Vendors

Vendors are ubiquitous in Zimbabwe. Along streets, roads and footpaths, at bus stops and bus stations,standing in the middle of the road at intersections, they sell toys, airtime, newspapers, veggies, eggs, rope, ice cream, snacks, bags, fruit, clothing, belts, batteries, phones.... virtually anything you need. It's generally a low margin occupation, with long days spent breathing polluted city air and being harrassed by police and extorted by political factions, but with unemployment in Zimbabwe at somewhere north of 80% it's the only option for a great many people. An airtime vendor (selling $1 strips that will add airtime to a cell phone) pays 92 cents wholesale for each strip, and makes on average around $9 per day in Harare, although they can make more on a good day.

Municipal vendor stalls in Chinhoyi.

                               Selling mangos in Nyamhunga, Kariba.

Many people moonlight as vendors as well; during Zimbabwe's worst economic period around 2008, when teachers weren't paid for months at a time, one teacher told me she only managed to survive by travelling to South Africa and bringing back goods to sell. Below is a typical Zimbabwean story: my friend was getting his truck fixed by a mechanic friend; he couldn't pay him, but agreed to go and sell 2 tons of butternut squash, in 10 kg bags, that the mechanic received in payment from a farmer for repairs on a truck. My friend went around and set up by roadsides and in parking lots at the shops in various suburbs for days until the squash were gone; he and the mechanic split the profit.

                        Selling maize cobs (chibage) roasted on a home made braii.

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                                            At 4th St. kombi rank, Harare.

 These guys had staked out a spot at a police roadblock on the the main road from Harare to Mutare. Plenty of captive customers in the kombis and buses lined up along the side of the road, waiting while the drivers had their papers and vehicles inspected.

       

Tomato vendors along the Harare-Mutare Rd. - vendors selling similar items seem to group together; you'll pass 6 or 8 in a row selling mushrooms, or honey, or mangos.

                                            The 'shoe section' in Rusape.
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Monument vendors relaxing by their wares... if you need it, chances are you can find it on a street near you.



Ants

 Back at Kufunda, played some mbira for Fidelis, and Ticha and Mai Ti invited me over for sadza and mushrooms, since the power was out and I had no wood to cook with. Went to bed about 10 listening to rain on the thatch.... and dreampt of some folks, lying on some rocks, and one of them had ants slowly covering him. I half woke, still in the dream but aware that I was scratching, thinking I was just paranoid from the dream, but then actually squished 2-3 little somethings, so flicked on my headlamp and.... the bed was a mass of little ants. The sheet, the pillow, under the pillow, under the mattress, on me... I brushed them off, but they were all mixed up in the bedding and all over the bed. Was going to go sleep on the other bed (where I store my stuff) but it had ants wandering around it as well... and the floor was teeming. So, naked and headlamped, dodging mosquitoes, I started sweeping the bed, shaking out the sheets and blanket. Twice knocked my pillow down into the thickest area of ants on the floor, where it was instantly covered. Shaking them off the blanket meant they were landing on my travel-sticky body (no power = no pump = no water), getting caught in the mosquito netting... every time i stood still they would start crawling up my legs... (this has happened a few times meditating in the dining hut; I'd be 15 minutes or so in and feel my legs itching, think it was just my mind trying to avoid focussing, but eventually I'd open my eyes and see my calves swarming wth ants). Found some containers to put the bed legs in, put water in two of them and waited for the remaining ants to leave down the other two, with the ecouragement of the broom. Then watered the other 2 containers and dived into the (hopefully) ant-free haven of my bed to read for an hour, on high ant alert... only a couple stragglers showed up, so I felt my paranoia subside enough to sleep. In the morning they were all across the floor, in the peanut butter ,jam, honey, dishes... I swept them out 3-4 times, bu they just kept coming until I felt driven from my home. Claudia says they get bad like this in the rainy season, when they're looking for dry shelter. They've become my personal little demons... they don't really bite, they just saturate your existence until you feel like screamng.
(In other infestation news, there are bats in the office but you rarely see them - they just leave droppings everywhere.)

Mhondoro

Last week I ran into Mark Hoskins, whom I meet every year at Zimfest; he was about to head out to Mhondoro to visit Cosmas Magaya - a noted mbira player and teacher who's visited us a number of times - so I tagged along. Mhondoro is an area of communal lands south of Harare, named for a big lion spirit. We met Cosmas' son Muda, a very good mbira player in his own right, and he took us down to Mbare Musika, where the big bus terminal is. We found a kombi heading our way... then waited 3 hours for it to fill up. In the interim we were solicited by an endless stream of vendors selling hats, knives, cosmetics, rope, candy, eggs, cigarettes, pop, sausages, combs, bread, popcorn, maize cobs... from one of the more engaging women, carrying a veritable tuck shop on her head, I bought a toothbrush I don't really need. I did need a rope, so bought ten metres, plus some rubber straps cut from inner tubes, to lash things to my ghost motorcycle, should it ever fully materialize. And I did need a knife to help peel my cucumber...

                                                  Hat and scarf vendor.

   Passed the usual police roadblocks - they tend to pull over kombis a lot, as there's usually something amiss that can turn into a fine - or bribe.

                      We arrived in Mhondoro at sunset, and walked a short
           distance down to Cosmas' grandfather's compound, here he now stays.

In the morning we went off for a tour of Nhimbe For Progress, the NGO that Cosmas co-leads.... but first he had to stop by his kraal to get a report on his cattle from the herdmen. Forty-five, mostly Hard MaShona Type, with a Brahmin bull. As in much of Africa, cattle are a Zimbabwean's bank account.

At the Nhimbe centre - the staff and children. Nhimbe runs a pre-school program, a health post and medicinal herb garden, a library, and a music program, and pays school fees for many local children who would otherwise be unable to attend school.

        The women at Nhimbe also sew to help raise money. All the staff  are
    currently working on a volunteer basis; there is a general shortage of funds.

    We finished with a performance by the Nhimbe youth marimba project,
                         with  the centre staff joining in the singing.

As we were leaving, two members from the CIO (Police Intelligence) unit of Mubaira Police Detachment, 27 km away, showed up - they had heard that two white people had arrived the previous day, and wanted to question us "about our mission in Zimabwe." I stifled a perverse desire to embark on a shaggy dog story about our CIA backers; they were just doing their job, and it was all fairly casual - they had had to take lifts down to see us, as their detachment probably didn't have a car, and they had no uniforms... in fact they were probably bored to tears most of the time. It does appear as though things are tensing up in anticipation of an election, though. In the end we played marimba and mbira for them, and they left with smiles.

We went home and spent the afternoon unwinding with some mbira. Cosmas, Mark, and Muda.



                                           Fetching water from the well....

                                                  Inside the kitchen.

                                                          The granary.

Playing a last song in the kitchen before departing. This kitchen has seen many famous mbira players pass through, and been the scene of many ceremonies (biras). Cosmas and his son Muda.

Thats MR. Elephant to you.

Usually I don't end up doing anything 'touristy' on my visits to Zim, but I've been intrigued by the canoe safaris offered on the Zambezi ever since Robbie (my Muzuva bandmate) did one during our 1994 trip. This was a three night trip called Tamarind, led by our guide Cloud and guide-in-training Takesure, and consisting of myself, 3 Norwegians, and an Australian family. We put in at the Chegundu border post after a three hour drive from Kariba.

 

It was fairly leisurely paddling, with a current running at 6-7 km/hr to help us along.

The big (literally) thing to watch out for were hippos; they can weigh up to two tons, and seem to be habitually crabby. They generally hang out in family herds of 4-12 animals, claiming one area of the river. As they often sleep on the bottom (their specific gravity means they can't float) and come up for air without waking, the lead canoe must knock a paddle on the canoe every so often to alert them that we're coming, so that they don't come up underneath the canoes. Then they watch you from the shallows, with just ears, eyes, and nostrils visible. (sorry, my ipod isn't really cut out for wildlife shots.)

Did I mention they were big? Hippo track by our first campsite.

                                                   Weaverbird colony.

Storm moving in from the Zambian side of the river.

Second night's camp. A huge wind came up that night and our tents started to migrate down the sandbar...

Hippo avoidance: single file along the bank. The idea is to not get between the hippo and it's escape route to deep water. Because they generally only feed on land at night, during the day we weren't worried about them piling down on top of us from the bank - but Cloud did tell us of a friend who had a juvenile elephant mock-charge them, then lose control at the bank edge and come crashing down into the centre of the canoe, smashing it in two. Everyone survived... but I was just as happy that the elephants we saw were at a distance. 

Sunrise on the river, last morning.

We pulled out at Mana Pools National Park; this is a hippo skull on display at the park office.

And an elephant femur...

After a buttock-deflating 5 hour drive back to Kariba in the back of a Land Rover, I unpacked at our backpacker's lodge and then went for a walk up the driveway, hoping to see an elephant we'd spotted on the way in. Unfortunately it spotted me first.... and charged. This taken from behind the biggest tree I could find.

I thought it would be content with scaring me off, but it kept coming, although I slowed it up by deking through the small trees.

At the lodge, it decided to take out it's frustrations on the garbage bins...

And then, satisfied, left. Ian, the lodge manager says there are regulars who visit 2-3 times a week, more in the dry season, and they tend to be grumpy. Grumpy elephants, crabby hippos... I have new appreciation for the quiet Zongororos that inhabit Kufunda.

In Chinhoyi with Patience

Stopped in on my way to Kariba to spend a few days with Patience Chaitezvi in Chinhoyi. Patience is a wonderful teacher of traditional music (mbira, ngoma, singing), as well as a secondary school teacher (history, religion). She lives in Chikonohono location in Chinhoyi, having bought a stand (lot) and built a house with earnings from her teaching trips to North America. It's a new area, and the infrastructure is still a work in progress.

Patience' house is on the right. She hopes to be able to afford to buy a car sometime in the next year.

Sign near the Chikonohono bus terminal, advocating a peaceful vote - a great example of Shonglish (mixing Shona and English.) There will be a referendum on the constitution this year, and Zanu - President Mugabe's party - is also pressing to dissolve the unity government and hold early elections.

  On my last day we went to visit the Chinhoyi Caves. Chinhoyi was the first site of armed resistance during the liberation war, and freedom fighters hid in these limestone caves. This is looking down through the entrance cave to the pool, which is up to 300 ft. deep.

Approaching the pool.