Mushrooms and Money

By Stephen.
This story is about two things that really have nothing to do with one another. The two first letters give the title a nice ring, and in our time here at Kufunda the two items have in their own right been sources of wonder and strife respectively.

Even before we arrived here, fungi have been a source of inspiration for Jacqueline and I. Here they have been a source of wonder, nourishment and fascination. Money, in Zimbabwe, embodies the antithesis of these qualities (excluding fascination if you choose to take a light-hearted view of the economic situation). For most Zimbabweans, money is a source of anxiety, frustration and despair after years of financial trauma.

Azara preparing a chunky Baziremusha

January in central Zimbabwe is the middle of the rainy season. Rain here means mushrooms. Lots and lots of mushrooms! Every piece of ground and deadwood in the woodland forests, and even in the surrounding savannah, exhibits some kind of fruiting fungi. The mind boggles at the vast extent of the network of mycelial webs that are lurking beneath the surface.

We are told there are something like 35 varieties of fruiting mushrooms in this area, with more than half of those being both edible and delicious. The largest one I saw was a few meters from our cottage door in the horse paddock. It was a boletus nearly half a meter in diameter: a spongy waterlogged mushroom that is edible if you can harvest and dry them before the start to rot. Then there are the sultry Nedzi’s with their conical shiny brown caps, the meaty white Baziremusha, and smaller varieties like the Nzeves. The Chihumbiros were the most prolific and abundant. The nutritious bounty of the season does not go unnoticed by villagers and passers-by. For a few weeks we received gifts from our neighbours of large bowls of mushrooms, and it seemed as though everyone was eating at least one mushroom meal a day. They require a little more preparation than your typical store-bought button mushroom, but they also don’t need much to make them delicious – a bit of oil, onion and fresh tomato is all you need. The excess harvest can be dried in the summer sunshine, and stored for another day’s meal. The flavours and textures have to be experienced to be appreciated – words will do no justice. One minor compromise is that you are bound to catch a grain or two of crunchy sand with every meal, but that’s just part of the experience.

The Delectable Edibles

Nzeve (Ear) Mushrooms

Chihombiru

A rather large Matindini (Boletus)

A variety of Matindini (Boletus - the spongy ones), Nedzi (upper left), Ndevhu dzasekuru (white beard), Dondowa (cap down), Tsvuketsvuke (orange)

Swinging from abundance to scarcity brings me to the second topic of this post. Zimbabweans (and visitors to the country like us) have learned to tolerate and endure a broken monetary system. The financial challenges for locals are complicated and ongoing. The majority of Zimbabwean livelihoods have been severely impacted by the infamous hyperinflation of the past, while a small minority exploit the significant arbitrage opportunities at the expense of the local economy. Essentially there are two currencies: US dollars and local RTGS currency. There are savvy money changers who can give you a pretty decent rate, though the rates fluctuate rapidly, and prices of simple items can bounce all over the place and be vastly different at different retailers – it’s impossible to keep track of the costs of simple items like flour or sugar. A visit to a grocery store means you are in for a serious bout of mental gymnastics trying to convert currencies in your head and make sure you aren’t paying triple the price for cooking oil – it’s stressful. When you get to the check-out you can pay in either currency, but change is a challenge, and often you will be asked to add items to your shopping to make up rounding differences – which of course then means more mental gymnastics and monetary anxiety. As a visitor to the country, you need to have dollars, and you can’t get them easily once you are in the country. You also can’t simply use your home ATM card to draw money or make purchases unless you are prepared to sacrifice 50% of the value by using the formal versus informal currency market. A few innovative start-ups have sprung up to alleviate some of these challenges, but you need to figure out who they are and how they work. It’s hard to imagine how the country will escape from this deeply entrenched monetary quagmire.

I’m still trying to make sense of the symbolism in the fact that the famous Chiremba Rocks, an area of enormous boulders delicately poised and balanced upon one another, are depicted on the new RTGS currency notes.

One morning, I made the journey in to town as the satellite internet connection we rely on at the farm had been playing up. The arrival of thick storm clouds means that you are likely to leave the virtual room in your Zoom call without notice. Imagine being in a physical room with your colleagues when suddenly - for no good reason, or because it happens to be cloudy outside - you simply get up and leave while your colleague is in mid-sentence, or while you yourself are in mid-sentence. That would be considered rude. Fortunately I have very accommodating and sympathetic work colleagues who have learned to put up with such antics. Anyway, I had planned to spend the day at a co-working space that had been recommended to me. When I arrived I was told there is a vetting process for users of the space and I had to become a member (which can take a day or two), so they directed me to a cool spot in the CBD which was less stringent, and more reasonably priced. When I arrived I was already late for a virtual meeting, so asked if I could quickly pay and find a workstation. It was all looking peachy until it came to the transaction. As I am not a local I do not have a local bank card, and learned that the establishment is not able to accept cash (neither US$ or RGTS). So what do I do? 

“Sir, you need to go make a deposit into our account at the bank two blocks away.”

 “OK, how much is it for the day?”

“$5”

So off I go to the bank. After enduring a 45 minute queue and another 15 minutes of tedious paperwork for completing the deposit, I was eventually able to return to the co-working hub, show my deposit slip and start my work day! What an ordeal, but minor in comparison to what Zimbabweans have to contend with when it comes to simple business transactions. When I got back home that evening, the perfect antidote to the day was being able to spend the early evening wandering around the woods near our cottage delighting in the variety of mushrooms that had sprung up during the course of the day.

The (equally) Delectable Inedibles

With appreciation to Stan, Christina, Rufaro and Joseph for sharing their mushroom knowledge and harvest, and to Trymore Samkange for the adventure outing to Chiremba Balancing Rocks