local shopping basket

Supa is in the supermarket. He sweeps in just ahead of me.

In fact, he stands aside very politely to let me get a basket. He has a big, burly man beside him in a leather jacket -- a bodyguard? Or just a friend?

Supa is Supa Mandiwanzira, the head of the local Affirmative Action Group (AAG).* He's an ex news anchor on the state ZBC News Hour (News Horror, as a Shona journalist we knew used to call it). I guess he left because of pay. The car in the supermarket is gleaming black BMW something-or-other. Nearly minibus sized.

I bet he didn't fill out a parking ticket.

Supa is causing a stir in the aisles of Spar. I manage to get one behind him at the checkout. He flirts with the cashier (who's reduced to giggles), catches my eye too. I engage in a scientific study of his purchases as I clutch my purchases of smelly butcher's offcuts (for the dog) and a pack of apples. Booze, basically. Lots of cans of Hunter's cider (now that's not local) and at least four bottles of what looks like brandy, the imported kind. And mineral water, imported too (now who has the money to buy that?). There are a couple of packets of Lobel's Strawberry Creams. At least they're local. He opens a wallet, wadded with cash (dollars and rands), hands over a 100 dollar note (there's almost no change). I can just see his ID card. He is polite, jovial. The security guards chat with him.

"That was Mr Supa Mandiwanzira," breathes the cashier when it's my turn to pay.

He's obviously a hero.

* I hear him on ZBC Saturday morning, urging white and foreign companies to comply with recently-gazetted indigenisation laws. The former opposition MDC is trying to get the laws toned down to make them more investor-friend (one suggestion is to let third or four generation white Zimbabweans be considered indigenous): Mugabe (and Supa's) ZANU-PF is adamant the law stands.