Sun and Pig.
It is funny, but when the chilly rainy weather disappears and the sun comes out, all our spirits are lifted. At a wild boar rotisserie over a wood fire this past weekend, it was obvious all those attending were in good spirits, most put it down to the sun as much as the wine. This may be a questionable surmise, but there is little doubt all our spirits lift with the sun, with wine added just to a greater summit.
These lunches are still men-only here in Portugal; I am not sure why, as I have never heard sex nor swear words being included in the conversation around the fire. So it is not for the protection of the fairer sex but, I presume, rather more due to the traditional bonding of men when food and drink are available in copious amounts. I do not know who makes the rules, but if you are naive enough to ask one’s host, “Can you bring your wife or female partner?”, there will be a very tangible silence or a definite no. Further, if you ignore this rule, which can, from time to time, include an invite to an evening drinking in an adega (wine cellar), you will never be invited again. So the option is to either stick by the rules or as, in some cases, to appease the madam, decline the invite and stay at home. It seems the Portuguese rural male is not facing the challenges to its traditional world as may be found in the so-called enlightened world further north or, for that matter in Britain. Luckily, many of our wives are happy to be free of us for several hours.
“A vegan sausage is not a sausage as a man's night out is not such if it includes women. It is not disrespectful, and many wives, I have been told, are more comfortable staying at home rather than eating burnt bush meat and drinking local wine while listening to crap on subjects the speaker has little knowledge.” - Peter McSporran
At an event such as this one, there is only roasted wild boar, cooked on an open fire, bread rolls to stuff it into, accompanied by some beer, but wine is the favoured beverage of choice, which nearly every family in our area produces. This is good as nobody is embarrassed in trying to supply expensive wines, hard drinks or snacks which are beyond the means of many. The generosity of the Portuguese rural people always amazes me. I wish I could understand what they are saying rather than just fragments. Despite my language challenges, it is always a thoroughly enjoyable day.
“Good food, good wine, a smile are all that is required to ensure a congenial gathering.” - Peter McSporran
Cold Switzerland and Chilly Chicago.
In November 1993, I, as the main driver of ZIMACE in the Commercial Farmers Union (CFU), and Stewart Craswick, CEO of the newly formed ZIMACE, were sent to visit some trading houses in Europe and at the invitation of the Americans, the Chicago Board of Trade. (CBOT).
We flew to a freezing and snow-covered Geneva and then caught a train to Lucerne to visit some commodity houses. I hope I am correct in saying Lucerne; it definitely was up the lake some distance. The first trading floors opened in Switzerland during the 1800s, and although Switzerland itself produces little, it is reported that fifty percent of the world’s grains and forty per cent of the sugar is traded there, although, in value, oil is the biggest commodity traded in that country. These commodities never land there, they are transit trades, and we soon found that commodity companies were still more commonly controlled by private individuals or families rather than public companies.
It was interesting that they gave us the time of day, but both of us were overwhelmed by the magnitude of these trading houses where the traders sat behind computers twenty-four hours a day buying and selling or hedging. It is also a very secretive business, and I am sure we only saw a very thin veneer. Then, and I am told still now there is little transparency in the ownership and how those big trading houses operate, including the trades, hence the attraction to be based in Switzerland. Much, even the little we saw, was beyond my comprehension.
The most memorable thing from our Switzerland visit was the visit to Glencore’s shipping trading platform, with boards pinpointing ships carrying all sorts of commodities in every ocean in the world, some cargoes such as mineral ores and grains traded multiple times before reaching a final destination. The other memorable thing was much more mundane. That was the walk in the ice and snow to the hotel up a steep, slippery hill on arrival at Lucerne station late at night where we were unable to find a taxi to take us to the hotel. My case was stuffed with coffee table books containing pictures of Zimbabwe to hand out to those organisations that hosted us on our trip. A stupid present to take in hindsight with multiple people being visited and I found myself lugging a heavy suitcase through the snow much to Stewart's amusement with his only containing clothes and toiletries. So this walk entailed me dragging my suitcase up a steep hill to the hotel with frozen fingers and uncontrollable feet on the slippy ice. Gloves: where do you buy gloves in Zimbabwe? Even worse, we could not even get a cup of coffee, let alone an evening meal on arrival at the hotel; I suppose this was due to our hotel budget, which, although expensive, was not five stars. Our final night was in a more expensive hotel in Geneva, where on the morning before our departure to the States, my continental breakfast cost me £28. In today's money that would be about £70 for a coffee and croissant. Another thing that has stuck in my mind was on a late-night taxi ride, we were shocked to see women selling their bodies on the street. Shocked not that they were there but at how scantily dressed they were in the freezing sub-zero prevailing temperatures.
For some reason, upon arrival in Chicago, I was once again detained at the airport. In fact, Stewart carried on to the hotel without me after waiting for more than two hours for my appearance. I had no idea what was of concern to them, except that as I arrived at immigration, they immediately whisked me off for questioning and searching my person and suitcase. Something must have triggered this, but I do not know what. The line of their questioning also offered me little clue: Was I just a random pick?
It was freezing in Chicago, and my first thought on the train ride from the airport into the city was that it was a city of graffiti. Graffiti is more common nowadays, but for me then, every wall seemed covered in intricate graffiti, putting the crude gang signs seen in my childhood in Glasgow to shame.
For the next two days, we were hosted by the Chicago Board of Trade and were able to view the trading floors, which seemed to be total chaos. It was still very much an open-call trading floor with multitudes of hand signals indicating buy, sell, and price. It was also an open-outcry trade, and traders, clerks, etc., all had different-coloured jackets for identification of roles.
What I did gain here was a better understanding of agricultural futures and the instruments used in trading them. I knew it would be many years before ZIMACE could do this. It was a worthwhile dream only to be destroyed by Mugabe and his merry band of thugs in its infancy.
It was just before Thanksgiving in America when we visited, and Stewart and I marvelled at the shops, their wares, the shop window decorations and, more impressively, the street decorations. Every tree seemed to have lights on it. The minus 31C with the chill factor did not deter us from visiting the main shopping avenues. It is not called the windy city for no reason, with a constant icy wind blowing across Lake Michigan down its winter streets.
We did take time to go to the top of the highest building in the world at that time, the Sears Building, some one hundred and ten stories. The speed of the lifts was as impressive as the building height. The highest building I had been in previously was the Monomotapa Hotel in Harare, twenty floors. The biggest disappointment was the flavourless steak, which was claimed to be the best in the world. Hung for months (vacuum packed?) but tasteless. No texture and colour far from what we see in a steak in Zimbabwe. It seemed even the char grill was only half-hearted. This was my second experience of steak in America; the first was in Tennessee, which was better, but not much. Just no flavour.
On our final day, we were hosted at the Chicago Club, with such opulence and obviously much elitism, with a several thousand dollar annual member fee. Inside, it is more like an English manor house adorned with expensive works of art than a club. The meal was quite a bit better than that served at Harare Club.
It amused us each evening when we went for a drink before dinner; we would be asked for our ID to ensure we were over twenty-one despite both being in our forties. Seemingly it would be discrimination to ask only the young looking, so all had to be asked. Despite the glamour and impressive shops, where we bought nothing, I was happy to get on the plane home and return to the sun.
End of 1993.
I returned to attend the November CFU council, which was held at Leopard Rock that month in 1993. Anthony and I had decided we should hold council meetings in the branches and invite local farmers to meet the commodity chairman and senior staff of the union. That night there was a huge storm with many cars suffering damage. Ian Webster, chairman of the Dairy Association’s brand new vehicle, was a complete write off while Peter Richards, Vice President of the Zimbabwe Tobacco Association, survived the storm but during the clear-up the workers, in their enthusiasm, dropped a large branch, smashing his car very badly. Most other damage was superficial. Despite that, at this council meeting, we confirmed that the CFU would restructure to deal with the new changes in regard to marketing and revenue collection to run the union and coupled with that, to ensure easy accessibility, it would relocate from its premises in Moffat Street to a new building to cater for the farmers needs in the future. The Moffat Street premises were becoming exceedingly difficult to access, and as important, if you found a park for your car or pick-up, there was no guarantee on your return to your vehicle it or its contents would be present. Farmers always do farm shopping when in town, and an open-backed pick-up makes theft easy in an area to which the ‘cow’s guts’ of the city had spread.
In the meantime, the Government set up a land title commission of Inquiry to help decide on the best land tenure for the future in December of that year. All the agricultural unions, the private sector and the Government, were all represented, with Mickey Townsend being our representative on the Commission. The Commission chairman was Professor Mandy Rukuni. This gave us a false sense of hope that the Government would take a more pragmatic look at land tenure in the future once its recommendations were made public. Of course, this was not to be.
Disclaimer: Copyright Peter McSporran. The content in this blog represents my personal views and does not reflect corporate entities.
Comments