Manulite, cunning mobile-phone photographer from Harare, is posting snaps from his cell phone taken of ordinary things in Zimbabwe. Found this via Richard Byrom's blog (great to have heard from you RB). I have also seen now that The Bearded Man has mentioned this blog before now too.
I'd be interested in hearing about others doing the same, as this really is a great way to beat Comrade Bob's insistent attempts at allowing freedom of the press only as long as things are always told his way.
Maybe we of the diaspora could become a channel for a thousand cell phone activists, helping them with some 'show and tell'?
23 August 2005
22 August 2005
Langlaagte for profit ... then and now
I happened to spend a couple of hours at the Langlaagte offices of whichever department it is that issues Driver Licences in South Africa. To collect a temporary driver's licence as 'stage two' of converting my Zimbabwe d/l to a rainbow nation one. Stage one was a little dance with death about six weeks ago, shuffling between offices, enriching Nigerian immigrants with the 'compulsory' new photos because my perfectly good ones had something wrong with them.
Today I hoped for a short queue then a triumphant exit clutching my new licence. Well, firstly, when you are on the Langlaagte side of town, don't expect to find too many ATM machines that work. Secondly, remembering where the right turn off saves you from heading into the Joburg CBD and getting really confused with life.
When I did get there I was told by a helpful uniformed official I have seen before, that 'window number three' was the place to go, and mercifully it was a very short line. However, that window is simply to announce your request. 'Please could I collect my temporary driver's licence?' ... not a word was spoken but the lady disappears momentarily, reappearing with a brown folder. It has my forms in it. 'Do you have money?' she asks. '143 Rands' she adds. Yes I did and reach into my pocket - but she stops me and says 'join that queue' pointing at the really long one I was rejoicing to have not had to stand in.
So, a couple of 30 minute podcasts later I finally reach the window of a one handed teller. He used one hand for everything, even though as far as I could tell his other one worked just as well. I wondered if twice as many people could have been served an hour if he had used twice as many hands. Turned out, how strangely, that I am just one photo short in my file. I had of course provided the correct number of photos six weeks ago, but 'fortunately for me' there was a place just by the gate that would instantly deliver me two photos for just ten Rands. And please come right back to the front of the queue, no need to start again ...
Ah, democracy, don't you just love it!
The photographer was amongst perhaps twenty of thirty camera-yielding fellas all looking for business. He occupied an unused sentry box. He had a nice digital camera and high-speed photo printer with software for printing passport sized pics two at a time in the required black and white. Except it was fifteen rands ... the ten rand ones were across the main road, and I had been there done that with the Nigerians last time. So I contributed to the expanding informal economy.
You might be interested in the fact that my photographer told me he paid R25,000 for the camera, printer and software. I thought that was pretty pricey for what he does, but he said he paid for it in a single month of business! He also told me he pays R3000 rent for his little sentry box, no bigger than a phone booth, to the security supervisor of the depot, not to the Municipality who own it! Now there is some creative bookkeeping. Given the number of photographers hovering around, I guess the 'landlord' expands his pay packet quite nicely every month. I decided against a photo of him on my phone.
The name Langlaagte has a rich history in Johannesburg, being a farm on which gold was found in the late 1880's. I did walk out with a temporary driver's licence. Stage three in about six weeks from now. The picture with this post is of Langlaate Farm in about 1886.
Today I hoped for a short queue then a triumphant exit clutching my new licence. Well, firstly, when you are on the Langlaagte side of town, don't expect to find too many ATM machines that work. Secondly, remembering where the right turn off saves you from heading into the Joburg CBD and getting really confused with life.
When I did get there I was told by a helpful uniformed official I have seen before, that 'window number three' was the place to go, and mercifully it was a very short line. However, that window is simply to announce your request. 'Please could I collect my temporary driver's licence?' ... not a word was spoken but the lady disappears momentarily, reappearing with a brown folder. It has my forms in it. 'Do you have money?' she asks. '143 Rands' she adds. Yes I did and reach into my pocket - but she stops me and says 'join that queue' pointing at the really long one I was rejoicing to have not had to stand in.
So, a couple of 30 minute podcasts later I finally reach the window of a one handed teller. He used one hand for everything, even though as far as I could tell his other one worked just as well. I wondered if twice as many people could have been served an hour if he had used twice as many hands. Turned out, how strangely, that I am just one photo short in my file. I had of course provided the correct number of photos six weeks ago, but 'fortunately for me' there was a place just by the gate that would instantly deliver me two photos for just ten Rands. And please come right back to the front of the queue, no need to start again ...
Ah, democracy, don't you just love it!
The photographer was amongst perhaps twenty of thirty camera-yielding fellas all looking for business. He occupied an unused sentry box. He had a nice digital camera and high-speed photo printer with software for printing passport sized pics two at a time in the required black and white. Except it was fifteen rands ... the ten rand ones were across the main road, and I had been there done that with the Nigerians last time. So I contributed to the expanding informal economy.
You might be interested in the fact that my photographer told me he paid R25,000 for the camera, printer and software. I thought that was pretty pricey for what he does, but he said he paid for it in a single month of business! He also told me he pays R3000 rent for his little sentry box, no bigger than a phone booth, to the security supervisor of the depot, not to the Municipality who own it! Now there is some creative bookkeeping. Given the number of photographers hovering around, I guess the 'landlord' expands his pay packet quite nicely every month. I decided against a photo of him on my phone.
The name Langlaagte has a rich history in Johannesburg, being a farm on which gold was found in the late 1880's. I did walk out with a temporary driver's licence. Stage three in about six weeks from now. The picture with this post is of Langlaate Farm in about 1886.
13 August 2005
Tiri drumming for joy
Here's a picture I snapped at the Million Leader Manadate sessions in Harare during the first week of July 2005. Tiri is such a joy to watch during worship music because you can just see he 'drums for the Lord'. Now the thing about Tiri is that he was orphaned a long time ago and has pretty much grown up in Northside Community Church, where I pastored for four years. Current pastor Gary Cross says this about Tiri:
"Tiri worked the youth office for a year looking after the youth group for junior school children. He is very talented and full of life but needs some stability and a sound Scriptural framework on which to hang all his ideas ... so I enrolled him in the Research Tutorial Degree Programme at the Harare Theological College. One of the college's requirements is that full-time students remain closely linked with a local church and be involved in a ministry. Tiri continues to lead and run WOW Kids Club for kids between grades 4 to 7, ages 9 to 12. WOW kids is about 40 kids with a strong leadership team of 4 or 5 young adults under Tiri. Tiri meets me once a month and has an advisor at HTC whom he meets every week"
He has no means of earning the kind of money it takes to pay his fees - a large amount in Zimbabwe, not that much anywhere else) and we are trying to do something to help him. If anyone else reading feels the same, give me a buzz.
"Tiri worked the youth office for a year looking after the youth group for junior school children. He is very talented and full of life but needs some stability and a sound Scriptural framework on which to hang all his ideas ... so I enrolled him in the Research Tutorial Degree Programme at the Harare Theological College. One of the college's requirements is that full-time students remain closely linked with a local church and be involved in a ministry. Tiri continues to lead and run WOW Kids Club for kids between grades 4 to 7, ages 9 to 12. WOW kids is about 40 kids with a strong leadership team of 4 or 5 young adults under Tiri. Tiri meets me once a month and has an advisor at HTC whom he meets every week"
He has no means of earning the kind of money it takes to pay his fees - a large amount in Zimbabwe, not that much anywhere else) and we are trying to do something to help him. If anyone else reading feels the same, give me a buzz.
Our redesigned Church website
This graphic is one I designed this week for the changes Richard Banks and I have been making to the church website. There are still gaping holes in the content but the shape is beginning to emerge and I am happier now than three weeks ago when Richard suggested changing to a content management system using MAMBO. When the tweaking and learning curve start to abate, I think we will have a pretty hard-working web site for a smallish suburban church in Joburg.
1 August 2005
New bill proposes restricted movement of citizens
The Constitution of Zimbabwe states in section 22 that no person may be deprived of his freedom of movement, that is to say, the right to move freely throughout Zimbabwe, the right to reside in any part of Zimbabwe, the right to enter and to leave Zimbabwe and immunity from expulsion from Zimbabwe. However the Constitution, as an exception among other exceptions, states that restrictions are permissible if required "in the interests of defence, public safety, public order, public morality or public health".But, in terms of a Bill before Parliament to amend the Constitution, the exception will be changed to make possible laws to restrict the movement of persons if required "in the national interest, or the interests of defence, public safety, public order, public morality, public health, the public interest or the economic interests of the State".
Accordingly the following are being introduced to the exception: "the national interest", "the public interest" and "the economic interests of the State". This means that under the amendment, laws may be passed that will empower officials to restrict movement within Zimbabwe, and even prevent departure from Zimbabwe, in what they deem to be the national interest, the public interest or the economic interests of the State. The memorandum to the Bill, which is there to explain it, does not draw attention to these implications. Something to pray about? Or pass along to others to further document the Mugabe government's decline into lunacy?
(This information came originally from an old friend still living in Zimbabwe and practising law - I have purposefully witheld his name) See also: Law Library of Congress Zimbabwe Lawyers for Human Rights. It intrigued but did not surprise me that the Parliament of Zimbabwe's official website offers a link to the Hansard scripts of parliamentary debates, but the last entry is for Wednesday 17 November 2004. Perhaps parliament has been a bit slow since then?
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