(no subject)
Hi Everyone,
Just in case you don’t get through this whole email, I want to let everyone know that my plans have changed slightly. Next week is holiday in Zimbabwe, so we’re going to take our trip to Wange National Park and Victoria Falls and then spend the last week here in Harare. (Originally we were planning to do the opposite). I’m not entirely sure about the dates, but I imagine we’ll be leaving on Monday. I’ll let you know when I find out. In any case, I will be here this weekend in case anyone needs/wants to reach me.
The past couple of weeks have been a lot of fun. Two weekends ago I went to Domoshava, which is a small mountain of rock that the many cultures that have been in Zimbabwe over the years have all considered very spiritual. It’s quite lovely, and when you get to the top the view is great. There are also lots of cool details like a tunnel that is naturally in the rock so that people could light a fire at the base and the smoke would come out the other end. There are also some bushman paintings that are very well preserved, despite their age. It’s a very cool place and I’ll post some pictures on my website soon.
The rest of the week wasn’t too exciting - we were just working. It was Melanie’s last week before returning to Seattle, so we spent some time just having fun with her. She’s a lot of fun and is also just a really caring and compassionate person. She is the one who had the idea to take us to dinner at Jane’s house. She has been very inspirational to all of us, and we plan to keep in touch in Seattle.
Last Friday we had a barbeque (they call it a braii here) with some friends from ZiCHIRe. They brought some cool Zimbabwean music and actually managed to convince me to dance, which is a very rare occurrence (Peter, you’d better learn to dance if you’re expecting me to dance with you!).
Saturday morning we left for Nyanga, which is in the eastern highlands. Ina’s parents have friends who have a cabin there and we were going to stay there, but at the last minute their water pump broke so there was no running water. We were very disappointed, but ultimately realized we could go and just stay in a hotel. While food is expensive in Zimbabwe, other things are really inexpensive. The six of us rented a house with ten beds, two living rooms, and two fireplaces for two nights for about $14 US each.
When we arrived, we went fishing and caught lots of fish to barbeque for dinner (no, I didn’t eat them). They were pretty small fish, but we caught 7 of them, which wasn’t particularly difficult because it was a fishing pond. However, fly-fishing was new to all of us, so it was a good experience.
On Sunday, we hiked up Mt. Nyanga to the highest peak in Zimbabwe…. Well, almost. When we neared the top, we got frustrated with the trail because it looked like it was circling around the peak too gradually. We decided to veer off the trail and just climb straight up so that we could get there faster. It was a little difficult, but lots of fun. When we got to the top, we realized that the trail wasn’t actually circling the peak, but led to another peak near-by with a flag on top that was probably about 5 feet higher than the one we were on. Oh well…. We decided it wasn’t worth the hike to the other peak since we had a great view from the one we were on. The only problem was that we couldn’t take the trail back down so we had to go back over the big rocks and tall grass.
That night we barbequed dinner again and then sat around playing cards with Soren, the PhD/MD from Seattle who came to Nyanga to teach us about mother-to-child transmission of HIV, and Martin, the ZiCHIRe driver. Quiddler is a really fun word game for those of you who haven’t tried it. Despite the fact that English is his 4th language, Martin was way better than me, so I was glad to be on his team!
Monday morning we went horse-back-riding around Nyanga, which was lots of fun, although between the hike and the ride I was quite sore for the next few days! Then we got in the car and drove to Chiendembuya, where we met Dick and John, the men who run the art project with the women of Weya. When we arrived we were invited for lunch (which we ate although we’d already stopped for lunch) with the Chief of Weya, which was a neat experience. He is 103 years old, blind, and very Christian. It’s amazing to me that people with such different customs and ways of living can successfully share the same religion. It was exciting to hear his stories about fighting in the war between Mashonaland and Matabeleland, the two dominant cultures currently living in Zimbabwe.
Then we went to the houses of some of the people in the community who had agreed to host us for a few days. I stayed at the home of Beauty Mugadza, who lives with her husband, her son, Brema (17), and her two daughters, Brenda and Bertha (15 and 13). All of the married sons of the Mugadza family have their own home where they live with their wife and children. Mimi, Ina, and Krycia all stayed at homes belonging to their family. Krycia was right next door to me, so I got to know her family too. It is hard to explain how incredibly different their lives are from mine in America. Their house is very small - just two bedrooms and a living room. I slept with Brenda and Bertha in one bed on a mattress that was about 1/3 of the thickness of my mattress at home. The floor, walls, and ceiling of the room were just concrete and the only thing in the room besides the bed was a small desk and chair. They had a wire running across the room by the window on which they hung their few articles of clothing. Although my description isn’t very flattering, their house is beautiful. Beauty decorated the outside with stones, and it’s obvious that she’s an artist. The kitchen is a separate room with a fire in the middle over which they cook everything. The bathrooms are separate for men and women, and just consist of a concrete shower stall and a Blair toilet. There is no electricity or running water. Each morning we walked to the Bohehole to fetch water in buckets and carried them back on our heads. It was difficult, but I got better out of it and got progressively less wet each time. Even the little four-year-old girl in Krycia’s family carried a tiny bucket of water on her head. It was so cute!
The women in their community work all day. Beauty gets up at 5 AM to wash the dishes from the last nights dinner and clean the house. It’s really interesting how they wash dishes - they have an outdoor sink, with two basins. Much like in America, they wash the dishes in one basin and rinse in the other. The main difference is that they use dirt (which is basically the texture of sand in this part of Zimbabwe) as an abrasive substance to help clean the dishes. Initially, I was shocked to see them put a handful of dirt into a pot and scrub it around with soap, but I soon realized that it actually makes a lot of sense. The sand gets rinsed off, and it really does help to remove anything that’s caked on the plates.
Though she has no vacuum cleaner or mop, Beauty keeps her house much cleaner than I keep my apartment. Each day, she sweeps and scrubs all of the floors in the house. Her daughters sweep the yard, which is interesting because it is made of sand, but it definitely did get cleaner when any garbage or plant materials were swept away. I tried to help with the chores as much as I could, but I felt kind of useless because they had to explain everything to me.
I’d heard that Shona people traditionally eat only two meals per day, so I was a little worried that I would be hungry and I brought protein bars. I couldn’t have been more wrong. They do have limited resources, but they are very creative with what they have. In the morning they have sadza porridge, which is the same as sadza, except that they stop cooking it sooner so it is the consistency of oatmeal. It is really really good. Later they have “tea” which includes tea, but also a big plate of food - bread (John brought this), vegetables, beans (I brought those), or rice (I brought this too). Then they have lunch - sadza and vegetables, dinner is sadza and vegetables as well. It gets dark very early (about 5 PM), so they cook dinner in the dark around the fire. Every once in a while, they hold up a small stick from the fire so they can see the dish they are cooking. To add variety to the food, Beauty put peanut butter in the porridge and the rice. I’d never thought about either of these combinations, but they were so good! I’m definitely planning to continue that tradition (sorry Peter).
Where do they get the peanut butter? They make it from scratch. We all got to learn the laborious process. First you have to shell the peanuts, roast them, pound them, and then grind them on a special flat stone until it’s very smooth. They don’t add any salt or sugar, but the peanuts in Zimbabwe naturally taste much better than those I’ve had in America. It’s very hard work, but was an exciting first-time experience. Last night, Beauty made another batch, which she gave to me to take home. The other neat food they make is called maputi. It’s like popcorn, except that you use white corn and cook them over a fire without any oil or butter. It’s really yummy, but I don’t think it would be good for people who have crowns on their teeth because they’re pretty hard. Beauty also gave me some of this to take home, but I don’t know if it’s going to make it back to Seattle before I eat it all.
Living with Beauty’s family was a wonderful experience. They live such simple lives, and are such happy people. It makes me realize how many things that we care about in America are so pointless. After dinner the first night, Beauty asked me if I liked to sing. I said yes, so she sang me some Shona songs, and then I sang her an English one. The next night, Krycia’s family came over and they all sang and danced together. It was so cool and I got some of it on video tape. Krycia and I taught them the hokey-pokey, which they thought was pretty funny. I had to preface it by explaining that Americans are naturally bad dancers compared to Zimbabweans. At the end of the evening, our “mothers” decided to give us Shona names. My Shona name is Kudzanai Mugadze, which means “respect one another”.
Yesterday all of the older kids (I shouldn’t call them kids… Violet is 19, but married and has a child) took a walk to the river and waterfall. It was a long walk, but it was lots of fun. It was hot, so it felt good to wade through the river and see them catch tiny fish with a huge net. When we reached the waterfall, we sat around and they sang and danced some more for us. It was really cute.
I was sad to leave my family this morning because I really bonded with them over the last few days despite the language barrier. They taught me lots of words and phrases in Shona, and I’ve been practicing so I can surprise people at ZiCHIRe. It was nice to get back to Harare and take a shower because sponge-baths just don’t make you feel quite as clean.
After showering, we decided to go to the office to check our email, but I felt really sick all of a sudden. It was so strange - like a severe stomach flu that only lasted for about 20 minutes. I think it must have been from eating different food and water in Weya. In any case, I’m fine now, so it’s no big deal. We tried to go to the office after dinner, but we didn’t have the gate key and there was no one around to let us inside, so I’ll just have to send this email on Friday.
I hope all is well at home, and I apologize for such a long entry--congratulations if you actually make it to the end!
Just in case you don’t get through this whole email, I want to let everyone know that my plans have changed slightly. Next week is holiday in Zimbabwe, so we’re going to take our trip to Wange National Park and Victoria Falls and then spend the last week here in Harare. (Originally we were planning to do the opposite). I’m not entirely sure about the dates, but I imagine we’ll be leaving on Monday. I’ll let you know when I find out. In any case, I will be here this weekend in case anyone needs/wants to reach me.
The past couple of weeks have been a lot of fun. Two weekends ago I went to Domoshava, which is a small mountain of rock that the many cultures that have been in Zimbabwe over the years have all considered very spiritual. It’s quite lovely, and when you get to the top the view is great. There are also lots of cool details like a tunnel that is naturally in the rock so that people could light a fire at the base and the smoke would come out the other end. There are also some bushman paintings that are very well preserved, despite their age. It’s a very cool place and I’ll post some pictures on my website soon.
The rest of the week wasn’t too exciting - we were just working. It was Melanie’s last week before returning to Seattle, so we spent some time just having fun with her. She’s a lot of fun and is also just a really caring and compassionate person. She is the one who had the idea to take us to dinner at Jane’s house. She has been very inspirational to all of us, and we plan to keep in touch in Seattle.
Last Friday we had a barbeque (they call it a braii here) with some friends from ZiCHIRe. They brought some cool Zimbabwean music and actually managed to convince me to dance, which is a very rare occurrence (Peter, you’d better learn to dance if you’re expecting me to dance with you!).
Saturday morning we left for Nyanga, which is in the eastern highlands. Ina’s parents have friends who have a cabin there and we were going to stay there, but at the last minute their water pump broke so there was no running water. We were very disappointed, but ultimately realized we could go and just stay in a hotel. While food is expensive in Zimbabwe, other things are really inexpensive. The six of us rented a house with ten beds, two living rooms, and two fireplaces for two nights for about $14 US each.
When we arrived, we went fishing and caught lots of fish to barbeque for dinner (no, I didn’t eat them). They were pretty small fish, but we caught 7 of them, which wasn’t particularly difficult because it was a fishing pond. However, fly-fishing was new to all of us, so it was a good experience.
On Sunday, we hiked up Mt. Nyanga to the highest peak in Zimbabwe…. Well, almost. When we neared the top, we got frustrated with the trail because it looked like it was circling around the peak too gradually. We decided to veer off the trail and just climb straight up so that we could get there faster. It was a little difficult, but lots of fun. When we got to the top, we realized that the trail wasn’t actually circling the peak, but led to another peak near-by with a flag on top that was probably about 5 feet higher than the one we were on. Oh well…. We decided it wasn’t worth the hike to the other peak since we had a great view from the one we were on. The only problem was that we couldn’t take the trail back down so we had to go back over the big rocks and tall grass.
That night we barbequed dinner again and then sat around playing cards with Soren, the PhD/MD from Seattle who came to Nyanga to teach us about mother-to-child transmission of HIV, and Martin, the ZiCHIRe driver. Quiddler is a really fun word game for those of you who haven’t tried it. Despite the fact that English is his 4th language, Martin was way better than me, so I was glad to be on his team!
Monday morning we went horse-back-riding around Nyanga, which was lots of fun, although between the hike and the ride I was quite sore for the next few days! Then we got in the car and drove to Chiendembuya, where we met Dick and John, the men who run the art project with the women of Weya. When we arrived we were invited for lunch (which we ate although we’d already stopped for lunch) with the Chief of Weya, which was a neat experience. He is 103 years old, blind, and very Christian. It’s amazing to me that people with such different customs and ways of living can successfully share the same religion. It was exciting to hear his stories about fighting in the war between Mashonaland and Matabeleland, the two dominant cultures currently living in Zimbabwe.
Then we went to the houses of some of the people in the community who had agreed to host us for a few days. I stayed at the home of Beauty Mugadza, who lives with her husband, her son, Brema (17), and her two daughters, Brenda and Bertha (15 and 13). All of the married sons of the Mugadza family have their own home where they live with their wife and children. Mimi, Ina, and Krycia all stayed at homes belonging to their family. Krycia was right next door to me, so I got to know her family too. It is hard to explain how incredibly different their lives are from mine in America. Their house is very small - just two bedrooms and a living room. I slept with Brenda and Bertha in one bed on a mattress that was about 1/3 of the thickness of my mattress at home. The floor, walls, and ceiling of the room were just concrete and the only thing in the room besides the bed was a small desk and chair. They had a wire running across the room by the window on which they hung their few articles of clothing. Although my description isn’t very flattering, their house is beautiful. Beauty decorated the outside with stones, and it’s obvious that she’s an artist. The kitchen is a separate room with a fire in the middle over which they cook everything. The bathrooms are separate for men and women, and just consist of a concrete shower stall and a Blair toilet. There is no electricity or running water. Each morning we walked to the Bohehole to fetch water in buckets and carried them back on our heads. It was difficult, but I got better out of it and got progressively less wet each time. Even the little four-year-old girl in Krycia’s family carried a tiny bucket of water on her head. It was so cute!
The women in their community work all day. Beauty gets up at 5 AM to wash the dishes from the last nights dinner and clean the house. It’s really interesting how they wash dishes - they have an outdoor sink, with two basins. Much like in America, they wash the dishes in one basin and rinse in the other. The main difference is that they use dirt (which is basically the texture of sand in this part of Zimbabwe) as an abrasive substance to help clean the dishes. Initially, I was shocked to see them put a handful of dirt into a pot and scrub it around with soap, but I soon realized that it actually makes a lot of sense. The sand gets rinsed off, and it really does help to remove anything that’s caked on the plates.
Though she has no vacuum cleaner or mop, Beauty keeps her house much cleaner than I keep my apartment. Each day, she sweeps and scrubs all of the floors in the house. Her daughters sweep the yard, which is interesting because it is made of sand, but it definitely did get cleaner when any garbage or plant materials were swept away. I tried to help with the chores as much as I could, but I felt kind of useless because they had to explain everything to me.
I’d heard that Shona people traditionally eat only two meals per day, so I was a little worried that I would be hungry and I brought protein bars. I couldn’t have been more wrong. They do have limited resources, but they are very creative with what they have. In the morning they have sadza porridge, which is the same as sadza, except that they stop cooking it sooner so it is the consistency of oatmeal. It is really really good. Later they have “tea” which includes tea, but also a big plate of food - bread (John brought this), vegetables, beans (I brought those), or rice (I brought this too). Then they have lunch - sadza and vegetables, dinner is sadza and vegetables as well. It gets dark very early (about 5 PM), so they cook dinner in the dark around the fire. Every once in a while, they hold up a small stick from the fire so they can see the dish they are cooking. To add variety to the food, Beauty put peanut butter in the porridge and the rice. I’d never thought about either of these combinations, but they were so good! I’m definitely planning to continue that tradition (sorry Peter).
Where do they get the peanut butter? They make it from scratch. We all got to learn the laborious process. First you have to shell the peanuts, roast them, pound them, and then grind them on a special flat stone until it’s very smooth. They don’t add any salt or sugar, but the peanuts in Zimbabwe naturally taste much better than those I’ve had in America. It’s very hard work, but was an exciting first-time experience. Last night, Beauty made another batch, which she gave to me to take home. The other neat food they make is called maputi. It’s like popcorn, except that you use white corn and cook them over a fire without any oil or butter. It’s really yummy, but I don’t think it would be good for people who have crowns on their teeth because they’re pretty hard. Beauty also gave me some of this to take home, but I don’t know if it’s going to make it back to Seattle before I eat it all.
Living with Beauty’s family was a wonderful experience. They live such simple lives, and are such happy people. It makes me realize how many things that we care about in America are so pointless. After dinner the first night, Beauty asked me if I liked to sing. I said yes, so she sang me some Shona songs, and then I sang her an English one. The next night, Krycia’s family came over and they all sang and danced together. It was so cool and I got some of it on video tape. Krycia and I taught them the hokey-pokey, which they thought was pretty funny. I had to preface it by explaining that Americans are naturally bad dancers compared to Zimbabweans. At the end of the evening, our “mothers” decided to give us Shona names. My Shona name is Kudzanai Mugadze, which means “respect one another”.
Yesterday all of the older kids (I shouldn’t call them kids… Violet is 19, but married and has a child) took a walk to the river and waterfall. It was a long walk, but it was lots of fun. It was hot, so it felt good to wade through the river and see them catch tiny fish with a huge net. When we reached the waterfall, we sat around and they sang and danced some more for us. It was really cute.
I was sad to leave my family this morning because I really bonded with them over the last few days despite the language barrier. They taught me lots of words and phrases in Shona, and I’ve been practicing so I can surprise people at ZiCHIRe. It was nice to get back to Harare and take a shower because sponge-baths just don’t make you feel quite as clean.
After showering, we decided to go to the office to check our email, but I felt really sick all of a sudden. It was so strange - like a severe stomach flu that only lasted for about 20 minutes. I think it must have been from eating different food and water in Weya. In any case, I’m fine now, so it’s no big deal. We tried to go to the office after dinner, but we didn’t have the gate key and there was no one around to let us inside, so I’ll just have to send this email on Friday.
I hope all is well at home, and I apologize for such a long entry--congratulations if you actually make it to the end!