Zimbabwe - Dismal politics, stunning nature

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)

Tendai's family making us feel at home

Harare's busy streets

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).

Lion tracks

Freedom

Our night-time visitor

Zambezi sunrise behind at our camp

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.

That night we were so exhausted that the hippo grunts did not wake us from our sleep.