail.php/pid=235~subid=10/index.html

I won’t be telling the ignorant sods. I seriously do believe that the ‘pitt-bull with lipstick’ didn’t know that Africa is a continent, the silly sloth. (Oops, do they have sloths in Alaska?)