So long overdue. I know.
I don't write, and then I say to myself, but I'm missing all this stuff I've done if I write about right now, and then I don't write at all.
So I'll just write about right now.
Well, right now I'm in Harare, the capital of Zimbabwe. I was literally going crazy in Blantyre for so many reasons - the straw breaking the zebra's back being the food. I ate fried chicken and chips or fried chicken and rice so many times and I was over full and never satisfied. I would wake up and say, jesus, how am I going to pass the day today. I knew I wanted to come to Zimbabwe, but I was desperately missing vegetables and reasonable prices for anything except the most basic items and was seriously considering buying a plane ticket to Cape Town (south africa). After investigating all my transportation options Friday night (bus to Mozambique, bus to Johannesburg that was booked until Tuesday, or a daily bus to Zimbabwe). I decided on a rash decision on Saturday morning to get the bus to Zim.
Unfortunately I hadn't changed my currency into U.S. dollars and I only had a $20 bill and about $50 worth of Malawian Kwatcha. I heard, though that one could withdraw money from an ATM (my only source of money while traveling) at the border. Well, I found an ATM at the Malawi border and I changed about $360 into dollars and South African Rand. There was nowhere to change money at the Mozambican border and so I came into Harare with about $300 (after 2 $30 visas) in my pocket and as of yet haven't found a good way to get any more $$$$.
That's the background, now I'll talk about Zimbabwe, which is very, very interesting.
But first!
I just signed up on couch surfing and my first experience using it has been great. Couchsurfing lets travellers stay at others houses for free with the expectation that they will extend the same courtesy when they are at home. I messaged 4 of the 7 couchsurfers in Harare and got one reply from a white, Afrikaans Zimbabwean girl named Dilly (actually her nickname is Dilly, I forget what her real name is). She picked me up at a bus stop in Harare and let me stay at her guest room at her flat. Although I don't really care about my living conditions while traveling staying at her apartment is reallllllllly nice. It has a shower and bath living room, kitchen WITH AN OVEN! and fresh water and a maid who does laundry - everything. So the comfort is a nice departure from "real Africa".
Well she picked me up and I dropped off my stuff and took a long long long overdue shower, and then we went to a horse-racing track where there was an annual concert. This was my first taste of (white) Zimbabwean culture and it was thoroughly Western but uniquely Afrikaaner as well. The venue was straightforward enough - there was a large stage with about 1500 mostly white people and a ring of small bars around the crowd to buy alcohol. The first band was an Irish group of washed-up 40 year olds playing cheesy covers of American songs that I had heard but never really payed attention to.
The crowd was the most interesting part of the whole event. There were lots of young white Zimbabweans who at outward appearance look like a strange mix of cheesy British clubbers with popped collars, spiked gelled hair and large patent-leather shoes or pumas and very masculine, Abercrombie wearing, bro-looking guys who were too drunk to know or care about the word "personal space" and who loved to get physical. There was one particular "joker" who when intoxicated loved to tackle his best friends or complete strangers as he pleased. After tackling one friend with two beers in his hand I felt pretty sure a fight or an argument was going to break out, but everyone just laughed the guy off and he went off tackling other "friends" I'm average height, but I am skinny and I was unknowingly manhandled or bumped into or endearingly headlocked more times than I can remember since...since when? Maybe elementary gym class back in Texas? Or hanging out with "jocks" in high school. Either way the whole thing was one big throw back and I knew I'd come to the right place when they played, "Amarillo by Morning," a song that EVERYBODY knew the words to and I (being from Amarillo) only recognized the chorus. Such are the ironies of a globalized world.
Well this is turning out to be a long blog-post, but it's well-overdue, so stick with me, or go get some cheese or Thai food or something I can't really find here and ENJOY, it, be GRATEFUL.
Well, the 2nd band was a South African outfit from Cape Town that had a few of their own songs, so I thought, musically, things were starting to turn up; then, the lead singer commited the god-forsaken sin of ending their songs with cheeeeeeesy Bob Marley break-downs. He covered "get up, stand up", or "Ganja farmer" and everyone else sung-along and I just wanted to vomit. A little context - by this point in my travels I have heard the song Ganja farmer and one or more songs from the Bob Marley legend album at least 100 times, probably 150 or more in three months. Every single weed-coma'd rasta from Nairobi to Harare plays the same &$^%-ing 5 songs all day everyday for the rest of their lives. What an existence. Ja man! Rastafarai!
By that point I gave up courtesy dancing and took up Dilly's offer to go pass out in her car even though it was only midnight and we had arrived at 10. But it had been a loooooong day, starting at five when I woke up, not sure if I was going to Jo'burg, Mozambique, Zim or just remaining shipwrecked and lost in Blantyre. I then rode on the bus for about 13 hours total going through no less than 4 border crossings (2 for each border), one of which I spent 30 minutes arguing with the border guard because he wouldn't give me a transit visa, only a single entry visa, for a 6 hour trip through Mozambique all the while the bus conductor is threatening to leave me at the border. The other crossings were a breeze with a 100 person line queue at best or an irritated mob of people pushing, vying, cutting and bitching all trying to get a stupid stamp at worst.
I ran out of water half way through the trip and in desperation at made a stupid buy for a litre and a half of water for 10 rand or about 60 cents. Only after my first sip did I realize it was simply a refilled bottle of water after which I tried ran over to my "friend," wrestled with his hands holding my 10 rand note and once he ran 20 yards away I picked up a rock and began to run after him, from where he stood like he was going to "hold his ground" and then fled into the bush. I waited around for him for about 30 minutes waiting for the bus to depart and then a wise, calm-headed coca-cola salesman advised me to "forget it" because I was waiting for him in no-man's land between the Moz/Zim border and it wasn't really worth the risk or the effort. "If God wills it, then you will meet him again." he said. He was right, I have been developing quite a temper recently.....so needless to say by 12 PM that night, I felt like it was a loooong day.
But that night I slept in a comfortable bed in a nice apartment so I can't really complain.
Now I'd like to talk about Dilly's family. She's a 3rd or 4th generation Zimbabwean whose Afrikaaner parents moved to Zim and started farming. She lived on a dairy farm with her family that was nationalized in 2004 and then given over to a war veteran. From 20001-2005 or 06 this happened all over the country and led to a mass exodus of the white Zimbabweans. In all fairness the land was taken from the Zimbabwean people over 100 years ago by British and Afrikaaner settlers, but despite the great inequalities in wealth between whites and blacks here I'm still not sure that 2 wrongs make a right, and whatever the morality, the economy certainly suffered. Zimbabwe in the 80s was very first world with clean cities, good streets and a growing middle class. Now the economy is in shambles and everyone is just looking for stability.
Her family anticipated the move and in 2002 began selling much of their capital (tractors etc) in South Africa. At the time when they were forced to move off their land they were also forced to slaughter all their cattle, which was particularly bad timing because the calves were due in about a month, so there were many aborted dead cows left on the slaughterhouse floor.
Dilly said that at least half of her friends have left since around 2002, usually those with more money. Although she and her parents still live reltaively comfortably in Zimbabwe she said they didn't have enough money to emigrate and most countries don't want Zimbabwean "refugees". Either way both her and her parents were born here and they love really miss living on the land, but couldn't move to a big city. (I think they should come to Texas). Her parents now occupy their time renovating a house they bought just outside of the city center, trying to find the food/products they need to keep their standard of living and trying to save enough money to lead a comfortable life for the rest of their life. The healthcare system here is shot, so, like so many Americans they have no healthcare and hope nothing too bad happens - this is the plight of the relatively wealthy.
Okay, I'm going to end it here, I only have 3 more minutes and I've already been typing/revising for about 1:20 minutes. I'll post more soon, because there's so much to talk about in Zimbabwe!
See you all soon.
Monday, October 20, 2008
hyperinflation and happiness
So long overdue. I know.
I don't write, and then I say to myself, but I'm missing all this stuff I've done if I write about right now, and then I don't write at all.
So I'll just write about right now.
Well, right now I'm in Harare, the capital of Zimbabwe. I was literally going crazy in Blantyre for so many reasons - the straw breaking the zebra's back being the food. I ate fried chicken and chips or fried chicken and rice so many times and I was over full and never satisfied. I would wake up and say, jesus, how am I going to pass the day today. I knew I wanted to come to Zimbabwe, but I was desperately missing vegetables and reasonable prices for anything except the most basic items and was seriously considering buying a plane ticket to Cape Town (south africa). After investigating all my transportation options Friday night (bus to Mozambique, bus to Johannesburg that was booked until Tuesday, or a daily bus to Zimbabwe). I decided on a rash decision on Saturday morning to get the bus to Zim.
Unfortunately I hadn't changed my currency into U.S. dollars and I only had a $20 bill and about $50 worth of Malawian Kwatcha. I heard, though that one could withdraw money from an ATM (my only source of money while traveling) at the border. Well, I found an ATM at the Malawi border and I changed about $360 into dollars and South African Rand. There was nowhere to change money at the Mozambican border and so I came into Harare with about $300 (after 2 $30 visas) in my pocket and as of yet haven't found a good way to get any more $$$$.
That's the background, now I'll talk about Zimbabwe, which is very, very interesting.
But first!
I just signed up on couch surfing and my first experience using it has been great. Couchsurfing lets travellers stay at others houses for free with the expectation that they will extend the same courtesy when they are at home. I messaged 4 of the 7 couchsurfers in Harare and got one reply from a white, Afrikaans Zimbabwean girl named Dilly (actually her nickname is Dilly, I forget what her real name is). She picked me up at a bus stop in Harare and let me stay at her guest room at her flat. Although I don't really care about my living conditions while traveling staying at her apartment is reallllllllly nice. It has a shower and bath living room, kitchen WITH AN OVEN! and fresh water and a maid who does laundry - everything. So the comfort is a nice departure from "real Africa".
Well she picked me up and I dropped off my stuff and took a long long long overdue shower, and then we went to a horse-racing track where there was an annual concert. This was my first taste of (white) Zimbabwean culture and it was thoroughly Western but uniquely Afrikaaner as well. The venue was straightforward enough - there was a large stage with about 1500 mostly white people and a ring of small bars around the crowd to buy alcohol. The first band was an Irish group of washed-up 40 year olds playing cheesy covers of American songs that I had heard but never really payed attention to.
The crowd was the most interesting part of the whole event. There were lots of young white Zimbabweans who at outward appearance look like a strange mix of cheesy British clubbers with popped collars, spiked gelled hair and large patent-leather shoes or pumas and very masculine, Abercrombie wearing, bro-looking guys who were too drunk to know or care about the word "personal space" and who loved to get physical. There was one particular "joker" who when intoxicated loved to tackle his best friends or complete strangers as he pleased. After tackling one friend with two beers in his hand I felt pretty sure a fight or an argument was going to break out, but everyone just laughed the guy off and he went off tackling other "friends" I'm average height, but I am skinny and I was unknowingly manhandled or bumped into or endearingly headlocked more times than I can remember since...since when? Maybe elementary gym class back in Texas? Or hanging out with "jocks" in high school. Either way the whole thing was one big throw back and I knew I'd come to the right place when they played, "Amarillo by Morning," a song that EVERYBODY knew the words to and I (being from Amarillo) only recognized the chorus. Such are the ironies of a globalized world.
Well this is turning out to be a long blog-post, but it's well-overdue, so stick with me, or go get some cheese or Thai food or something I can't really find here and ENJOY, it, be GRATEFUL.
Well, the 2nd band was a South African outfit from Cape Town that had a few of their own songs, so I thought, musically, things were starting to turn up; then, the lead singer commited the god-forsaken sin of ending their songs with cheeeeeeesy Bob Marley break-downs. He covered "get up, stand up", or "Ganja farmer" and everyone else sung-along and I just wanted to vomit. A little context - by this point in my travels I have heard the song Ganja farmer and one or more songs from the Bob Marley legend album at least 100 times, probably 150 or more in three months. Every single weed-coma'd rasta from Nairobi to Harare plays the same &$^%-ing 5 songs all day everyday for the rest of their lives. What an existence. Ja man! Rastafarai!
By that point I gave up courtesy dancing and took up Dilly's offer to go pass out in her car even though it was only midnight and we had arrived at 10. But it had been a loooooong day, starting at five when I woke up, not sure if I was going to Jo'burg, Mozambique, Zim or just remaining shipwrecked and lost in Blantyre. I then rode on the bus for about 13 hours total going through no less than 4 border crossings (2 for each border), one of which I spent 30 minutes arguing with the border guard because he wouldn't give me a transit visa, only a single entry visa, for a 6 hour trip through Mozambique all the while the bus conductor is threatening to leave me at the border. The other crossings were a breeze with a 100 person line queue at best or an irritated mob of people pushing, vying, cutting and bitching all trying to get a stupid stamp at worst.
I ran out of water half way through the trip and in desperation at made a stupid buy for a litre and a half of water for 10 rand or about 60 cents. Only after my first sip did I realize it was simply a refilled bottle of water after which I tried ran over to my "friend," wrestled with his hands holding my 10 rand note and once he ran 20 yards away I picked up a rock and began to run after him, from where he stood like he was going to "hold his ground" and then fled into the bush. I waited around for him for about 30 minutes waiting for the bus to depart and then a wise, calm-headed coca-cola salesman advised me to "forget it" because I was waiting for him in no-man's land between the Moz/Zim border and it wasn't really worth the risk or the effort. "If God wills it, then you will meet him again." he said. He was right, I have been developing quite a temper recently.....so needless to say by 12 PM that night, I felt like it was a loooong day.
But that night I slept in a comfortable bed in a nice apartment so I can't really complain.
Now I'd like to talk about Dilly's family. She's a 3rd or 4th generation Zimbabwean whose Afrikaaner parents moved to Zim and started farming. She lived on a dairy farm with her family that was nationalized in 2004 and then given over to a war veteran. From 20001-2005 or 06 this happened all over the country and led to a mass exodus of the white Zimbabweans. In all fairness the land was taken from the Zimbabwean people over 100 years ago by British and Afrikaaner settlers, but despite the great inequalities in wealth between whites and blacks here I'm still not sure that 2 wrongs make a right, and whatever the morality, the economy certainly suffered. Zimbabwe in the 80s was very first world with clean cities, good streets and a growing middle class. Now the economy is in shambles and everyone is just looking for stability.
Her family anticipated the move and in 2002 began selling much of their capital (tractors etc) in South Africa. At the time when they were forced to move off their land they were also forced to slaughter all their cattle, which was particularly bad timing because the calves were due in about a month, so there were many aborted dead cows left on the slaughterhouse floor.
Dilly said that at least half of her friends have left since around 2002, usually those with more money. Although she and her parents still live reltaively comfortably in Zimbabwe she said they didn't have enough money to emigrate and most countries don't want Zimbabwean "refugees". Either way both her and her parents were born here and they love really miss living on the land, but couldn't move to a big city. (I think they should come to Texas). Her parents now occupy their time renovating a house they bought just outside of the city center, trying to find the food/products they need to keep their standard of living and trying to save enough money to lead a comfortable life for the rest of their life. The healthcare system here is shot, so, like so many Americans they have no healthcare and hope nothing too bad happens - this is the plight of the relatively wealthy.
Okay, I'm going to end it here, I only have 3 more minutes and I've already been typing/revising for about 1:20 minutes. I'll post more soon, because there's so much to talk about in Zimbabwe!
See you all soon.
I don't write, and then I say to myself, but I'm missing all this stuff I've done if I write about right now, and then I don't write at all.
So I'll just write about right now.
Well, right now I'm in Harare, the capital of Zimbabwe. I was literally going crazy in Blantyre for so many reasons - the straw breaking the zebra's back being the food. I ate fried chicken and chips or fried chicken and rice so many times and I was over full and never satisfied. I would wake up and say, jesus, how am I going to pass the day today. I knew I wanted to come to Zimbabwe, but I was desperately missing vegetables and reasonable prices for anything except the most basic items and was seriously considering buying a plane ticket to Cape Town (south africa). After investigating all my transportation options Friday night (bus to Mozambique, bus to Johannesburg that was booked until Tuesday, or a daily bus to Zimbabwe). I decided on a rash decision on Saturday morning to get the bus to Zim.
Unfortunately I hadn't changed my currency into U.S. dollars and I only had a $20 bill and about $50 worth of Malawian Kwatcha. I heard, though that one could withdraw money from an ATM (my only source of money while traveling) at the border. Well, I found an ATM at the Malawi border and I changed about $360 into dollars and South African Rand. There was nowhere to change money at the Mozambican border and so I came into Harare with about $300 (after 2 $30 visas) in my pocket and as of yet haven't found a good way to get any more $$$$.
That's the background, now I'll talk about Zimbabwe, which is very, very interesting.
But first!
I just signed up on couch surfing and my first experience using it has been great. Couchsurfing lets travellers stay at others houses for free with the expectation that they will extend the same courtesy when they are at home. I messaged 4 of the 7 couchsurfers in Harare and got one reply from a white, Afrikaans Zimbabwean girl named Dilly (actually her nickname is Dilly, I forget what her real name is). She picked me up at a bus stop in Harare and let me stay at her guest room at her flat. Although I don't really care about my living conditions while traveling staying at her apartment is reallllllllly nice. It has a shower and bath living room, kitchen WITH AN OVEN! and fresh water and a maid who does laundry - everything. So the comfort is a nice departure from "real Africa".
Well she picked me up and I dropped off my stuff and took a long long long overdue shower, and then we went to a horse-racing track where there was an annual concert. This was my first taste of (white) Zimbabwean culture and it was thoroughly Western but uniquely Afrikaaner as well. The venue was straightforward enough - there was a large stage with about 1500 mostly white people and a ring of small bars around the crowd to buy alcohol. The first band was an Irish group of washed-up 40 year olds playing cheesy covers of American songs that I had heard but never really payed attention to.
The crowd was the most interesting part of the whole event. There were lots of young white Zimbabweans who at outward appearance look like a strange mix of cheesy British clubbers with popped collars, spiked gelled hair and large patent-leather shoes or pumas and very masculine, Abercrombie wearing, bro-looking guys who were too drunk to know or care about the word "personal space" and who loved to get physical. There was one particular "joker" who when intoxicated loved to tackle his best friends or complete strangers as he pleased. After tackling one friend with two beers in his hand I felt pretty sure a fight or an argument was going to break out, but everyone just laughed the guy off and he went off tackling other "friends" I'm average height, but I am skinny and I was unknowingly manhandled or bumped into or endearingly headlocked more times than I can remember since...since when? Maybe elementary gym class back in Texas? Or hanging out with "jocks" in high school. Either way the whole thing was one big throw back and I knew I'd come to the right place when they played, "Amarillo by Morning," a song that EVERYBODY knew the words to and I (being from Amarillo) only recognized the chorus. Such are the ironies of a globalized world.
Well this is turning out to be a long blog-post, but it's well-overdue, so stick with me, or go get some cheese or Thai food or something I can't really find here and ENJOY, it, be GRATEFUL.
Well, the 2nd band was a South African outfit from Cape Town that had a few of their own songs, so I thought, musically, things were starting to turn up; then, the lead singer commited the god-forsaken sin of ending their songs with cheeeeeeesy Bob Marley break-downs. He covered "get up, stand up", or "Ganja farmer" and everyone else sung-along and I just wanted to vomit. A little context - by this point in my travels I have heard the song Ganja farmer and one or more songs from the Bob Marley legend album at least 100 times, probably 150 or more in three months. Every single weed-coma'd rasta from Nairobi to Harare plays the same &$^%-ing 5 songs all day everyday for the rest of their lives. What an existence. Ja man! Rastafarai!
By that point I gave up courtesy dancing and took up Dilly's offer to go pass out in her car even though it was only midnight and we had arrived at 10. But it had been a loooooong day, starting at five when I woke up, not sure if I was going to Jo'burg, Mozambique, Zim or just remaining shipwrecked and lost in Blantyre. I then rode on the bus for about 13 hours total going through no less than 4 border crossings (2 for each border), one of which I spent 30 minutes arguing with the border guard because he wouldn't give me a transit visa, only a single entry visa, for a 6 hour trip through Mozambique all the while the bus conductor is threatening to leave me at the border. The other crossings were a breeze with a 100 person line queue at best or an irritated mob of people pushing, vying, cutting and bitching all trying to get a stupid stamp at worst.
I ran out of water half way through the trip and in desperation at made a stupid buy for a litre and a half of water for 10 rand or about 60 cents. Only after my first sip did I realize it was simply a refilled bottle of water after which I tried ran over to my "friend," wrestled with his hands holding my 10 rand note and once he ran 20 yards away I picked up a rock and began to run after him, from where he stood like he was going to "hold his ground" and then fled into the bush. I waited around for him for about 30 minutes waiting for the bus to depart and then a wise, calm-headed coca-cola salesman advised me to "forget it" because I was waiting for him in no-man's land between the Moz/Zim border and it wasn't really worth the risk or the effort. "If God wills it, then you will meet him again." he said. He was right, I have been developing quite a temper recently.....so needless to say by 12 PM that night, I felt like it was a loooong day.
But that night I slept in a comfortable bed in a nice apartment so I can't really complain.
Now I'd like to talk about Dilly's family. She's a 3rd or 4th generation Zimbabwean whose Afrikaaner parents moved to Zim and started farming. She lived on a dairy farm with her family that was nationalized in 2004 and then given over to a war veteran. From 20001-2005 or 06 this happened all over the country and led to a mass exodus of the white Zimbabweans. In all fairness the land was taken from the Zimbabwean people over 100 years ago by British and Afrikaaner settlers, but despite the great inequalities in wealth between whites and blacks here I'm still not sure that 2 wrongs make a right, and whatever the morality, the economy certainly suffered. Zimbabwe in the 80s was very first world with clean cities, good streets and a growing middle class. Now the economy is in shambles and everyone is just looking for stability.
Her family anticipated the move and in 2002 began selling much of their capital (tractors etc) in South Africa. At the time when they were forced to move off their land they were also forced to slaughter all their cattle, which was particularly bad timing because the calves were due in about a month, so there were many aborted dead cows left on the slaughterhouse floor.
Dilly said that at least half of her friends have left since around 2002, usually those with more money. Although she and her parents still live reltaively comfortably in Zimbabwe she said they didn't have enough money to emigrate and most countries don't want Zimbabwean "refugees". Either way both her and her parents were born here and they love really miss living on the land, but couldn't move to a big city. (I think they should come to Texas). Her parents now occupy their time renovating a house they bought just outside of the city center, trying to find the food/products they need to keep their standard of living and trying to save enough money to lead a comfortable life for the rest of their life. The healthcare system here is shot, so, like so many Americans they have no healthcare and hope nothing too bad happens - this is the plight of the relatively wealthy.
Okay, I'm going to end it here, I only have 3 more minutes and I've already been typing/revising for about 1:20 minutes. I'll post more soon, because there's so much to talk about in Zimbabwe!
See you all soon.
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