Week 5: Zimbabwe

We arrived in Zimbabwe last Tuesday afternoon. We left Entebbe, Uganda at 3:55 AM, landed in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia at 6:30 AM, waiting in multiple security line ups until our flight out at 8:30 AM, and landed in Victoria Falls, Zimbabwe at 12:30 PM. Will especially enjoyed going through three security screenings and then watching to see where other people walked in order to know when we needed to load the bus to drive to our gate, since there were no announcements or signs! Our AirBnB host, Rose, arranged for an airport pickup, and we enjoyed the 20 minute drive to our new place. We are staying in a room in a traditional Zimbabwean family’s home, and have the opportunity to experience daily life in a high density housing area called Mkhosana. We have learned about local cuisine (a cornmeal and water mixture called sadza and stewed beef is consumed most days) and daily routines (including sweeping the sand outside with straw bundled together as a broom and washing linens by hand). Our hosts are able to communicate well with us in English, and people in the community reciprocate our greetings. “Mzungu!” has been replaced with, “Mke wa!” and the simplified, “Kewa!” as the children yell out to us white guys walking by. If we sit outside, we are swarmed by children and stared at by most adults walking by, so that’s taken some getting used to!

Mkhosana, the community we are staying in

Of course, the main focus of our trip here was to see the magnificent Victoria Falls. You can choose to see the falls from the Zimbabwe side or the Zambia side, and we were very glad we chose the Zimbabwe side. Since this is the dry season here, the falls are low, so there wasn’t much of the falls left by the time you got down to where you would have seen it from the Zambia side. However, WE sure felt like we got to see a lot of water tumbling down over the rock wall on our side! We arrived at the park around 12:30 PM, and thoroughly enjoyed making our way between the 16 viewpoints along the path. We found a perfect log to set up our very own Rainforest Café for lunch. We then made our way back through all of the viewpoints around 3:00 PM when the rainbows all appeared. As the 40+ photos of rainbows and waterfalls will prove, I couldn’t get enough! We decided to stay until the park closed at 6:00 PM to capture the sun setting over the falls, and it was definitely worth it. What a remarkable natural phenomenon!

The view from our personal Rainforest Cafe 

We returned to the falls the following day, this time on the Zambia side. We took a short boat trip from shore to Livingstone Island, and then a short walk across the Island. From there, we stepped into the surprisingly cold water right above Victoria Falls, and swam a short distance to a large rock above the falls. We had to put a bit of power into our swim because there was a current pulling towards the falls, but it was not as strong as we thought it might be. We then walked up and over the rock, and plunged ourselves back into the water. We swam carefully across the water they call Devil’s Pool, and sat on a rock ledge right above the falls. We had watched people doing this from the other side the day before, and it looked totally crazy. Somehow I thought the water would feel somewhat calm in that pool, but there was no denying the current pulling you towards the edge. Our guide instructed us to lie on our stomachs, facing the falls, which was certainly the most thrilling way I can imagine seeing the falls. The roar of the water was so loud, and we were literally looking straight down the falls. We had little fish biting at our feet the whole time we were in the water, which tickled enough that you tried to kick them away, but soon realized you couldn’t waste energy kicking away innocent fish when you had a waterfall to stay on top of! After swimming out of the pool, we enjoyed a delicious breakfast of scones and eggs benedict before leaving Livingstone Island.

For good reason, Victoria Falls is a huge tourist attraction, and the downtown area has been created with tourists in mind. There are many westernized cafes and restaurants, tons of tour operators and activity booking centers, and even more guys trying to sell items on the street. The guys all seem to be selling the same three things: wooden bowls that are painted with designs on the inside, small woodcarvings of the ‘Big 5” African animals, and 50 billion dollar notes. Years ago, Zimbabwe experienced hyperinflation and they had to abandon their currency because it was getting so ridiculous, so even these 50 billion dollar notes are now worthless. My polite but short, “no thank you” keeps them away from me, but Will keeps them trailing after him for blocks. We figure this might have something to do with traditional gender roles that are valued here (breadwinner/provider= man with the money), but it might simply be because he engages in conversations with them more often than not. They ask him to remember their names, so he now has a running tally of at least ten guys he might run into on any given trip into town. Because of how tourist focused the downtown area is, we feel fortunate to be staying outside of the city center. When we visit the city, we simply take a short ‘shared taxi’ ride for $1 US or walk for 30 minutes.

In addition to running into guys selling woodcarvings of “one day baby hippos”, we have had a few random wildlife encounters. On our first day in town, we ran into a small herd of five bush elephants. Without knowing it, we got too close and one got angry enough to stomp a few steps towards us. Luckily, it was just a warning and we have been fully on guard on all of our bush walks since. While wandering the grounds of the Royal Livingstone Hotel, we have also had a few encounters with three giraffes up close, a number of zebras, some impalas, a family of striped mongoose, and many warthogs.

The photo that came as a result of a surprise meeting with angry elephants

can't say they didn't warn us!

striped mongoose

elephant poop is everywhere

wandering the grounds of the Royal Livingstone Hotel- you read how easily I slid that in, didn’t you? We have something shameful to admit. We have been hotel crashing a bit. And by a bit, we mean quite a lot. There are some incredibly fancy, expensive hotels here, and we’ve made it our mission to check them all out. We’ve enjoyed reading and picnicking on their grounds, and using the individual hand towels and hot water they provide in their bathrooms. Individual hand towels! Maybe I failed to mention that we are currently stocked with thin, pale green toilet paper at our current residence. To be fair, all of the hotel staff have welcomed us at these hotels, but they have also kindly informed us that the pools are for guests only. Although we stare longingly at the pools, filled with sparkling water and always void of any humans, we have not yet taken our hotel crashing to the level of pool crashing.

view from our picnic at the Royal Livingstone Hotel

we have yet to see anyone swimming in any of these pools

It is very hot here. When they say ‘dry season’, they mean dry season. We have seen no rain, no clouds, and have had very few trees to use for shade. Although we walked quite a bit throughout the day on our first days here, we’ve slid into a comfortable routine of walking early in the morning and later in the day, while finding shady spots to relax during the heat of the day. Will has spent some time playing ‘football’ (soccer) with some of the kids in our village, while I have sung songs and played games with others.

10 New Experiences:

• Sights and sounds: The side roads of red dirt in Uganda have been replaced with brown sand here. We have replaced our nighttime sounds of honking horns and roosters with bar music and barking dogs. However, the lack of clouds makes for the most amazing night skies here! We’ve enjoyed looking up at the moon and stars as we return from dinner each night, since the sun sets by 6:30 PM and it gets dark very quickly.
• The drivers here are much more calm, and there are far fewer drivers on the roads. Also, there are no boda bodas here! Coincidence? I think not.
• This is activity central and as long as you have the funds (and nerves!) for it, the list of activity options seems endless: bungee jumping, ziplining, helicopter rides over the falls, safaris, elephant rides, lion walks…
• There are tourist police set up all around town, and they are very helpful with giving directions and information, and also limit the number of guys selling their goods in certain areas of the city.
• People use bicycles to carry enormous loads. We tried to help one guy lift his bike after it fell, and there was no possible way the three of us could lift it (I think I was a lot of help though). We unloaded 12 huge jugs of cooking oil, an enormous bag of rice, and an even bigger bag of cornmeal (or possibly cement, accordingly to Will who had to lift it) before we were even able to lift the bike.
• There are baboons everywhere! They are so cute running with their babies gripping onto their bellies and sliding down lampposts like firemen, and not cute at all when they are stealing women’s purses and eating out of garbage cans. There are also flies everywhere during the day, and lots of mosquitos at night.
• We’ve experienced power outages almost every day and they last most of the day. Although there were a few power outages during our time in Uganda, we had a battery backup so they didn’t impact us as much. We are also getting very good at embracing cold showers, since we do not have any hot water here.
• The beauty of the high density housing area is the sense of communal living. People come and go from the house, never needing invitations and rarely even sharing greetings or goodbyes. They willingly help each other with tasks throughout the day, and then neighbours rest together for extended periods of time outside with kids playing in the streets nearby. We have multiple daily visits from Jonah, one of the small children in the village. He just wanders into the yard or house, says “Kuba!” (he has yet to master “kewa”), takes my hands for a little dancing, and then walks away. He has laid claim to us, and gets upset when the other village children spend too much time with us.
• Natasha is a traditional name here, meaning ‘I am thankful’ (how fitting), so the kids have no problem saying my name beautifully. However, everyone struggles with Will’s name, often mistaking his name for ‘wheel’ and then pointing to a car wheel with a confused look, wondering what his parents were thinking naming him this!
• As teachers prepare to return to classrooms and parents prepare to send their children to school, it seems fitting to share a bit of information I gathered from the children here. The public school classes consist of 45-50 children, and they usually have to share supplies. One of the young girls shared that it’s quite common for 7 children to share 1 pen and notebook between them. If that doesn’t make you thankful to be a teacher or parent in Canada, I don’t know what would!

No trip to Africa is complete without a visit to The Big Tree

Random act of kindness: I’m split between two, so I’m including them both. Reading the thoughtful comments and messages that people have taken the time to write us has brought us both so much joy. We love hearing from people back home and from people we’ve met along the way! We are also so grateful for a connection we made with a girl named Matilda during our trip to Devil’s Pool. Matilda is from Finland, and after talking to us about our interest in travelling there, she offered to show us around and connect me with her mom, who teaches teachers in other places about the Finnish school system. My dreams of spending time in the Finnish schools are now much closer to becoming a reality!