Waking up to the sound of dogs barking and general commotion outside, I start wondering what the time is. Gadgets fail me, for I have not a single thing in the room which could tell me the time. I get up anyway, and find eventually (had to resort to looking up the time on my camera) that the time is about 5:45 am. Groan. Have a shower anyway. We leave at around 8am for the factory in Rusape, where this season’s shelling is about to begin. Basil strides around the plant checking the place out, stopping occasionally to talk to the workers in Shona. It’s all I can do just to keep up with him and so I spend the day following him around like a lost puppy. At the plant I feel doubly conspicuous for the fact that I am clearly the only white person in attendance, amoungst a workforce of over a hundred.

Soon enough Basil’s plant manager Benny arrives and makes it two, but we are off again to the Rusape service station. A couple of hours of meetings for Basil sees me balancing books for Davina, the station manager. Why she doesn’t use a spreadsheet is competely beyond me.

Benny and Joyce arrive at the Station and we all go to Basil’s farmhouse for lunch after a quick stop back at the plant to check on production. Now it’s off to the Depot where Basil has yet another meeting, and I go with Benny and another Reapers guy to withdraw some money from the local bank. He wants Z$1.9 million, which is about £10,000. In Britain this would be a fistful of £50 notes, and I expect it to be more than that, but when the guy comes out of the bank with an entire sackful of money I am simply speechless. I have never seen so many banknotes before, even if each one is worth only about a pound.

Basil is still in his meeting when we return so I hitch a ride home with Benny and Joyce.

I have my first mosquito bite of the trip. Almost lasted a week – can’t be bad.