Monday, February 08, 2010

Heat, pains, phone and politics

I am spending the week in Maputo setting up an accounting (well ERP actually) system for use here. And it is steaming HOT here! That kind of heat where your shirt is soaked after an hour or so and you have to take a shower after work when it starts to cool down. And the office has no aircon and no fans...

Otherwise the sciatic nerve pain is sloooowly subsiding and I can now at least take reasonably long walks. Not having been able to exercise since November has not had a good influence on my waistline sadly. Am so looking forward to being able to hit the gym again! Weekend before last was in so much pain I could not sit, lie, stand up or pretty much do anything so it has really improved since.

Politics and pomms. Where do they dig up their foreign affairs secretaries in the UK? Straw was hopeless and now David Milliband hands Zanu PF a brilliant reason to refuse to fulfill the agreement they signed over a year ago. This by telling the UK Parliament that "when it comes to sanctions we must be guided by the MDC"... bingo. Exactly what Zanu wanted to hear as they have for months argued that MDC can ask their "western masters" to lift the sanctions, something that is of course nothing but stalling tactics. Well, now they have it "confirmed" by mr. Milliband. How come these oh-so well educated pommies get outwitted by a gang of ageing guerilla-fighters over and over again? When it comes to Zimbabwe they should by know that the less they say the better.

With the help of kind Swedish friends I bought a new cellphone a while ago. I have never really like the idea of "gadget phones" that can do x number of things apart from being phones but I wanted this phone as it can act as a radio transmitter and walkman, thereby assisting me to endure long drives I regularly go for. Well, I have become quite fond of the walkman functions (it is a SonyEricsson W980) and the fantastic headphones that came with it but it turns out that the radio-thing only works in countries where legislation so admits. And that means not in Zim, not in Zambia, not in Malawi and not in Moz. It works in SA - where you have plenty of good radio stations. Will have to see if there is a way to crack this block but apart from that really love the new gadget.

Finally a comment on the president of SA, Jacob Zuma, who is once again caught redhanded when it comes to his sexlife habits. This is the guy who was spearheading HIV/Aids prevention while at the same time admitting to having unprotected sex with a woman he knew to be HIV positive but "it did not matter as he showered afterwards"... for a long time all the cartoonists pictured him with a showerhead. Now it has been revealed that he has recently fathered a child outside marriage. That is, outside the 3 wives he is currently married to. And that the child was conceived while he was busy preparing for his latest marriage... To finally top it off this is again a daughter of one of his supposedly close friends (the HIV lady was a friend's daughter). Well what can you say? I would not let him near my nieces or sisters-in-law for sure and I consider it a huge embarrassement for Southafrica that their president can not control his urges and obviously let's his smaller head do the thinking for him. As for his wives, well it is their headache but I don't get how not even one of them are preparing divorce papers.

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