Zimbabwe, Part II

Friday, November 6, 2008
Today we traveled to a region south of Harare. The area here is different than to the north. It is a much drier region, so less farming and more ranching. The area is beautiful, but incredibly dry as the rains have not started here yet. As we drove, we went over several bridges, but there was no water in the river and stream beds. The beds were totally dry, not even any mud. Just sand and rocks. We saw many head of cattle and goat, but there is nothing for them to eat, so they are incredibly thin. You can see their bones through their skin.

The people are hungry as well. We talked to a nurse today who runs a nursing school in the area we were in. The school is very nice, and very well run. They graduate multiple classes a year, teaching key nursing skills to people who then go and run all the rural health clinics. Unfortunately, she stated she may have to close the school and send everyone home as there is no food for the students or their families. If the students go home, there is no food there either. She doesn’t know what to do, as everyone is hungry and even if they had money, there is no food to buy.

Food is the largest problem here. The community is very forward thinking, very resourceful, and very interested in learning and improving their situation. They have big plans for growing, and the community is involved. It’s the first place I’ve been where the community has presented an entire plan for where they want to go and what they want to accomplish. It was really exciting!The food issues and economic challenges here are the issue, not the direction. We also visited a school, saw some wonderful dancing and heard some great speeches from the kids. At the end, the parents and community Caregivers told us they had pulled their food and made us a meal. This is food they do not have to spare, as they are missing meals most of the time. It is very rude to turn down a meal prepared for visitors, but we did not feel we could eat the food that they so desperately need. We finally convinced them that we were incredibly thankful and very honored, but needed them to use that food to feed their families today. Have a big party in our honor if that makes you feel better, but eat the food. We were allowed to leave with no hard feelings. I’m glad. That would have been a hard lunch to eat.

On our way home, we asked our host about the number of vehicles traveling southbound on the highway. He told us that many of the vehicles were traveling to South Africa to buy food. If someone can get enough money, they still can’t buy food in Zimbabwe, so they have to apply for a visa, travel south (or west to Botswana), buy enough food until they can travel south again, and return to their home. Traffic is heaviest tonight (Friday) going southbound, and then again Sunday morning going northbound as everyone returns. Can you imagine driving 6 or so hours just to get food?

We also learned how frightening it can be to travel at night here. The highway is a two lane road with only a small gravel shoulder. Speed limit is about 100 km an hour. It’s dangerous enough in the daylight, but at night, it’s incredibly worse. People, bicycles, and ox-carts still occupy the shoulder. There are no street lights, and fast moving traffic is trying to travel on the narrow roadway. Now imagine huge numbers of people trying to travel on this road to and from South Africa to buy food over a weekend. You can see evidence of many accidents on this road. When passing, people use their right turn signals (you drive on the left side of the road here), in order to help show oncoming traffic where your car is on the roadway. I’m glad I wasn’t driving!

Saturday, November 08, 2008
Today is a free day. Our hosts picked us up at the hotel and walked around the city of Harare with us. It’s a very strange experience. On one hand, there are hundreds of people walking the streets with a purpose. They appear to have places to go and people to see. In many ways, it looks just like a downtown shopping area. But if you go into a shop, there are no people, and few items. We went into a clothing / shoe store. There were about 50 pair of shoes total in the store, and most looked like they had already been worn.

We asked what everyone was doing if they were not going to work on Saturday and not shopping. We were told that people are walking to the bank and /or were looking for people to exchange money from US dollars or South America Rahn to Zimbabwe dollars. You see long lines outside the banks where people are waiting to get cash. On Wednesday this week, the government increased the amount a person can withdraw at any one time from 10,000 Zim Dollars to 50,000 Zim dollars. Now that may sound like a lot, but as close as I can figure, today the exchange rate is something like 100,000 Zim dollars to $1 USD. I say today, as it appears the exchange rate changes hourly. The inflation rate here is over 1 quadrillion percent (per the official paper, so it may be higher). I don’t know about you, but I don’t even know how many zeros are in a quadrillion, let alone figure out how to do an exchange rate. Many people are paid in US or South African currency, but then have to either use it in stores that are licensed to sell in those currencies, or find a way to exchange it to Zim dollars. People here spend much of their available time either trying to figure out how to get money (and these are people that actually have money), or trying to figure out how to buy basic food staples. We went to a grocery store that was licensed to sell in foreign currency. There were many items on the shelves, but prices were incredibly expensive. Cans of vegetables were $2.50 each. Peaches were nearly $3 per kilogram. We’re told for food items the inflation rate here for the US dollar is almost 100%. I believe it for food items, although we didn’t see that for other items. So enough about the economy… After our walk around town, our hosts took us to the Woodlands Reserve. This is a small game park just outside of the city. We sat at an overlook and saw giraffes, zebras, impalas, wildebeests, etc. It was incredibly peaceful! We were told that we could do a walking safari through the park, but it was a bit expensive, so we chose not to. As we were sitting in the overlook, one of the park employees was telling us about all the snakes (cobras, pythons, and black mambas) and jackals in the park. I got to thinking about that, and wondered about the wisdom of the walking safari concept. I guess it’s environmentally friendly, but sounds like it could be a bit hazardous to your health!

We also went to a park of balancing rocks. At this park, you could get up close and take pictures of rocks balancing on top of one another. We’ve seen these rock formations as we traveled both north and south of Harare. No one seems to have any idea how they formed, so I’ll have to look it up when I can finally get on the internet. There doesn’t seem to be a pattern to where they are. You’ll drive through reasonably flat areas, and then suddenly see some of these formations, and then they’ll end, and you’ll be back to flat areas.

So now, back at the hotel, and an afternoon of working and trying to do laundry in the sink. How exciting (not!)! We would go walk around some more, but it’ll start raining soon, and you sure don’t want to be caught outside in a rainstorm here. More tomorrow!

Sunday, November 09, 2008
Went to church with our hosts this morning. It was a very nice service, although considerable calmer than the other church service I’ve been to in Africa. As is customary, when you visit a church here, you are called out, asked to introduce yourself to the congregation during the service, and then required to wear a nametag that says "visitor" for the rest of the service. I think I probably stuck out as a visitor without benefit of the nametag, but wore it anyway.

This church has 4 services each Sunday. They had to go to 4, and considered more, but we noticed there were many open seats. We were told that many people could no longer come to church as they were unable to get fuel to travel to church. I can’t imagine what that must be like for folks here. Church activities and fellowship are a huge part of who they are, so being unable to attend must feel very isolating. Spent most of the rest of the day working. One nice thing about being unable to access the internet is that you can’t get any new work. I am currently believing that I am totally caught up on e-mails. Yes, I realize I am living in an alternate reality, but it seems everyone here operates that way, so I thought I’d participate!

Early tomorrow morning we fly to Bulawayo, which is in the eastern part of the country. Maybe I’ll be able to connect there and not feel quite so isolated!