A 9pm meet and greet at Harare International Airport isn’t the most wonderful thing to do on a Saturday night in the city that is permanently politically asleep. But welcoming a babe back in town softens the blow. A bit. The pot holes and dimly lit streets makes the going challenging. I usually try and aim my arrival at any working traffic light when it’s green so that I avoid any wannabe cling-ons. The up-side of making this journey in winter is that the police are nowhere to be found. It’s too cold for them to be out soliciting bribes from motorists en route to the airport. The last time I was stopped, a smartarse Hatfield policeman asked me if I was a man or a woman. My hair might be short and my tits small, but please.

Just past the last traffic lights there’s a whole lot of furniture and other household effects on the side of the road outside a block of flats. I noticed some people curled up under blankets on sofas, their roof a canopy of stars. The Combined Harare Residents Association (CHRA) recently issued a statement on the spate of evictions in Harare because tenants can’t pay their rent in foreign currency. This has become the latest demand from landlords in Zimbabwe.

When I got to the airport car park the boom was UP. Free parking? Unlikely I thought, so I pressed the ticket dispenser to make sure that I wasn’t being tricked. Nothing came out so I drove in and then I thought I’d better clear things up with the guy at the exit to avoid any arguments and potential penalties for not having a ticket. He was sound asleep with his feet up on the counter. I knocked three times to wake him up. He asked me if there was anyone manning the gate in the absence of the non-working ticket machine and I said no and he said well you’ll just pay the minimum then. Z$300 billion. I asked if I could pay him in old coins. He wasn’t amused.

Inside the airport not one arrival/departure screen showed any signs of life. Not even a faint flicker. Upstairs in the cafeteria a few lost souls propped up the bar. In the display cabinet plastic flowers and fruits outnumbered the few dried out queen cakes. And downstairs the only sign that worked was this little green man marking the exit door. It was right next to a portrait of Mugabe which I thought quite apt.

On the way out I was asked for my ticket.

So I said, the boom was UP, and there was no-one there, so here’s my 300 billion. And didn’t we already Have this conversation? He grumbled an acceptance. And we headed off into town, ready to dodge red lights all the way.

This entry was posted on August 4th, 2008 at 11:40 am by Bev Clark and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.