Update, Of Sorts.
So about a week ago I was at South Lauanga national park, camping & contending with hippos & elephants right outside my tent, going on game drives starting at ruddy stupid hours (5AM!), visiting a textiles factory and a really awesome village.
The visit to the textiles factory was cool and for the first time, I’ve stopped and thought, hey, I could like, have this factory. This factory could be mine. I was poking around all clandestine like with my camera, taking pictures and making mental notes.
And I started thinking, wow, look how the African has come and made this really cool factory, and then I bump in the one of the managers of the factory, a white European, just like all the other managers. I ask a few questions, and she eventually goes, oh, how would you like a tour?
The village project in the local area was also really cool. You could actually talk the villagers without them asking for money, everything was clean (well, as clean as mud huts can get) and I had a good old chat with one of the guys there who was around my age about the differences in our culture. Very enlightening.
Four days ago I was canoing down the Zambezi (Runs along the Zim-Zambia border, one side of the river is Zimbabwe & the other is Zambia), yet again contending with hippos & elephants, except the hippos were allot more of a dangeresque. This was really, really cool fun, paddling about, covering about 25km a day and camping on islands in the middle of the river.
There was a little incident with an elephant wandering right up to our camp (Elephants are a crapload more scary when you're 4 meters away from them on foot, not in like, a car 10 meters away from them) and poking around whilst we were all crouched down by canoes trying to decide if we'd chance it with the hippos if the elephant charged.
And now I'm sitting in a cafe` at Livingstone, crossing into Zim this afternoon. Sitting in the bus this morning, I felt a little pang of excitement reading the newly posted information sheet up the front, Zimbabwe, Population: 15 Million, Land Area: 370 Million Square KM, Head Of State: Robert Mugabe.
I saw the headline of a paper the other day which said something akin to "Problem? What Problem. Extortion, Murders & Still No Results, Robert Says There Is No Problem". Our cook (from Zim) says that there’s secret police EVERYWHERE, and we're not to talk about anything political or else we will get arrested.
But other than that, I'm thinking about bungee jumping off Victoria Falls & really looking forward to Zim. And as always, I hope all is well in the world of everyone else,
-Benjamin
The visit to the textiles factory was cool and for the first time, I’ve stopped and thought, hey, I could like, have this factory. This factory could be mine. I was poking around all clandestine like with my camera, taking pictures and making mental notes.
And I started thinking, wow, look how the African has come and made this really cool factory, and then I bump in the one of the managers of the factory, a white European, just like all the other managers. I ask a few questions, and she eventually goes, oh, how would you like a tour?
The village project in the local area was also really cool. You could actually talk the villagers without them asking for money, everything was clean (well, as clean as mud huts can get) and I had a good old chat with one of the guys there who was around my age about the differences in our culture. Very enlightening.
Four days ago I was canoing down the Zambezi (Runs along the Zim-Zambia border, one side of the river is Zimbabwe & the other is Zambia), yet again contending with hippos & elephants, except the hippos were allot more of a dangeresque. This was really, really cool fun, paddling about, covering about 25km a day and camping on islands in the middle of the river.
There was a little incident with an elephant wandering right up to our camp (Elephants are a crapload more scary when you're 4 meters away from them on foot, not in like, a car 10 meters away from them) and poking around whilst we were all crouched down by canoes trying to decide if we'd chance it with the hippos if the elephant charged.
And now I'm sitting in a cafe` at Livingstone, crossing into Zim this afternoon. Sitting in the bus this morning, I felt a little pang of excitement reading the newly posted information sheet up the front, Zimbabwe, Population: 15 Million, Land Area: 370 Million Square KM, Head Of State: Robert Mugabe.
I saw the headline of a paper the other day which said something akin to "Problem? What Problem. Extortion, Murders & Still No Results, Robert Says There Is No Problem". Our cook (from Zim) says that there’s secret police EVERYWHERE, and we're not to talk about anything political or else we will get arrested.
But other than that, I'm thinking about bungee jumping off Victoria Falls & really looking forward to Zim. And as always, I hope all is well in the world of everyone else,
-Benjamin