The end of the year always brings lots of celebrations, starting
with Andrew’s birthday and Thanksgiving at the end of November. We celebrated Andrew’s birthday with our
trivia team that meets weekly at a restaurant in Harare. Our team consists of a rotating cast of about
10 characters, including other embassy colleagues as well as a few folks from
other embassies, locals, and visiting guests of team members. We usually finish in the top 4 or so out of a
field of a dozen-ish teams, and have even managed to win a couple of times,
which earns us a few bottles of wine.
The season finale was last week, where we tied for second and won a
bottle of champagne. Works for me!
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| Happy birthday, Andrew! |
Then we celebrated Thanksgiving at a colleague’s house. The dinner featured all the usual fixins’,
although all with their own African flare.
For example, the cranberry sauce was made from dried cranberries. And the two turkeys on the table came from Brazil via South
Africa. Our embassy commissary procured
a load of frozen turkeys that were trucked in from South Africa… but the truck
got held up at the border and ended up arriving to Harare about 24 hours later
than expected. I admit I was a bit
dubious about eating frozen turkeys that may or may not have remained frozen
during their epic voyage, but they were actually delicious… and everyone
present lived to tell.
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| A successful, botulism-free Thanksgiving! |
We also fit in a trip to Nyanga during a long weekend in
November. Nyanga is a town about 5 hours
from Harare in the mountains near the eastern border with Mozambique in an area called the Eastern Highlands. There are waterfalls, misty mountains, and lots
of peace and quiet. The first day, we
woke up to rain and no electricity (the latter of which is pretty par for the
course), so we lit a fire in the fireplace, worked a jigsaw puzzle, and watched
the rain… which was a nice change. The
second day, we woke up to sunshine and a hike out to the top of the escarpment
showed that we were actually on TOP of the clouds. We went for an a lovely hike to take in the
views before heading back to Harare.
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| Waterfall views on a hike in Nyanga. |
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| Rock outcrops dot the Eastern Highlands. |
I headed to Addis Ababa, Ethiopia for a training class the first
week of December. I was there for almost
a week, which mostly consisted of meetings in windowless conference rooms. But I was able to get out for one afternoon,
so I hired a driver to show me around town a bit. Addis felt like a bustling metropolis
compared to Harare – traffic, construction projects, people everywhere! A bit of a shock to the system, but a great
chance to experience a very different kind of Africa.
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| Cool carvings in the hillside outside Addis. |
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| A tour of the Mercato in Addis. |
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| Need something altered? This lineup of tailors stands ready. |
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| Recharging with some Ethiopian coffee. Those slightly wild eyes attest to the potency. |
When I returned from Addis, we celebrated our fifth wedding
anniversary at a local animal sanctuary called Wild is Life. They take in orphaned and injured wildlife
and try to release them if they can. Those that can't be released stay at the sanctuary for guests to learn about them – and get
up close! We got to feed a few of the
giraffes – so fun – and they had several baby elephants – so cute! A guide walks the small group around the
grounds and talks about the wildlife. In
between and at the end, guests get to sit on their patio with cocktails and
nibbles and watch as the sun goes down and the animals roam around. A memorable way to celebrate our anniversary!
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| Everyone smile for the camera! |
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| Elephants! And baby elephants! |
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| The pangolin - a highly endangered (and very long-tongued) anteater-meets-armadillo. |
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| The kudu herd turned up at sunset. |
And then we come to the holiday season. Harare is decidedly unfestive – no holiday
lights around town (or any lights, really, since the power is almost always
out), no holiday displays in store fronts (because there aren’t that many
stores), no holiday music on the radio or movies on TV (because there is only
one state-owned TV station in Zimbabwe).
According to one local, this is not always how it was, but the dire
economy has made for a pretty austere holiday season this year. Fortunately, Andrew and I have become pretty
good at figuring out how to make our own fun, so I’m sure this holiday season
will be no different. We got the house
decorated for Christmas before Andrew had to head back to the states for work
for a couple of weeks. He’s back now,
and came bearing a suitcase full of Trader Joes’s snacks and goodies. Peanut butter pretzels! Christmas come early! Thank you, Santa! We’ll celebrate Christmas Eve tomorrow as we
make the rounds to a couple different colleagues’ houses, and then we’ll host
several friends for Christmas dinner at our place.
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| Our place is ready for Christmas. |
From our Zimbabwe home to yours, we wish you a very merry
Christmas and a happy new year!
