The last couple of months have not been short of excitement. So much is not going on in Harare. About three weeks ago the Mrs was in the middle of a long distance call with her mom when the line went dead. We thought that something was wrong with the actual phone, but it turned out that some enterprising locals had decided to help themselves to telephone cable. I’m not sure how much cable was stolen that night, but it’s an example of what is now a trend in Zim’s: telephone and power cables disappearing from some poles near you. The thing is, we may as well unplug the phones and throw them into the back of a cupboard as this sort of thing usually goes unattended for months. Now I depend on the landline for my dial up(yes I’m primitive I know!) connection so no more internet and email at home and no more landline, making international calls nearly impossible. Cell phones here are far from reliable and the signal quality would be overrated if we called it poor. So frustrating! I’ve chewed all finger nails in exasperation, but as long as I don’t take off my shoes and socks I suppose I’m okay!. So... I guess I have to get a few decent homing pigeons and some stick on notes in stock just to keep communications going. That and the trusty old smoke signal should be back in business fairly soon. The problem with these older forms of communication is that the intended recipient is not always the one that gets the message. What if a homing pigeon decides to drop in when the girlfriend’s dad is around and he gets the steamy message intended for her eyes only? Or the rather ambiguous smoke signal with a more or less similar message draws not only a man’s girlfriend no 1 and 2, but also his um…wife?