At Kufua Vilage

Right, so that should read "Kufunda Village", but I'll be using the office laptop for the next while o post, and that's how the office laptop rolls. I'm calling the blog Hapana, which means 'nothing is happening', ich is how it is a lot of the time in Zim. I might change it, if I think of something i like better. This may be haphazardly updated, but i'll try to give a sampling of life here, as i can.

I'm staying, as the title suggests, at Kufunda, which is a learning centre/ecovillage just outside Harare. (check ut their website @: http://www.kufunda.org)/ It's on 300 acres of scrub forest and fields. I think it used to be part of Hampton Farm, which was massive, and has been largely resettled as part of the ongoing land redistribution. Therere a number of buildings here, mostly done in traditional style, with mud brick walls and thatched roofs. But updated. Posh trad., windows that open, and doors, and furniture. There's an office, huts for residents, bath huts and toilet huts, guest huts, a school hut, and various others whose function i'm not sure of yet. All mixed in among the trees and the mammothly gigantic boulders strewn throuout the woods. It's quiet, and there are lots of birds, and long back caterpillars that i think are called zongorongoro, because they zongorongoro around on their 2 million little legs.

I'm the lone guest in my 3 bedroom guest hut. Apart from a little scorpion, whom I haven't seen since the first night, and several thousand tiny ants that apparently don't bite. There's a comfy single bed, another bed where i can splay my things, a chair too low to sit in, a mosquito net, candle holder, another chair, curtains. I can lie down and look up at the thatch circling up to a point above. There's an electric light, when the power is working. I cook over in a kitchen hut, on a massive, ancient industrial stove. When the power is on. It only has an on/off switch, and takes 15 minutes to get to a useful temperature. When the's no power I cook outside in the adjoining outdoor kitchen; it cooks things faster but takes some time to gather wood. There is no fridge, which poses a few challenges.

I've met a few of the folks here: Lorraine, Sikhethiwe, Allan, Claudia, Takunda, Tsitsi, Ticha, Admire, Fidelis, Marianne, Enoch, Stephen, Sebastian. There are 13 adults, apparently, and 19 children. Nt sure how long i'll be here but it feels good so far; I like the village feel, the quiet, the community.