Happy Happy Harare
Wow! What a journey. Laura and Christina, coming to you from some random travel agency somewhere near downtown Harare, Zimbabwe! We've been adopted by a suburban family. What are we talking about, you may ask? Well, let's start from the beginning...
Getting out of Durban was absolutely crazy. Between the 7000 word papers, 7000 bags of recycling and 7 million other errands, it was non-stop action. We left the house at 8am (admittedly) for pedicures and massages, and Christina finished packing at about 2. AM. The next morning. But the house looked good, and our friend made off not only with our speakers but with four bags of food and a bottle of whiskey.
To everyone's surprise, we made it to the airport Tuesday morning, thanks to a crisp 6:15am rise from bed. It's a good thing we gave ourselves a long layover in Jo'burg on the way to Harare, because our plane in Durban was delayed. Technical difficulties? No. A catering truck had burst into flames on the tarmac. Just another day at Durban International, we're sure. The layover was also handy because apparently it takes about 3hours of effort, four mathematicians and about 8 calculating devices to buy US dollars. But it happened.
Having exchaged all her Rand into dollars, Laura wanted to grab some more money from an ATM before boarding a plane to Harare. Unfortunately, although in retrospect not surprisingly, there are NO ATMs in the international terminal.?! So, with 20 minutes to board the plane, Laura had to woo her way back through immigration by claiming that it's impossible to use ATMs in Harare. This is at least 80% true. So she checked out of immigration, checked back in, and made it just in time to sit on a bus waiting to get to the plane for 30 minutes. Again, it did happen, but our exhaustion had really started to get the better of us. Good thing we're seasoned traveller vets...
The flight to Harare was uneventful, especially for Christina who passed out cold. This forced Laura to look elsewhere for advice as to what to put on the landing card which asked how much money we were carrying in cash. Real value: $500 US each. What Laura thought she should put: $20? She looked around, and saw a nice looking lady sitting across the aisle and back a row. She politely asked her question, and was told to put 200...Rand. She turned to tell Christina, only to receive a tap on the shoulder. Apparently on the basis of our appearance, accents and ignorance, this lady had become very concerned. She asked us our plans, and became even more concerned (our plans amounted to going to tourist information at the airport and asking them for a plan. Note to selves: Harare Airport has no tourist information). So Karen, the lady, gave us her card with her phone number and told us to call if we needed any help. Laura turns to tell this to Christina, only to receive another tap on the shoulder. On second thought, Karen thought it would be better if we just came home with her and her husband, Dino. Having discovered that our "plan" was completely ridiculous, we happily accepted the invitation.
"Home" turned out to be a BEAUTIFUL place in the suburbs of Harare, not too far from Bob's house (Robert Mugabe to those of you not in the know). We were welcomed with open arms, given a room and left to play with the dogs and kids while mom made dinner. We strolled through the backyard and admired the pool and tennis court with two Milk Stouts in hand (courtesy of Karen). We played Uno in front of a fire with Michael (7 yrs) and Nicola (9 yrs). We showed Michael where we lived on a world map. We were totally one of the family! We figure we were officially adopted after working with Karen and Dino on Nicola's school project, while Nicola slept. We chatted about their old backpacking days when they did a trip around the world. They could totally relate to our situation on the plane. They'd been helped in their time and we'll be sure to carry that torch too. Forty clothespins (decorated by Christina and Karen) and 13 packs of 5 cards each later (hole punched by Laura, packed by Dino), we called it a night. At 9 pm. But it FELT like 3 am. We slept like the dead in Nicola's super comfy bed and woke up to head in to town with Karen the next morning.
Karen works for a travel agency and took us into her office complex to help us organize the rest of our trip. With the help of a really nice lady, we made a million phone calls to every bus station and train station in Harare. Two hours later, we had WAY more of a clue of what's going on! With hook-ups all over to boot! Finally free of planning the trip we should have planned a month ago, we hoofed it into town to see what Harare was all about.
We were only there a couple of hours, but here are a few quick impressions:
-Feels really safe to walk around and it's WAY cleaner than Mapoto.
-People are really friendly.
-More relaxed than South Africa - racially, there is way less of a divide and you don't have to be ultra-paranoid to pull out your cash, which is a good thing, because if you were trying to hide this amount of cash, you'd need to be wearing a burka. Seriously, we exchanged about $45 US total, and ended up with a stack of cash 5 inches high. Breakfast cost us $4 million, about $10 US. The picture will tell the tale. It's hilarious!!! And arithmetically challenging to say the least. Neither of us learned the 350,000 division table in elementary school.
-Definitely felt like a minority walking around downtown. I think we saw one other white person downtown the entire time. But everyone we interacted with has been more than sweet. The people here seem very open, warm, calm and grounded. It makes you feel really welcome.
We finished off the afternoon in Harare with lunch at Taste of Africa, a stall in a food court. As we were walking out, accompanied by our new friend Leslie who ate lunch with us, we were stopped by a woman at the Taste of Africa counter. She asked if we like sculpture. We cautiously replied in the affirmative. She proceeded to invite us into the bathroom to look at her sculpture. We cautiously accepted after some hesitation, having never been invited into a bathroom to do much of anything before. Turns out she makes beautiful rock scultpure and we bought 6 of them for $7 US. Why did we have to buy sculpture in the bathroom, you ask? Well ...
The social, economic and political situation in Zim is a bit of a mess. In fact, it is a HUGE mess. Let's see ... a few months, Bob decided to clean up the informal sector. By clean up, we mean he used the army to drive people to shut down their market stalls and tear down any and all informal homes. What was once a bustling local economy selling crafts and art is now non-existent in public. Banned, in fact. This situation was explained to us on our drive in from the airport with Dino and we got further glimpses into the daily challenges of living here when the lights went off at Karen and Dino's and we were forced to fire up the generator. The generator sits in the house to prevent it from getting stolen. They are attempting to build something to keep it safe, but they (a) can't find cement anywhere and (b) have no idea how to cost cement in light of the inflation. And these are the "haves". We heard stories about their houselady whose rent is being raised almost daily, making it impossible for her to make ends meet. Office building aren't immune either, which we discovered when we tried to use the toilets in Karen's building but there was no water "for whatever reason". There also appears to be a bread shortage due to the central economic planning power insisting that bakers sell bread for less than they can actually bake it for, due to the flour shortage. Yet despite these difficulties life goes on and people persist, as our toilet transactions demonstrated. And throughout it all, the people are smiling.
Our short term plan is to head into the mountains on Friday with Karen, Dino and the kids for a weekend of cabinning :). Our original plan had been to camp in caves in the National Park ... until Dino informed us that we were insane. This is the coldest time of year and Chrisitna's fleece blanket and my summer sleeping bag just wouldn't cut it. So instead, we were invited to join them. These people are incredibly generous. Hopefully these stories give you some sort of insight into just how lucky we feel.
So know that things are absolutely AWESOME, everything's falling into place, and pictures are on the way soon!
Cheers m'dears!
C&L
Getting out of Durban was absolutely crazy. Between the 7000 word papers, 7000 bags of recycling and 7 million other errands, it was non-stop action. We left the house at 8am (admittedly) for pedicures and massages, and Christina finished packing at about 2. AM. The next morning. But the house looked good, and our friend made off not only with our speakers but with four bags of food and a bottle of whiskey.
To everyone's surprise, we made it to the airport Tuesday morning, thanks to a crisp 6:15am rise from bed. It's a good thing we gave ourselves a long layover in Jo'burg on the way to Harare, because our plane in Durban was delayed. Technical difficulties? No. A catering truck had burst into flames on the tarmac. Just another day at Durban International, we're sure. The layover was also handy because apparently it takes about 3hours of effort, four mathematicians and about 8 calculating devices to buy US dollars. But it happened.
Having exchaged all her Rand into dollars, Laura wanted to grab some more money from an ATM before boarding a plane to Harare. Unfortunately, although in retrospect not surprisingly, there are NO ATMs in the international terminal.?! So, with 20 minutes to board the plane, Laura had to woo her way back through immigration by claiming that it's impossible to use ATMs in Harare. This is at least 80% true. So she checked out of immigration, checked back in, and made it just in time to sit on a bus waiting to get to the plane for 30 minutes. Again, it did happen, but our exhaustion had really started to get the better of us. Good thing we're seasoned traveller vets...
The flight to Harare was uneventful, especially for Christina who passed out cold. This forced Laura to look elsewhere for advice as to what to put on the landing card which asked how much money we were carrying in cash. Real value: $500 US each. What Laura thought she should put: $20? She looked around, and saw a nice looking lady sitting across the aisle and back a row. She politely asked her question, and was told to put 200...Rand. She turned to tell Christina, only to receive a tap on the shoulder. Apparently on the basis of our appearance, accents and ignorance, this lady had become very concerned. She asked us our plans, and became even more concerned (our plans amounted to going to tourist information at the airport and asking them for a plan. Note to selves: Harare Airport has no tourist information). So Karen, the lady, gave us her card with her phone number and told us to call if we needed any help. Laura turns to tell this to Christina, only to receive another tap on the shoulder. On second thought, Karen thought it would be better if we just came home with her and her husband, Dino. Having discovered that our "plan" was completely ridiculous, we happily accepted the invitation.
"Home" turned out to be a BEAUTIFUL place in the suburbs of Harare, not too far from Bob's house (Robert Mugabe to those of you not in the know). We were welcomed with open arms, given a room and left to play with the dogs and kids while mom made dinner. We strolled through the backyard and admired the pool and tennis court with two Milk Stouts in hand (courtesy of Karen). We played Uno in front of a fire with Michael (7 yrs) and Nicola (9 yrs). We showed Michael where we lived on a world map. We were totally one of the family! We figure we were officially adopted after working with Karen and Dino on Nicola's school project, while Nicola slept. We chatted about their old backpacking days when they did a trip around the world. They could totally relate to our situation on the plane. They'd been helped in their time and we'll be sure to carry that torch too. Forty clothespins (decorated by Christina and Karen) and 13 packs of 5 cards each later (hole punched by Laura, packed by Dino), we called it a night. At 9 pm. But it FELT like 3 am. We slept like the dead in Nicola's super comfy bed and woke up to head in to town with Karen the next morning.
Karen works for a travel agency and took us into her office complex to help us organize the rest of our trip. With the help of a really nice lady, we made a million phone calls to every bus station and train station in Harare. Two hours later, we had WAY more of a clue of what's going on! With hook-ups all over to boot! Finally free of planning the trip we should have planned a month ago, we hoofed it into town to see what Harare was all about.
We were only there a couple of hours, but here are a few quick impressions:
-Feels really safe to walk around and it's WAY cleaner than Mapoto.
-People are really friendly.
-More relaxed than South Africa - racially, there is way less of a divide and you don't have to be ultra-paranoid to pull out your cash, which is a good thing, because if you were trying to hide this amount of cash, you'd need to be wearing a burka. Seriously, we exchanged about $45 US total, and ended up with a stack of cash 5 inches high. Breakfast cost us $4 million, about $10 US. The picture will tell the tale. It's hilarious!!! And arithmetically challenging to say the least. Neither of us learned the 350,000 division table in elementary school.
-Definitely felt like a minority walking around downtown. I think we saw one other white person downtown the entire time. But everyone we interacted with has been more than sweet. The people here seem very open, warm, calm and grounded. It makes you feel really welcome.
We finished off the afternoon in Harare with lunch at Taste of Africa, a stall in a food court. As we were walking out, accompanied by our new friend Leslie who ate lunch with us, we were stopped by a woman at the Taste of Africa counter. She asked if we like sculpture. We cautiously replied in the affirmative. She proceeded to invite us into the bathroom to look at her sculpture. We cautiously accepted after some hesitation, having never been invited into a bathroom to do much of anything before. Turns out she makes beautiful rock scultpure and we bought 6 of them for $7 US. Why did we have to buy sculpture in the bathroom, you ask? Well ...
The social, economic and political situation in Zim is a bit of a mess. In fact, it is a HUGE mess. Let's see ... a few months, Bob decided to clean up the informal sector. By clean up, we mean he used the army to drive people to shut down their market stalls and tear down any and all informal homes. What was once a bustling local economy selling crafts and art is now non-existent in public. Banned, in fact. This situation was explained to us on our drive in from the airport with Dino and we got further glimpses into the daily challenges of living here when the lights went off at Karen and Dino's and we were forced to fire up the generator. The generator sits in the house to prevent it from getting stolen. They are attempting to build something to keep it safe, but they (a) can't find cement anywhere and (b) have no idea how to cost cement in light of the inflation. And these are the "haves". We heard stories about their houselady whose rent is being raised almost daily, making it impossible for her to make ends meet. Office building aren't immune either, which we discovered when we tried to use the toilets in Karen's building but there was no water "for whatever reason". There also appears to be a bread shortage due to the central economic planning power insisting that bakers sell bread for less than they can actually bake it for, due to the flour shortage. Yet despite these difficulties life goes on and people persist, as our toilet transactions demonstrated. And throughout it all, the people are smiling.
Our short term plan is to head into the mountains on Friday with Karen, Dino and the kids for a weekend of cabinning :). Our original plan had been to camp in caves in the National Park ... until Dino informed us that we were insane. This is the coldest time of year and Chrisitna's fleece blanket and my summer sleeping bag just wouldn't cut it. So instead, we were invited to join them. These people are incredibly generous. Hopefully these stories give you some sort of insight into just how lucky we feel.
So know that things are absolutely AWESOME, everything's falling into place, and pictures are on the way soon!
Cheers m'dears!
C&L
posted by AXL in Africa at
10:54 AM
3 Comments:
Hey Afrikids,
If you're still looking for places to hang out in Zim after you've hit Vic Falls and the like, I'd recommend the ruins at Great Zimbabwe. Perhaps I'm biased by nostalgia for the favourite destination of my formative years, but I'd say it's right up there with the great ruins of the world; after all, they didn't name a country after Machu Pichu or Petra.
Cheers,
Adam.
Hey AXL!
I was wondering how you girls are doing and it was no so hard to find you. So how is it going? What are your plans? How long will you stay in Zimbabwe etc.? Have you seen the rhinos in Bulawayo?
Thanks for your positive commment in the Mozambique section. It was very nice meeting you there. I am already back home in Holland for six weeks now. I travelled enough for a while. Time to get serious and to look for a job. On my blog you can find pics of Southern Africa, stories will follow later.
Keep in touch, maybe we can change mail adresses! Enjoy your trip, I wish you all the best!
Ciao ciao,
Hasse
I just checked your pictures, good to see them. I recognize the one I took the first night in Mozambique, nice one isn't it?
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