On
our long drives through Mozambique, Zimbabwe, Zambia or Malawi, we often see
similar images flash by through our car windows:the life on the side of the
road, the bustling markets with loud music blaring, the colourful clothesworn and
the patterns on them, thewarm smell of burning grass or rubbish in the air, seeing
people walking for miles and miles, women and children
carrying enormous bundles of wood, baskets, or water canisters on their heads. Yet
as soon as you cross a border and take in your surroundings, the unique feel of
each country engulfs and consumes you. The distinct energy of each place and
its people is of course shaped by a complex combination of its culture,
socio-economic situation, history, and attitude of it’s people, amongst many
other things – discovering the essence of that new energy each time we spend
time in a new country is one of the highlights of this trip.
When
we entered Zimbabwe through Mutare, situated in the beautiful eastern
highlands, it didn’t long for us to dive right into the new atmospherebuzzing
around us. It’s difficult to describe, but having witnessed their country’s
decline over the past two decades and having been forced to sacrifice so many
things, Zimbabweans are resilient and down-to-earth people. As often happens in
the face of hardship, people move closer together, and in Zimbabwe there is a
community spirit that could teach the world a lesson. The common Southern African
expression to ‘make a plan’ is central part of life here. ‘If something is not
working, fix it. If you can’t fix it, live with it, or, change your life’
(overnight if need be) – is the commonly accepted attitude. No one sits on
their hands and complains. People work hard and take all the hardship in their
stride. This kind of mental strength and generosity, combined with a deep love
of their country and culture, are the keys to their survival.
The
first night we stayed with the parents of one of my Zimbabwean colleagues from
PASSOP. We cooked local beef stew and sadza (the staple food made out of maize
meal eaten in most Southern African countries) with them over the fire (the
electricity was out on most nights, they explained) and asked lots of questions
about what life was like for them. The father, now retired, told us how tough
things have been and still are: “I worked my whole life at the national railway
company. Now I am getting a pension of $25 per month. It is difficult. And
there are many, many people like us here.”
Around
a third of the country’s educated work force (teachers, nurses, mechanics,
etc.) is estimated to have emigrated over the past 10 years, when unemployment
rose to between 70-90%. The people that were employed by the state saw their
salaries plummet to $180 a month and were often not paid for months on end. No
wonder Zimbabweans have had to be so resilient and inginuitive. Everybody seems
to be doing something on the side to bring in some cash. But that is not
enough. It is estimated that up to two-thirds of families (particularly in the
southern regions of the country) are sustaining themselves through remittances
sent from relatives working abroad in Botswana, South Africa or further afield.
We
drove around Harare a few days later, taking care of the obligatory errands
that need to be done whenever we are in a big city. The city centre was, as
most major African cities are, buzzing with people pouring over the
traffic-packed streets from all directions. Harare’s city centre is an odd mix
of a few modern-looking sky-rise buildingsand South African fast food chains that
seem out of place against the backdrop ofthe deteriorating sidewalks, faded old
street signs, and the poverty that is apparent all around.
Needing
a break from the busy streets, we found a park and decided to go for a walk. We
had only walked 200 metres when I heard our car alarm go off. I turned and saw
one of our doors open and a guy inside the car. We yelled and started sprinting
back, when we were just 50 metres away they jumped in another waiting car and
sped off around a corner before we could see their license plate. They had
smashed a window. Luckily, we have a solid metal ‘safety box’ in our car
chained to the chassis in which we keep our most valuable things (laptops,
cameras, passports, etc.)’ but the thieves had grabbed my wallet and two of our
backpacks. Nothing too valuable, but frustrating to try to replace nonetheless.
As
I sat for several hours in the police station that afternoon to report the
theft I couldn’t help but notice the uncanny way in which the the station mirrored
the state of Zimbabwe today. It was in a once beautiful old house that looked
like it had weathered many storms. But once inside it was plain to see that the years of neglect had really
taken their toll: the old wooden floorboards had several huge holes in them,
the walls were brittle and the plaster was crumbling off, debris that had
fallen from the ceiling was laying around on the floor, and a thick layer of
brown dust covered the whole place. The room smelled musty, the little sunlight
that trickelled in through the cracks in the dirty windows was not enough to
lighten the dimness. The grim-looking police officers – all armed guns several
decades old – sat around looking bored and Comrade Bob’s (aka His Excellency
President Robert Mugabe) framed picture hung above them on the
wall,over-looking everything with fierce eyes, anauthoritativeexpression and
his irritating trade-mark Hitler mustache. It was eery; it was sad.
But
what happened to Zimbabwe is just that: sad. Like many other African countries
it had such promise when it gained its independence. After a productive first
decade of independence, in which large gains in life expectancy, education and
health were achieved, the last twenty odd years have seen the country slide
deeper and deeper into political repression, turmoil and economic failure.
“I
am tired of politics” Nyasha, a self-taught aircon mechanic told us the next
evening in Kariba, 300km north of Harare.“I’m 40 years old now – all of my
adult life I have had to be confroted with it.It’s always the same: the
‘liberation fighters’ are the only ones who think have the right to make decisions.
If you were too young during the liberation struggle, you have no voice. Until those
dinosaurs are gone, nothing will change. At the moment we are stuck.” We met
many people like Nyasha that told us the same thing: they have given up on the
hope of change while Mugabe remains in power and are doing the best they can in
the face of the circumstances. They have just been through too many years of
disappointment; it has drained them of their fighting spirit. (continues after the pictures)
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| Tendai's family making us feel at home |
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| Harare's busy streets |
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| Azure blue water in some caves a few hours north of Harare |
The
highlight of our brief time in Zimbabwe were the three days we spent in Mana
Pools National Park. The magic of the place stems from its remoteness and
pervading sense of wild and natural – you won’t find many other tourists here,
especially not since Zimbabwe has received so much negative attention over the
last decade. What makes it unique is that it is none of it is fenced in. We
camped on the bank of the majestic Zambezi– during the days we watched
elephants swim through the river, while hippos lazed out in the sun and monkeys
launched a steady flow of stealth attacks to steal whatever they could from our
campsite; at night hyaenas brushed up along the side of the tent looking for
scraps of meat, while a pack of lions growled in the distance somewhere.
In
most national parks you get in trouble for just leaning out of your car window
too far; here you are allowed to walk around the wilderness amongst the
animals. The first afternoon there we wanted to double-check, because it seemed
a bit of a stupid idea to be walking around with lions and leopards without a
trained guide with a weapon, so we asked a local ranger whether we had
understood the rules correctly. “Well, there aren’t really any rules when it
comes to walking around.. Just use your sensible judgement. And if a lion or an
elephant charges you, just stay calm.”
Umm,
ok, great advice.
The
ranger’s response left us with more questions than answers. What ensued between
the three of us was an hour long debate about how safe it was to walk around,
and how far from the car we should go. Yanis held the view that the only reason
there was an absence of rules was because Zimbabwe was a ‘failed state’, and
therefore we should be very cautious. I took another view, and tried to
rationalise it by comparing it to being in the ocean with sharks, who are just
as scary predators but 99% of the time they are not interested in us humans.
Elias just wanted to go shoot things with his little bow and arrow. But in the
end curiosity outweighed caution, and so we got up at 6am the next morning
after a sleep-deprived night (the hippos grunting close to our tent was so loud
– and I admit we were nervous of what lay ahead the next morning), drove to a
remote spot, parked our car and went into the bush just as the sun was rising.
As
we started walking we reminded each other of the three rules we had agreed on:
keep quiet, stay alert by looking in different directions, and stay within 20
metres of a climbable tree. We felt on edge when we first started walking, but
our nerves soon calmed down and a feeling of endless freedom took over, washing
through us, clearing our senses and allowing us to take it all in. Over the next
four hours we walked across meadows, climbed trees, crawled through high grass,
jumped over streams – all the time surrounded by elephants, herds of big and
small antelopes, warthogs, crocs and hippos, as eagles soared above. The early
morning sun bathed everything around us in a soft golden and green light. It
didn’t feel real… but then again, it felt as real as it gets. What is sure is
that it was humbling – the kind of feeling you can only get when you are
somewhere completely remote in nature and are overwhelmed at just how small you
are.
At
one point we stumbled across a herd of 200 buffalos that started stomping the
ground and walking towards us when we got too close. A little later we found
the massive paw prints of lions, followed them for a while, butwhen we heard
them growl a few hundred metres away in the bush out of sight, we quickly walked
the other direction. (last short part below these pictures).
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| Lion tracks |
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| Freedom |
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| Our night-time visitor |
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| Zambezi sunrise behind at our camp |
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| To understand this picture, read the next short part |
After
a few hours, when the sun had risen higher in the sky, it became hot quickly
and we started the long walk back. Back at the car we were sweating, parched
and dying to get a drink of water. “Open the car man, I’m so thirsty, what are
you waiting for?” I told Yanis impatiently, who had the only bag we were
carrying. “I looked everywhere, the keys aren’t in here.” Pause. “What!?” For
the next 2 minutes we searched and re-searched the bag and our pockets desperately
hoping that the keys would appear. But we soon gave up as the reality of the
situation sunk in: we had somehow, somewhere managed to lose the keys on our 4-hour
mission into the wild. What an ‘oh shit’ moment that was.
We
knew there was a spare set of keys in the car, which left us with two options:
go back into the bush, try to re-trace our steps and hope to find the keys, or
break a window and use the spare set of keys. But we all soon agreed that we
had to go back and at least try to find the keys, so without much ado, we set
back off, this time on a jog – more or less abandoning our three rules. With
the African sun now high in the sky, everything felt burning hot, sweat was
pouring down our faces and our mouths were completely dry (we still hadn’t had
anything to drink) - and we all hate jogging. Needless to say, spirits weren’t
exactly high. “Well, at least we’re making dad proud” we joked as we got going.
(If you don’t know my father, let me just say that he considers this kind of physical
strain ‘fun’.)
Our
hope was based on the one reference point that we had deduced: the car keys
could have fallen out of the bag if they hooked on to something else that we
took out - the only thing that they could have really hooked on was the
slingshot we had taken with us (it couldn’t really hook to the camera, sandwich,
etc.) - and Yanis had only taken the slingshot out once (to shoot the base of a
tree on top of which a massive Fish Eagle was perched – Elias wanted to take a
picture of it taking off in flight). So we set out to find that tree – the
unfortunate thing was that it was pretty much at the farthest point away from
the car on the hike.
We
ended up being able to trace our own footprints most of the way and made fast
progress. When we reached the base of the tree, looked around, it wasn’t long
before Elias shouted “Victory!” holding
up the keys. At that moment, it was all worth it. I guess the lesson we learned took from it is
if you try to bother a fish eagle to get a nice picture, karma is going to get
you back.
