Hello, hello!

Greetings are very important in Africa. Whenever you meet someone it's important to ask how they are, how their family is and how their day is going so far. And when it is your turn to say how things are with you, you have to conform to the polite ritualistic responses. ("I slept well and had a good night if you did" or "my day is going well if yours is.") It is very rude (or marks you out as a tourist) to skip or curtail the greetings process or to actually tell the truth, ie mention you had nightmares all night, are suffering from a trapped nerve or you've twisted your ankle. You can of course tell your good friends and family the truth, but only after you've reassured them several times before that all is well. Of course, this means the whole greetings ceremony has to be repeated three or four times over.

Greetings occur at the office, when you pass someone in the street, in the bank queue, at the supermarket and basically anywhere you come across anyone else. If you are going for a walk or a cycle ride, its polite to greet everyone as you pass - and you often hear children cheerily calling "How are you?" as you slog your way, panting, up a steep hill.

The greetings rituals have lost a little in translation to English. If you say "hi" to someone in Harare, they will immediately respond "fine, and you?" - which can come as a bit of a surprise. It works well if you say hello or good morning, but for some reason "hi" has become "hello, how are you and your family this merry morning/afternoon/evening?" to locals, while of course, it just means "hello" to you and I.

With the recent elections, the manner in which you wave hello or goodbye has become a political hot potato. The regular, open handed wave, is seen as a sign of the MDC party, the opposition party (who, by the way, clearly they won last month's election, hence the delay in announcing the results). The ruling party - ZANU PF- 's signature gesture is shaking your fist in threat, and the President is frequently photographed in this classic iron fisted pose.

This can create confusion and misunderstandings amongst expats. Picture myself and a heavily pregnant friend sitting in a car waiting for someone in downtown Harare in June 2000. Suddenly we see people running all around us and next thing we know an angry mob are rocking the car and shaking their fists at us. Scary. Or maybe just a rambunctious invitation to join the ZANU PF party.

A couple of weeks ago I went away for the weekend to stay with friends on a farm on the outskirts of Bindura, a small town north of Harare. As we drove past families walking along the road, we waved at them, and some shook their fists at us. Recalling that the area is a ZANU PF stronghold, we came up with a compromise gesture of hello and goodbye - the old fashioned thumbs up sign. We tried it on the next group of people we passed, and with wide smiles, they returned the thumbs up gesture. Political impasse solved.

If only we could sort out the elections that easily.

A super hotline

Like most of our major infrastructure, Zimbabwe's telephone system is -- well, there's no other way to say it -- miraculous.

Ha! I bet you weren't expecting that word, but it is true. The majority of phone lines are at least 30 years old, and given that the bills cost next to nothing in real terms, it defies belief that they work at all.

To be fair, they don't work for months on end (especially during the rainy season) in certain parts of town. Or your line can go dead for a few hours while the telephone company resets the local exchange. Or storm damage can result in fallen trees taking out your line which can take weeks or even months to fix.

But on the whole, where I live, you pick up the phone, and there's a dial tone.

Finding the number you want to call is a whole other story. Telephone directories are only periodically published and mine dates back to 1999, not all that useful. The telephone company has uploaded the directory on to their web site, which means you can find the number if you know the name of the company you are looking for - but you have to type it in as it was printed in the directory, typos and all.

This morning I dialled the number for an engineering company and the phone was answered by a cheery greeting. "Is this the number for XYZ engineering?" I asked. "No, you've reached the direct line of the Zimbabwe Electoral Commission." (ZEC was appointed by the government to 'independently' count - and now, although the results have not yet been published - recount the votes for the parliamentary, senate and presidential elections that were held on 29 March. So far they've only announced the parliamentary results, which the opposition party, MDC, won. Since then the international media reported that seven ZEC employees were arrested for mis-reporting the parliamentary results, which the government is contesting. So far no senate or presidential election results have been announced, and the government media claims that these elections are still being counted, despite the fact that the results were published at each polling station on election day.)

"Oh, wait, you're at ZEC? The guys who are so busy at the moment?" "That's right," came the answer. "Well, keep counting," I quipped, "we're all waiting..."

I heard laughter as I hung up the phone. Poor guys. But now that I have their number, I might phone them from time to time to offer encouragement or advice. I'm sure they need all the support they can get.

All the Presidents' Men

The first thing I heard was whistling and shouting. My friend Tony and I had gone for a Sunday cycle ride, enjoying the empty roads and beautiful weather. Now suddenly we were in trouble: all around there were dozens of disembodied voices calling and whistling at myself and Tony to stop. Tony was about 100 metres ahead, and being hard of hearing, he continued jauntily on his way. I paused, looking around me, but couldn't see anything beyond the school playing fields, and the empty road. Suddenly a yellow beret appeared out of the grass, and an AK machine gun was waved to signal me to cross the road and get closer. I couldn't actually see the face of the soldier, but the yellow beret denotes the Presidential Guard.

Uh oh. I hadn't heard the news and was wondering if something serious had happened, or, more likely, that they thought I was up to something serious. I shouted across the road "What's the matter?" But there was no response, just lots of rustling in the long grass, as I envisioned army snipers jostling each other to get the best fix on me.

Heart thudding, I considered the options. Tony was leading the way and I had no idea where our destination was. State House, the official presidential residence, was just around the corner, and there was no where to turn off. Obviously there was some security situation going on. But you can't stop. Stop your car, stop your bus, stop your bike, and you risk being arrested, threatened or even beaten. My friend's car had burst into flames near State House and she was ordered to push it out of the way, at gunpoint. This is not the place to be indecisive.

I continued on my way, cautiously. Around the corner another guard waved his AK to beckon me towards him. I paused, as a car was coming, and called out "What's wrong?" "This way, come over here - you must use the cycle path," he responded. I crossed the road and went down the cycle path, which, ironically, runs directly beneath the wall of State House. At the next set of traffic lights, the guards asked me to go across the lights and wait for Tony (who had been taken in for questioning - but that's another story) a few blocks away. The lights were red, and I was asked why I was stopping. I couldn't tell who was more nervous - the soldiers, or me. A nervous soldier is not someone you can take lightly.

Only a few months ago I had cycled this very route before and called out greetings to the guards, who had taken their hands off their semi-automatics to wave and wish me a good morning. Now if even a cricket started to sing, it would be instantly drowned out by the loud click of a dozen rifles being cocked.

As I paused for traffic at the median strip, a voice barked: "Go away! You can't wait here! The Old Man is coming." Ah, well, that explains everything.