The Sorghum Beer Tour
As part of the doomed sorghum beer initiative, I and my brilliant PA Pat, who was from Zimbabwe, organised a visit to some of the company’s sorghum beer facilities in Botswana and Zimbabwe.
About thirty officials came on the trip, one of whom was an African who ran the sorghum beer business in the Transkei. The Transkei is the traditional homeland of the Xhosa and was nominally ‘independent’, being part of the apartheid regime’s fatuous and unworkable initiative to create ‘independent’ homelands in various parts of South Africa. The ‘independent’ status of these entities was purely nominal – all the so-called leaders of these states were wholly dependent on the South African Government.
This delegate had assured me that he had a South African passport, not just a Transkei one, as South Africa was the only country in the world to recognise the Transkei passport.
We flew into Francistown, on two private planes, Pat in one and me in the other, to visit the newly rebuilt sorghum brewery there. The customs officials at our destination were completely mesmerised by this large group of officials, and stamped everybody’s passports without looking at them. The South Africans were impressed and astounded when we told them what our brewery had cost to build – they would have spent ten times what we had, and one can only guess whose pockets the difference would go to.
We then flew to Harare in Zimbabwe. Inevitably, my Transkei delegate’s passport was not recognised. He was told that he would have to stay in the Airport for the duration of the visit. Somehow Pat and I, after lengthy negotiations, managed to get the officials to agree to release the man to my personal authority. This was most unusual, the local officials obviously being sympathetic to the one black man in our group.
We then visited a sorghum brewery in Harare and had presentations from the executive there, after which we flew to Lake Kariba. Kariba Dam, built in the 1950’s across the mighty Zambezi as a hydro-electric facility to supplying both Rhodesia and Northern Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe and Zambia respectively). This hydro plant is still one of the wonders of the world.
Pat showed great courage even getting on a plane as her husband had been on a civilian flight that had been shot down by the Zanu PF forces during the war of independence. The plane had gone down with no survivors, and I could only imagine how difficult flying must have been for her.
We then moved on to a luxury resort at Bumi Hills, which is further west up the lake from the Kariba dam wall. It was a wonderful experience. We had a trip up the lake and fished for Nile Perch, which are abundant in the area. The wildlife was plentiful.
For the whole trip, we were bedevilled by the possibility of leaving people behind. On more than one occasion, just when we were about to depart, we would find at least one missing and would have to run back to the hotel to fetch the recalcitrant.
It was great trip, but I think in the end it just spread alarm amongst the South African officials. If we took over, their sorghum beer gravy train would come to a grinding halt.
As I have said, the project was flawed. The South African Government would never have agreed to allow what they saw as a ‘verdomde Engels Brouerie’ (bloody English Brewery) to take over the sorghum beer industry.