Money baffles brains, as do the ghosts of yesteryear

Baffled by the money …

As the classic tale for us old broke folk recalls: “If they say money talks, mine only says goodbye.”

Plenty of money is floating around but it is not coming out of our pockets. Take a look at the new buildings that are going up everywhere – mansions, town houses, petrol stations and food courts that doubtless have not properly observed traditional town planning regulations and will further compromise already-insuffient electricity and water.

This week official customs duty on vital imports at the border was charged at Z$9,400 against each US$ of the consignment’s value, up from 7,500-1 four days earlier.

Inflation and exchange rates continue to run amok. Not so long ago the central bank produced that ill-fated world-record-breaking Z$100 trillion bank note. At its worst, it was the equivalent of US 50 cents. The bank kept on cutting the zeros off  the trillion, billion and million dollar notes to make paper money more manageable. But each time these fiscal shananigans brought no remedy for long-suffering consumers, poor or well-endowed alike.

In the wake of the forlorn, just-ended climate change Cop28 talkfest, we just had our first downpours of seasonal rain, six weeks later than normal for the time of year.

Soothsayers claim our ancestral spirits are angry over the money merry-go-round that hurts living generations whose happiness they worry about. The most important of them is the sviriko, or spirit medium, Mbuya Nehanda, hanged by the British in 1898, whose face adorns a Z$50 note –  188 of these bills buy US$ 1. Work that out if you can. What is she worth in real money?

It is said in anger over her plummeting value and the damage to her dominance in the entire ancestral scheme of things, she ordered the chaotic rain storms that ripped off roofs – the infamous Wha Wha prison wasn’t spared p- tore down trees and flooded thoroughfares where drains and soak-aways haven’t been cleared of blockages caused by polystyrene take-out cartons and muck like that.

Ergo, according to superstition, the post-Cop28 future is out of our worldy hands. Mbuya Nehanda, so it is said, must be placated or severe drought will be our punishment. Charms must also be offered for her to neutralise El Nino and the defenders of fossil fuels. 

Our coinless currency baffles us when we travel abroad and check our change with the wonderment of coming across some fantastical discovery. These two coins went out of circulation soon after they were minted in 2014.  

For mathematical masterminds, imagine counting 5 cent and 10 cent coins in each single dollar in a hundred trillion of them. It would baffle the brain as much as counting grains of sand on a beach. 

Wanna buy a townhouse? (see the abandoned flip-flops bottom left)