A hard working man in Africa

In Victoria Falls. This town used to be teeming with adventure-types from all over the world. Back in 1995, just out of university I was one of those backpacker types. It was like I was in another country.
Now...all that is gone. The recent Zanu conference spooked many people too, I am told.
But I met a man whose story is worth telling...a good man in Africa. Let me call him Mr B, an unassuming man who was happy to share his life story. He started as a waiter at a regional franchise restaurant in the early 2000s. He was so driven that he believed that in 10 years' time he would own that franchise. Today, he holds it against all odds. But this is a country whose economy is stuttering again and holding such a franchise is like having a cow that one day might give milk. One day. Try operating a spaza / tuck-shop in Zimbabwe, probably one of the most hostile business environments globally, and you will come up against inflation and deflation, unpredictable political and economic decisions, corrupt officials...and everything in between. As Mr B says, he should be thriving but he is only just keeping his head above water, hoping that the country will turn the corner. Yet, he talks about the lessons he has learnt and how he has grown agility in his business thinking, nimbly building a portfolio of businesses to support his dream.
And about that corner...we all have been waiting too long for that corner. The ones who thrive in Africa are those who have cronies in government while those who try to work hard are always fighting against the system. But if we need to change this, we cannot continue to be spectators...there can be no spectators in this game. If one wants honest people to thrive on this continent, then one must begin to think seriously about being on the side of  those people. Time to put on the soccer boots and start the warm up...

Educated, respectful, loyal, hard-working....does that describe you?


Every nation has it's own labels...the way it's citizens are generally viewed. When you think arrogant, Americans come to mind. It turns out that when you are in the US, they are the nicest people you ever come across; think drug dealers and scammers, and Nigerians come to mind. And so the poor Nigerian passport holder is targeted for thorough searching at every port of entry. In my experience, Nigerian academics and doctors are the unsung heroes working in remote corners of South Africa, or other far flung places. But to undo this labelling will not be easy.
Zimbabweans, we are in the lucky position of having the label of "educated, well-spoken, respectful, loyal, hard-working". This sounds very positive, doesn't it? But is it really. Read those words again...educated (for whose purpose, to whose service), well-spoken (in whose language?), respectful (to whom? fearful of authority actually and any authority figure!), loyal (to the master? So the phrase "murungu wangu" (my white boss) continues to be used even when the boss is mostly always black), hard-working (in building whose dreams?).
These awkward question arose in mind recently when I phoned the local distributor of the paper I subscribe. The manager is  a pleasant sounding young Zimbabwean woman whom I have spoken with on various occasions and so she is comfortable sharing what happens in the company (mainly poor salaries and non-payment) leading to disruption of service.
So I asked her a simple question - How complicated is the logistics of distributing newspapers? What resources are needed? And how easy is it to snag contracts?
It turns out that it really is not that difficult. She has been involved in the system, she knows the networks and what is need is a small vehicle and from what I have seen, that should not cost too much of an arm and a leg. Then I asked her if she had ever thought of setting up her own thing seeing as she was really the one running the business already. This was met with a silence and bewilderment which reflected that in her loyalty mentality she had never thought she could actually own the business; she was not entitled to it.
And she is not alone. I have known Bigsy since my Chivhu days. He is a man steeped in the service culture of the hotel and restaurant culture. To-day he manages a restaurant franchise in Cape Town and has over a quarter of century of experience, and yet, I am not convinced that he has ever thought about getting his own branch, or owning shares of the current one. Perhaps he has, and thought he doesn't have the financial muscle to get into the game. But who does? One of the things we need to do as Zimbabweans is to network good business ideas with good funders, whether informal or formal. There are many other people in my networks I can think of who are quintessentially Zimbabwean - educated, well-spoken, respectful, loyal and hardworking - myself included - but we are not using these attributes to create wealth for ourselves. We are the equivalents of the working class honey bee, toiling every day to feed the queen bee.
The funny thing is that when I meet Zimbabweans in the diaspora, they all talk about going home to start their own business! Well, fat chance, now Zimbabwe is a nation of vendors, and vendoring is the most entrepreneurial of all things - you engage and close the deal, you use just-in-time logistics and you need to be extremely agile and flexible. So with your systems thinking and business school formalities, this will be a tough space. A few years ago, speaking to Zimbabweans in Dallas, Texas, I urged them, "So you want to start your own business? Start where you are! If a business can start where you are, it will be easier to grow at back into Zimbabwe much easily. The other way is nigh impossible"
So, what's my point? Let's turn the positive attributes which the world sees in us, it something that builds businesses not just exhaust us to death. If you are a work now, work, but also think about how your understanding of the nuts and bolts of that business is so valuable that you can turn that knowledge into your own business. Let's get a bit more rebellious, a lot less loyal...

Ubuntu is dead....RIP

Ubuntu is dead...RIP
Ubuntu was first taken seriously ill in 2008 when she was exposed to extreme violence including the burning of some foreign nationals. She appeared to have suffered a heart attack at the shock of how her citizens ( Mandela's people) had behaved in a chilling case of black on black racism, otherwise known as xenophobia.
Her illness was diagnosed as chronic but she recovered sufficiently to celebrate the coming of the world cup in 2010. It appeared she was on show for the whole world to see and she loved every moment. However in retrospect this was a veneer of deception and it soon emerged that Ubuntu had been used and her name abused for selfish needs. Confronted by the constant afrophobic and racist behaviour of police, citizens and institutions towards poor and vulnerable immigrants, Ubuntu continued to suffer and take strain in silence but with much fortitude. She was particularly disappointed by the impunity and lawlessness which is a hallmark of dealings with the harassment and killings of black foreigners.
Then the relapse came, not unexpectedly. Her condition quickly deteriorated as she watched the onslaught in KwaZulu Natal...men, women and children driven from their homes because of the accident of nature of being born, and born north of the Limpopo River.
Ubuntu collapsed yesterday as Emmanuel Sithole gasped for air after being stalked and stabbed like an animal in ALexandra township. There were no good men or women who came to her immediate rescue and belated efforts to rescucitate her were in vain. She died in the presence of politicians and other hypocrites.
Ubuntu will be deeply missed but she had suffered enough abuse at the hands of politicians, celebrities and citizens alike most of whom did not understand that ubuntu is first of all about personal responsibility and respect for life.
Ubuntu's only child, African Renaissance was still born; she is survived by her estranged brother Afropessimism. She leaves behind a deeply psychotic and psychologically disturbed nation in need of exorcism and mass treatment.
# je suis FOREIGNER
(C) David R. Katerere

Mosia oa Tunya

There is a new bird in the skies..it's red, and it's pretty good inside. Looking out onto the wingspan, though it seems it needs a good wash. Do they wash planes? If they don't it could be a good line of township business to go into because the car wash market is definitely over traded.
So, here I am in flyafrica.com heading for Victoria Falls to the annual pharmacy shindig. Apparently they launched in July and pride themselves in being cheap because they do not pass on fuel surchages (this is what  the Professor who is the CEO says in the magazine), and also they want "customers to clean out the rubbish and ensure that the seatbelts are crossed before leaving the plane so that we have a quick turn around and continue to give you cheap tickets". OK, enough already! I pride myself in being a cheapskate (Warren Buffett would not be the richest guy if he was splashing out on the latest Merc and designer gear now), but to be constantly reminded that you are in the cheap seats cannot be right.
Oh, and professor CEO, please get your announcers to practise reading their instructions to passengers. Reading like Mr Jacob Zuma stopping and stuttering his way through a state of the nation address is rather amateurish and reflects badly on Zimbabwe's much vaunted literacy rates. The cabin crew is pleasant enough and I like the announcer's voice, but using canned voice over sounds a lot more professional I think, and gives consistent messages. Get my good friend Themba Hove with his silky drawl and you will up the game.
So we land in Victoria Falls. The airport is under construction...it will be great when it's finished. Later, I find out that it has been under construction for sometime now, like most things in my country. The town is a quaint little place, a step back in the colonial boom of the 1960's and in the horizon there is always a blue haze hanging...the mighty Zambezi which gives this town a marine beach resort feel. This is the Cape Town of Zimbabwe.
The conference goes beautifully. It is partly reunion and partly meeting new people, seeing faces of names I have heard of before. There is a cohesiveness in the 300-odd delegates which I love and I often don't see in my adopted country. And a never-die-always-hope spirit. In the early 2000s, this group of professionals suffered the same fate which many other professional societies experienced...there was a mass exodus as the "brains" headed for the exit door...migrating to England, the US and elsewhere. So what you see are the old pharmacists (who had established themselves and would have lost it all had they left) and then the young ones (who were still in high school) with a yawning gap in the middle of those who graduated in the mid-1990s and were just setting themselves up when the politico-economic crisis hit like a tsunami.
One of the bittereinders is Skhu, "my SG (Secretary General) for life". He never tires of reminding me about the adventures of our youth - how we (5 of us, I think) jumped on a bus at short notice to go to Potchefstroom in South Africa in 1995 to a meeting of pharmacy students; We got lost in Joburg, nearly got robbed, arrested briefly and then eventually when we got to Potchefstroom we were caught in the residual tensions of apartheid (that conference marking the first time that black and white students had held a joint national conference) and how we navigated our way around all those and had a great and memorable time. SG talks animatedly about that time. He was always mature beyond his years, and I ask him, how is surviving in a climate which is inimical to business..."Hope, mufowethu, yabona!" he says philosophically, "that's what keeps us going...because without that flame of hope, you will not get out of bed"
And Zimbabweans, in and outside the country, need dollops of this hope. Because it's going to be a long long night.
Meantime, let us work during the day and when night time comes let us dance to the tunes of our youth. And that is what we did.
Thank you PSZ...keep going.

Lessons from Thailand

Lessons from Thailand, September 2014

I am at the airport and in slightly less than an hour I take off from Thailand, lay over in Hong Kong, then home in the morning, I hope. But I am thinking I have been so blessed, so fortunate to be able to travel from time to time, as have many of you…and so what are the five lessons from Thailand? This is not scientific, it’s just the thoughts which have crossed my mind in the short time I have been here and seen and interacted with the people. If I stay long enough reality will hit and then I will probably be less biased, but maybe the lessons will not be too useful then…

Here we go.

1. Be gentle with the world. There is a discipline I see here in the people, their patience with others on the train, even with their junta which staged a coup back in May, their apparent tolerance with those that are different (Apart from a taxi driver–cum–pimp harassing me about taking me to a place where I can have a body to body massage, I felt very safe). Yes, the politics is not right and there is now the “green” party (read military junta). But still people seem at peace. So I am told that young men have to spend a year in a buddhist monastery after finishing secondary school. This is their coming of age ritual; it is not mutilating penile organs or sending them off to behead hapless journalists and “Westerners”, it is training them in the ways of the founder of their religion. Imagine if we could do this with our young people, encourage them to enter the service of others when they are most receptive.

2. Play to your strengths. Thailand has an amazing history, great exotic foods and it’s the tailor to the world. In 24 hours I ordered and had three suits made, and the stuff looks great. They have created the support systems for business to thrive – infrastructure for tours; spas, hotels…but they have not pretended to be something they are not…they have marketed their culture. While Cape Town maybe a great place, it pretends too much; tries too much to suit it’s tastes to the European palate. In Thailand, Thai food is everywhere and remains authentically Thai (even Ronald MacDonald strikes the Buddha pose!); they have been creative, making juices, ice creams and crisps from everything from watermelon, dragon fruit to banana and jackfruit. In Africa we have all these things but we just have not packaged them to give them to the world. When I go to Venda, I always look at all the fruit going to waste and wonder how it can contribute to economic development of villagers….I may have stumbled on the solution.

3. Be happy. There are no angry young people here. Perhaps the Buddha mentality again helps…in essence, this is what it says (or ta least how I understood it all those years ago when my extra Maths teacher tried to explain it to me) – “this is all there is folks; no after-life to enjoy after the misery of the present”...so be happy. That seems in general to be the essence of Eastern religions. Thailand’s national campaign is called “smile Thailand”; there is a sense that people are pursuing happiness…(Note to self, I am going to try to be happy by hanging out with happy people!).

4. Show up and things will happen. This is my own learning. I was invited to Thailand to give a talk because I had not turned down a request to give another talk earlier in the year when the original speaker was double-booked. I was approached and I said, I would do it. At that meeting I met Jenny and when she was looking for a speaker for the Thailand conference (again the local speaker was not available), and I was volunteered she immediately accepted because she had seen me. So here I am far away from home and having made new networks and friends. I have been invited back and also to Germany and the project which started off as conversation in Pretoria 6 months ago is about to start-up. So, that is my lesson, say yes, and you never know where it leads. This is contrarian to what you read a lot about, “learn how to say no”, well if it’s borrowing money, definitely!

5. Samsung rules the world but they don’t trumpet it like Apple does. Is there a Samsung product launch with all the starry-eyed geeks and all? (if there is then the newspapers are not doing a good job of publicising it). Here in Asia, it’s not just the smartphones, or the other well known gadgets, they are also getting into the insurance business, at least from one billboard I happened upon. In the trains and the airports, everyone is tapping away, swiping and wiping away on a smartphone device of some sort, most of which are made by one company in not too far away South Korea. How did that happen? And who is the smart brain behind Samsung? So, unlike the Western model of having an in-your-face founder who is identified with a brand (think Richard Branson, Steve Jobs, Bill Gates, Strive Masiyiwa), these people hide in anonymity and just get on with it. And they have quietly and decisively taken over the world. It is an Orwelliann truth that he / she who controls information channels rules the world. But anonymity also guarantees that companies do not suffer from founder’s syndrome and wilt once Mr Founder dies.  So whether the guy dies or resigns, the company lives on

Time to step up...

7 May 2014. South Africa is deciding it's future. The election campaign has been robust and the Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF) -  red-bereted and with a lot of populist bluster and township (ekasi) swag -  is the cat among the pigeons. They are talking a radical departure from the market friendly policies which came from the negotiated settlement of 1994. The robustness of the debates, the ruling party's willingness to  engage with opposition parties an the general public on radio and television, and the high interest of the public in this election have been interesting to watch. This is true democracy at play, and those that grandfathered this country should be proud of what they built.
 Even, Paida, 10 years old has had her opinions. I heard her talking to her friends about what party she would be voting for, while little brother, Zhizha, 5, wants to vote for IEC...the Independent Electoral Commission (!), perhaps testimony to the extremely effective advertising which the institution has done.
But I am feeling left out. On an afternoon walk earlier we went past a school which is a voting centre. I fought the urge to walk in there and join the queues, putting my cross in the place of my choice. But I cannot. I am like the foster child, the orphaned child, who is left to watch the cooking fires, while the blood family members retreat to the main house to discuss intimate issues or offer libations to their ancestors. He is part of the family in many ways, but he will always be an outsider when it comes to internal family matters...as I, a bona fide, tax paying naturalized "South African" am an outsider when it comes to all things for the citizenry.
The last time I voted was in 1996, in Cranborne, Zimbabwe. I miss having a say in the affairs of the country of my birth or the country of my residence. So I am going to make the tough choices in the next few years...it cannot be enough to just see what is wrong and talk about it abstract academic terms within my circles. Increasing we as young Africans who have been gifted with voices our fathers could only dream of, will have to step up and initiate the changes that are required. 

Ode to English Winters

Ode to an English Winter

Winter lurks,

It's icy hand stretching like ghosts of the past,

Arctic breath whistling in the night.

Soon, the skies will cloud over

Chasing away the sun's light and warmth

Then it will be snow,

bells ringing on the mall,

Christmas lights twinkling in the darkness...

The only good thing of English winters

is the redemption Christmastide brings.

Making the winters, at least, bearable.