I managed to meet up with a friend who has been working out here for a few weeks. She has a car so we had the freedom to explore. I can’t get over how beautiful it is here. Coming from the dusty Sahel, everything here is so green and it’s not even rainy season.
We had a recommendation from another friend of a good day out. “Drive along the main road out of Harare for about half an hour and then you come to a big hill. You pay 2 dollars and then you can climb it”. We weren’t totally convinced by our friend’s directions, but sure enough, after a beautiful drive out of the city, we found the hill.
It was a strange rock formation covered in some kind of moss in pink and yellow. There were painted arrows on the ground so you couldn’t get lost. On the way up we saw ancient rock paintings of elephants, buffalo and other animals. Supposedly between 3,000 and 14,000 years old (not the most accurate of dating!). At the top, we had fun relaxing alongside huge balancing rocks. It was so incredibly peaceful. You could see for miles across the mountains and felt like we had the whole place to ourselves. It really is so beautiful here.
We then drove to a lodge. It felt very luxurious having a 4 course gourmet meal on the lawn looking onto long, golden grass around a watering hole with zebras and springbok wandering freely. I was SO excited to see zebras and we were able to walk around the park after dinner to get even closer (although not close enough!)
Sunday, June 7, 2009
Saturday, June 6, 2009
A world away from Dakar
Arriving around 11pm, the first thing that struck me was the emptiness (and the cold – it’s warm and sunny during the day but the temperature drops dramatically at night. Being in the Southern Hemisphere their winter is just starting). The streets were deserted and hardly a car on the road. Arrive in Dakar any time night/day and there is a perpetual manic-ness with traffic and people, people, people. Harare feels more like arriving in a sleepy suburb than a capital city.
Zimbabwe only became independent in 1980 and there are remnants of British-ness everywhere. Red post-boxes, breakfast fry-ups, driving on the left, and slightly old-fashioned English (‘hello, how may I serve you?’) spoken all around. It’s all a bit surreal. It feels like a British or even American town where time has stood still. They even have a Wimpy!
There are rows of shops with no-nonsense names: Hardware store, Good Times General Store, Butchery, Glen Forest Bakery. There is a small town centre and then the city seems to fade into one tree-lined suburb after another.
There are also numerous golf clubs, beautiful colonial houses and a railway that actually functions.
Will try and upload some photos when I get a chance.
Zimbabwe only became independent in 1980 and there are remnants of British-ness everywhere. Red post-boxes, breakfast fry-ups, driving on the left, and slightly old-fashioned English (‘hello, how may I serve you?’) spoken all around. It’s all a bit surreal. It feels like a British or even American town where time has stood still. They even have a Wimpy!
There are rows of shops with no-nonsense names: Hardware store, Good Times General Store, Butchery, Glen Forest Bakery. There is a small town centre and then the city seems to fade into one tree-lined suburb after another.
There are also numerous golf clubs, beautiful colonial houses and a railway that actually functions.
Will try and upload some photos when I get a chance.
Friday, June 5, 2009
Missionaries and leopard hunters
I like to think that I’m quite culturally sensitive and all that, but I found myself speechless on more than one occasion talking to fellow passengers on my 15 hour journey to Harare. A group of American missionaries, the youngest only 16, all in matching branded jackets with a logo of their church name plastered across a map of Africa, had flown Mississippi – Chicago – Washington – Dakar – Harare. They were travelling to a village where they planned to spend a week ‘living in the bush’ and converting people to Christianity.
‘These people have no hope. They are dying of HIV. We’re coming to tell them about Jesus – that’s the only hope they have’. True, the HIV rate here is 25% and life expectancy is under 40, but I had to really bite my tongue about a) whether this really was the most effective method to make an impact on the appalling health indicators, and b) how a bunch of young Americans could really convert people in a week with their 5 minute roleplay summary of the Bible and testimonies on why “we’ve taken an oath not to have sex before we’re married”.
They were all so earnest about their trip and clearly meant well, but the way they spoke about Zimbabweans as helpless, backward people that needed ‘saving’ – the job of college students who had never left the deep American South – made my skin crawl.
The other gang travelling all the way from Alabama to Zim, were on a leopard safari.
‘Ooh, that sounds fun!’ I ventured. ‘How does that work?’
‘Well, we’re hunting leopards. And buffalo if we’re lucky.’
‘Hunting, as in, killing?’
‘Sure thing’.
I must have looked considerably unimpressed as a guy continued to explain ‘Well, in America, we love our guns. We shoot deer at home, but here we get the real deal.’
‘I thought leopards were endangered?’
‘Oh no, it’s very sustainable. The leopards are bred for hunting’.
Oh I guess that makes it ok then. Rearing an endangered animal so it can be shot by a tourist as a holiday past-time. What could be wrong about that?
‘These people have no hope. They are dying of HIV. We’re coming to tell them about Jesus – that’s the only hope they have’. True, the HIV rate here is 25% and life expectancy is under 40, but I had to really bite my tongue about a) whether this really was the most effective method to make an impact on the appalling health indicators, and b) how a bunch of young Americans could really convert people in a week with their 5 minute roleplay summary of the Bible and testimonies on why “we’ve taken an oath not to have sex before we’re married”.
They were all so earnest about their trip and clearly meant well, but the way they spoke about Zimbabweans as helpless, backward people that needed ‘saving’ – the job of college students who had never left the deep American South – made my skin crawl.
The other gang travelling all the way from Alabama to Zim, were on a leopard safari.
‘Ooh, that sounds fun!’ I ventured. ‘How does that work?’
‘Well, we’re hunting leopards. And buffalo if we’re lucky.’
‘Hunting, as in, killing?’
‘Sure thing’.
I must have looked considerably unimpressed as a guy continued to explain ‘Well, in America, we love our guns. We shoot deer at home, but here we get the real deal.’
‘I thought leopards were endangered?’
‘Oh no, it’s very sustainable. The leopards are bred for hunting’.
Oh I guess that makes it ok then. Rearing an endangered animal so it can be shot by a tourist as a holiday past-time. What could be wrong about that?
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