ONE STEP AT A TIME

We’re coming up on two months of calling Zimbabwe our new home.  Of course, we spent most of that time living in a hotel since our house was not yet ready.  Fortunately, we bought a car (two, actually) from departing colleagues as soon as we got here, so within a week of arriving, we had wheels.  We took every opportunity to get out of our hotel room and start figuring out our way around. 

Step one… Learn to drive a right-hand side car on the left-hand side of the road.  Old hat for Andrew, but I was a bit more skeptical.  But I’ve got to say, after a week or so of turning my windshield wipers on instead of my blinkers, I’ve got it figured out and it seems pretty natural now.  

 

Day 1 driving on the right-hand side.  Wondering what sheer terror looks like?  That's it.

Step two… Find some cool spots to go in Harare.  Andrew had to head back to the States for work a few weeks after we arrived.  Alone on a weekend and starting to feel stir-crazy in the hotel, I figured I’d check out a nature park about 15 minutes away called Mukuvisi Woodlands.  It did not disappoint.  It ended up being a 300+ acre park that had an open grassland area with some resident wildlife, as well as a whole network of well-marked walking trails through open woodlands.  I spent several hours walking around there, and it felt great to get outside and enjoy the beautiful weather here.  (It has been sunny and in the 70s during the day since we’ve been here.  It cools off to the 40s at night.  No humidity.  No rain.  Hardly a cloud.  AMAZING.)

 

Giraffes, and zebras, and antelopes... oh my.

Everyone loves a good watering hole.

Along the hiking trail.  

Step three… Venture further afield.  I’m on a work schedule that has me working longer hours Monday-Thursday and then alternating Fridays off, which means I get a 3-day weekend every other week.  Handy.  We turned one of those 3-day weekends into an out-of-town getaway to the Vumba Mountains on the eastern border of Zimbabwe and Mozambique.  We were up at a higher elevation (even higher than Harare, which is about 5,000ft), so the vegetation was different, the views were lovely, and the weather was cooler (i.e., COLD at night).  We stayed in a fairly rustic cabin with no electricity and made a fire in the fireplace each night, played cards, and read. 

 

View from our Vumba cabin,

That's Mozambique over yonder.

The first morning, we went on a guided bird walk.  I’m sure we were our guide's favorite customers ever because every bird was a new bird for us.  We also stopped for coffee and cake at a little place called Tony’s, and then visited a botanic garden for another stroll through the great outdoors. 

You knew you'd have to look at some bird pics, right?  Livingstone's turaco.

Variable sunbird.

 

Not a bird.  Can't escape monkeys - or, in this case, baboons - no matter where I go.

A lovely stroll through the botanic gardens.

All that bird watching and strolling works up quite an appetite.  Coffee and cake at Tony's.

 Post-coffee and cake lazing around.

The second day, we checked out an annual arts and crafts fair that just happened to be scheduled while we were there.  Perfect timing.  The drive to Vumba took about four hours, but the scenery was incredible – open savannah punctuated by kopjes (huge, stacked granite boulders… just in the middle of nowhere) and kraals (little settlements of a few round mud huts with thatch roofs).  Somehow I ended up without photos of any of that… but we’ve got 22 months to go, so plenty more opportunities.  Stay tuned.

Step four...  Settle in.  Last weekend, we finally got to move into our house, and some of our stuff that was shipped here has arrived.  That means we’ve spent this week living among boxes and trying to settle in. 

 

The new homestead, complete with front-yard pool.  That tree is a plumeria.  Looking forward to seeing it in bloom.

That big green box in the background is our generator.  More on this below.

Step five… Expect the unexpected.  So far we’ve had a mix of pleasant surprises… and unpleasant ones too.  The fact that our Vumba cabin had no electricity was not a surprise.  NOTHING has electricity in Zimbabwe right now.  A political and economic crisis has left the country in total chaos.  Power is only on for a few hours a day in the wee hours of the night.  We have a generator that is running almost constantly so we don’t feel the effects too much, but the locals certainly have a very different experience.  Of course, away from the house it's a different story since no electricity means no traffic lights and no street lights, so driving - especially at night - is not for the timid.  

There are also fuel shortages.  I’d guess that about one in every five gas stations is actually open at any given time, and those that are often have “queues” of 50+ cars waiting to fill up.  

Currency is also a complete snafu here.  When we arrived, U.S. dollars were accepted, as well as local currency consisting of paper “bond notes” as well as an electronic currency called “RTGS (real time gross settlement)” that transfers money via a phone app or debit card.  However, about two weeks after we got here, the government announced overnight that U.S. dollars were no longer legal tender and that only local currency would be accepted.  Problem is that local bond notes are in incredibly short supply, and the highest domination is $5 (or about 50 U.S. cents).  And RTGS transfers through the app or debit cards rely on card readers or cell data... both of which need electricity… which is off most of the time.  As a result, several places have started quietly accepting U.S. dollars again - although the transactions have to take place in a back office or, literally, under the table.

Today's surprise is that phone lines - land lines and cell service - are out of service across the city.  Who knows what surprises will await us tomorrow and what the next step will be?