1) EDITORIAL

DESIGNER GEAR

I once had to design a Zimbabwe Jail Survivors Outfit, which I did with some success, and now I am in the process of designing a Zimbabwe ZESA Survivors Outfit.

Now ZESA, to our external friends, is the Zimbabwe Electricity Supply Authority, which should have its name changed to ZENSA, Zimbabwe Electricity Non Supply Authority.

We have become relatively fond of our power shortages over the years - time for the family to play scrabble, eat by candlelight, spend hours buying diesel to run the generator, and spend hours looking for gas to run the gas stove.

But these last few weeks have been exceptionally trying as we have power cuts daily, for seven to eight hours at a stretch sometimes rice in 24 hours !!

And to cap it all, we are conditioned creatures, if they give us a schedule of the outages, we can make a happy little plan to deal with the daily grind of washing, bathing and cooking,, but when they are really mean they cut the supply on our "free" days, and that makes us rabid.

Now there is no point in complaining as most of us are in the same boat, so I set out to design a ZESA Survivors Outfit.

With the current heatwave we have been experiencing, the nights are horrendous, no fan means no moving air, grumpy insomniac people and worst of all it means mosquit s galore !!

Despite getting up at the crack of dawn and flinging open each and every door and window, to cool the house down, by 6 pm its still as hot as hades inside. The only solution is adjourn the pool or the shower, and if you are lucky enough to have a pool, the cool night air beckons deliciously, but we all know that out there lurks a zillion blood thirsty mosis !!

And so back to my Designer Outfit.

It comprises a mosquito net ring suspended with an alice band on top of the head. Artfully draped and secured with the sheerest and most voluminous mosquito netting to the floor, subtle holes for the arms, and a headlamp fixed to a headband inside the net.

One would rather resemble a gargantuan Caspar-the- friendly-ghost and it would frighten off any erstwhile robbers too.

It d s tend to get rather heavy in the pool and when wet d s tangle up against ones legs, but it keeps the bugs at bay and allows one to waft around on the cool lawn without mosi molestation occurring.

Make sure its capacious enough to drape over a small chair so you can sit down comfortably and play bridge or scrabble on the computer while the battery lasts. When the computer battery dies, make sure you have a phone with a few games on it, and then when all else fails, allow your arms to emerges from the arm sockets and play chess with a handy husband, having of course sprayed said arms with "peaceful sleep."

Now when all avenues of entertainment have been exhausted, the ZESA Survivors Outfit, wet still from your pool wallow, can be used to drape over you in bed. It has a two fold effect. Firstly it will deter the little beasties, and secondly it will keep you cool till the welcome coolth comes at 3.00 am by which time the Little Man in the Power Station may have woken up and switched your power supply back on again !!

Now this is all very tongue in cheek and I feel desperately sorry for the Zimbabweans who do not have pools, generators, inverters and the like to make life worth living. I feel too for the Mums and Dads trying to get homework done in the dark, getting school clothing washed and ironed is no mean task, and of course, I feel the most for the sick and elderly who have to deal with all this nonsense ....... in the dark.