Zimbambwe

Waiting for an opportunity

June 26, 2018

After two months in Malawi, I spent the past three weeks travelling through Zimbabwe and Mozambique. The journey started again under the motto “God is always good”: I took a bus from Blantyre to Harare, the capital of Zimbabwe. After 5 minutes on the road, a man stood up and began preaching aloud that God may protect us and guide us safely to our goal. He didn’t, however, stop at that point, but continued to preach for around 50 minutes. Mostly in Chichewa and quite an aggressive tone, so not necessarily what you long for at 6:30 in the morning. Shortly before we arrived in Harare 12 hours later, there was another short prayer to thank the Lord for his guidance. Another interesting feature of the bus ride was the music. As soon as the sermon had finished, the bus driver switched on Zimbabwean music at almost full volume, accompanied by cheaply produced, self-made music videos showing people dancing in front of their houses. I don’t know how all the other passengers survived the trip (the volume was kept up for around 11 consecutive hours); I did only thanks to earplugs. At some point, I also realized that they were actually playing the same 10 songs in a loop.

In the following weeks, I experienced various other means of transport: First, there are long-distance buses which, however, don’t have a fixed schedule. Rather, they operate after the minibus principle: The bus starts when it is full. And when a lot of people disembark at one stop, the bus simply waits until it has filled up again. This makes planning of your arrival time quite impossible. Luckily, I was in no hurry and had good books on me. That way, you can/have to accept it as a different way of travelling than what you’re used to from Europe. Next means of transport: the train. Zimbabwe, also a former British colony like Malawi, has a quite decent railway network from colonial times. Or, maybe I should rather say: its railway network used to be decent in the 1950s. Since then, and especially in the last 10 years, no more money was invested into maintenance of the system. As a consequence, both rails and trains wear down more and more. Therefore, the maximum speed at which trains can travel has to be reduced every few years. It used to be 90 km/h in the good old times, nowadays, it’s only 60. But this gives you the rare opportunity to experience going by train as it might have been in the 1950s, so I decided to take the night train for the last 400 km to the Victoria Falls. Regular travelling time was 12 hours. It took us 16 (yes, for 400 km). But besides the delay, the journey was fine. I was in a sleeper cabin, and luckily I had brought a sleeping bag as since some years, they don’t provide bedding anymore (although it was first class). Also, the board restaurant is out of order. I shared the cabin with two elder Zambians who use the train quite regularly and said that some ten years ago, it was still way better maintained. But the nice thing about the train is that it passes through a big national park, so that we saw a giraffe shortly before we arrived to Victoria Falls.

Due to the long delay, I was planning to take the bus to go back some days later. But then one of the Zambians told me that his friend (who was not in the cabin at that moment) had actually lost 4 fingers in a bus accident on exactly that route some months ago. Which is quite horrifying, so I decided that it might be better to also take the train to go back. Which resulted in a funny story: The train left on time at 7 pm. Five minutes later, the conductor came into the cabin and told me that 25 minutes ago, a locomotive had jumped the rails some three hours ahead of us. As this was a part of the track with only one rail line and “most of the workers have already knocked off”, he expected “several hours” delay. When I asked him why the train had actually left Victoria Falls and not stayed there (then I could have still taken the bus from there), he said that the incident had only been posted in an internal WhatsApp-group by one worker, and that “the management” had been too slow to make the appropriate decision of stopping the train. But he told me that directly before the site of the accident, we would reach another station from where I could try to catch a bus in the morning. At 3 am, he woke me up to tell me that the locomotive had been cleared and we could proceed to our destination. The train started moving and I went back to sleep, just to be woken up again at 6 am. Now he told me that the locomotive had not been cleared after all, and somehow we were also back in the station where we had been at 3 am.

At that point I decided that I wouldn’t wait the whole day in the middle of nowhere until “the management” had finally figured out an appropriate way to deal with the situation. So I packed my stuff and went out to the main road with another passenger who also wanted to catch a bus. He had a small shop for hygiene articles in Bulawayo (our destination) and was importing nappies from Zambia for that. So I spent the next three hours with him and large bundles of nappies sitting on the side of a dusty road in no man’s land. The two buses that passed by during that time didn’t even slow down when we tried to wave them down. After three hours, a white Zimbabwean farmer stopped and, after laughing at us for sitting there in the middle of nowhere, took us all the way to Bulawayo. He turned out to be very kind and even brought me to the bus that I needed to catch from there. So, quite an adventurous journey.

That is the train, looking decent from the outside, but being very worn-off inside.

But obviously I also did some other things beyond evaluating public transport systems in different East-African countries. It was a very exciting time to travel around Zimbabwe: Last November, Robert Mugabe had been forced by the military to resign from his presidency after 37 years in power. He was followed by his vice-president, and in two weeks, there will be the first (hopefully) fair elections in many years. While travelling, I was reading the book “The Fear” by Peter Godwin, a white Zimbabwean journalist and author reporting about the incidences after the 2008 elections: Mugabe had lost the elections to the opposition leader Morgan Tsvangirai. However, he did not accept the defeat, but manipulated the results such that a re-run would be necessary. In the weeks before the re-run, he applied extreme violence against anyone who had voted for the opposition in the last election: Thousands were tortured, murdered, their homes burnt down. In the last decade, an estimated 3 million Zimbabweans left the country fleeing from this terror (out of around 16 million in total). In the book, Godwin gives very detailed descriptions of the violence that had happened, risking also his own life during the investigation. I found it very striking to realize that all this has happened only 10 years ago, meaning that the people I encountered on the streets today are the same who either suffered from or committed all this violence only a few years back.

The book was then also an excellent starting point to discuss with the various people I met about how they experienced the incidents. In Zimbabwe, I stayed mostly with locals from the Couchsurfing platform which was good to get to know different perspectives: For example in Victoria Falls, I stayed with two brothers, Martin and Chang, young black Zimbabweans. Martin is working at the local gas station as a manager. Chang, however, is a car mechanic who used to work and live in Harare until some months ago. As business was going worse and worse there, he moved to Victoria Falls, “waiting for an opportunity” to gain ground there. I spent quite a lot of time with him, and actually the term “waiting for an opportunity” seems to describe his professional life quite well: He went to South Africa for some months, “looking for an opportunity”, then back to Harare, now to the Falls. Somehow, I find this expression symptomatic for a lot of (especially) young people I met during my travels. They all have small businesses which run more badly then well, they are all waiting for better times to come. Officially, 95 % of Zimbabweans are unemployed, meaning that only 5 % have a formal job. Seeing that 50 % of Africans are below 18 years old, this situation will probably get worse in the coming years.

Just above the gorge, there is a nice café offering spectacular views of the bridge and the gorge.

In Masvingo, I was hosted by an old white Zimbabwean couple who used to run a farm until they were expelled from it in the early 2000s when Mugabe pushed through a land reform overnight. This reform basically stated that all white people had “stolen” their land from black people, even if they owned it since generations or had bought it formally. As a consequence, most were driven off their farm some days later by mobs of armed veterans from the war for independence in 1980, without any form of compensation. That was also what had happened to the couple from Masvingo. When they told the story, they sounded very bitter and resentful, so that I asked them if they ever thought about emigrating from this environment that was (and in some parts still is) quite hostile against white people, even if they are Zimbabwean since several generations. But they said that they never really thought about emigrating as they still see Zimbabwe as the best place for them to be. I encountered this pride of their native country also with some other white people who had experienced similar stories. This is clearly different for the generation of their children who mostly live abroad to study or work. I was quite touched to hear all these stories first hand.

The badly managed land reform had severe consequences for the country: White farmers had owned most of the farmland in the country, with well-established production schemes and high harvests, making Zimbabwe the “bread basket” of Southern Africa. A lot of grain and maize was exported to neighboring countries in the years before the reform. Then the reform came, and almost all white farmers were chased away. Sometimes, they either destroyed all their machinery themselves, like tractors and windmills to pump groundwater. But in other cases, the equipment was destroyed by the war veterans who were chasing them away. Just to realize some months later, when they tried to take over the farm, that it was maybe not the best idea to destroy your water source if you need to water your crops. So in essence, Zimbabwe dropped from the “bread basket” straight into a severe food crisis and famine, having to import tons of food from the World Food Program to prevent millions of people from starving.

Also in the beginning of the 2000s, the Zimbabwean currency experienced ever-increasing levels of inflation, up to an incredible 11.200.000 % in 2008, the second-highest inflation rate ever. At that point, the Zimbabwean dollar was suspended, introducing the US dollar as one of the officially accepted currencies. However, most of the US dollars present in the country were flowing abroad quite quickly, partly through excessive spending of government officials, partly to China. When I arrived in Harare, I asked the taxi driver how life is going and he said “hard, we have no money”. While “no money” is in most other countries rather used in an abstract way, it is actually true in a literal sense in Zimbabwe: There is no physical money in the country. ATMs don’t give out any money anywhere in the country, meaning that as a tourist you have to bring all the money you want to spend with you in cash. To keep the economy running, the Central Bank introduced a bond note, which is basically fake money which can only be used within Zimbabwe. Officially, the exchange rate bond note:US-$ is 1:1, but as everybody who wants to trade with any place outside of Zimbabwe needs US-$, the black market exchange rates range from 1.2:1 to 1.45:1. So as a tourist, you can actually profit quite strongly from this situation by exchanging your US-$ to bond note and paying everything in bond note. Crazy.

The list of public services which declined in quality during the last years of the Mugabe era could be continued to the health sector, education, transport… In all these sectors, Zimbabwe used to have one of the best performances on the whole continent. Now, all of them lie scattered in pieces and it is somehow a wonder that the country is still functional in daily life. With this background, I find it surprising that ZANU PF, the ruling party and also Mugabe’s party, which is responsible for all this, still has good chances to win the elections in July. But I guess that there are some underlying dynamics in voter behavior which are hard to understand as a tourist travelling through the country only for a few days.

On the way to Harare, with low-budget music videos on the screen.
On the way to Harare, with low-budget music videos on the screen.
In Harare, I did a free walking tour with a local student. Here, we are in Harare Gardens, which is a nice park with some old trees (this one is around 100 years old).
In Harare, I did a free walking tour with a local student. Here, we are in Harare Gardens, which is a nice park with some old trees (this one is around 100 years old).
However, it has a reputation of being dirty and badly maintained. Luckily, when I visited, the park had just recently been cleaned up.
However, it has a reputation of being dirty and badly maintained. Luckily, when I visited, the park had just recently been cleaned up.
In one corner of the park, there is a strange relict from colonial times: an outdoor bowling zone. In the background, you see the tallest building in Zimbabwe, the reserve bank (already quite a difference to Blantyre where there is no skyscraper or anything close to that).
In one corner of the park, there is a strange relict from colonial times: an outdoor bowling zone. In the background, you see the tallest building in Zimbabwe, the reserve bank (already quite a difference to Blantyre where there is no skyscraper or anything close to that).
Harare has a very active cultural scene. This is inside the National Gallery, showcasing contemporary Zimbabwean artists.
Harare has a very active cultural scene. This is inside the National Gallery, showcasing contemporary Zimbabwean artists.
The Eastgate Center is a large shopping mall which was designed similar to a termite mound. Opened in 1996, it was designed to be ventilated and cooled entirely passively, and as such was one of the first buildings in the world to use natural cooling to that extent.
The Eastgate Center is a large shopping mall which was designed similar to a termite mound. Opened in 1996, it was designed to be ventilated and cooled entirely passively, and as such was one of the first buildings in the world to use natural cooling to that extent.
This traditional healer collects roots and other plant parts and makes remedies out of it, with which he claims to be able to heal any disease, from a broken heart to AIDS.
This traditional healer collects roots and other plant parts and makes remedies out of it, with which he claims to be able to heal any disease, from a broken heart to AIDS.
In the train station of Harare, departure and arrival times are still displayed the old-fashioned way.
In the train station of Harare, departure and arrival times are still displayed the old-fashioned way.
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On the central market of Harare.
On the central market of Harare.
Shoes for virtually any size.
Shoes for virtually any size.
A central part of any restaurant or eatery: As people eat with their hands, there is always a facility like this to wash them before and after eating.
A central part of any restaurant or eatery: As people eat with their hands, there is always a facility like this to wash them before and after eating.
Syngenta apparently still has a better reputation than in Europe. I'm not sure if they would display their stores that openly in Germany.
Syngenta apparently still has a better reputation than in Europe. I'm not sure if they would display their stores that openly in Germany.
This sermon was just held next to the road. When I stopped to watch it, one member of the congregation approached me and told me that I either have to join the group or walk on as the priest wouldn't tolerate passers-by to watch. Which is somehow funny if you hold your sermon in public space where you cannot really tell people what to do.
This sermon was just held next to the road. When I stopped to watch it, one member of the congregation approached me and told me that I either have to join the group or walk on as the priest wouldn't tolerate passers-by to watch. Which is somehow funny if you hold your sermon in public space where you cannot really tell people what to do.
Basically right in the city, there is a small game reserve offering horseback safaris. Which has the advantage that you get quite close to animals as they accept horses more than cars or pedestrians. So here we met some elands...
Basically right in the city, there is a small game reserve offering horseback safaris. Which has the advantage that you get quite close to animals as they accept horses more than cars or pedestrians. So here we met some elands...
...some zebras...
...some zebras...
(cuddling)
(cuddling)
...and finally also a family of giraffes.
...and finally also a family of giraffes.
At each stop of the bus, a lot of vendors came running towards the bus, selling snacks, drinks, fruits and phone chargers. While most came into the bus, you could directly buy from these by reaching out of the window.
At each stop of the bus, a lot of vendors came running towards the bus, selling snacks, drinks, fruits and phone chargers. While most came into the bus, you could directly buy from these by reaching out of the window.
Signs of the upcoming elections. This is the party of Mugabe, which also holds the presidency at the moment.
Signs of the upcoming elections. This is the party of Mugabe, which also holds the presidency at the moment.
Also in Bulawayo, the train station has seen better times. I wanted to drop my luggage at the cloak room, but not really surprisingly it was out of operation.
Also in Bulawayo, the train station has seen better times. I wanted to drop my luggage at the cloak room, but not really surprisingly it was out of operation.
That is the train, looking decent from the outside, but being very worn-off inside.
That is the train, looking decent from the outside, but being very worn-off inside.
Watch out for skiers!
Watch out for skiers!
This Baobab is called the Big Tree and is 1000-1500 years old.
This Baobab is called the Big Tree and is 1000-1500 years old.
This gives a nice impression of how big it is.
This gives a nice impression of how big it is.
My couchsurfing hosts and me were having a barbecue by the Zambezi river. Some kilometers further downstream, the Zambezi forms the Victoria Falls.
My couchsurfing hosts and me were having a barbecue by the Zambezi river. Some kilometers further downstream, the Zambezi forms the Victoria Falls.
Bathing is not recommended.
Bathing is not recommended.
Baboons were all over the place, waiting for people to stand up from their tables to finish whatever food they had left. If you didn't pay attention, they would even steal food from your plate while you were still eating.
Baboons were all over the place, waiting for people to stand up from their tables to finish whatever food they had left. If you didn't pay attention, they would even steal food from your plate while you were still eating.
My first impression of the falls which stretch for over one kilometer in the direction of sight. The sky was actually cloudless that day, so all the "clouds" are water vapor being shot up into the air by the power of the falling water.
My first impression of the falls which stretch for over one kilometer in the direction of sight. The sky was actually cloudless that day, so all the "clouds" are water vapor being shot up into the air by the power of the falling water.
This part of the falls is called "the devil's cataract". I stood at that spot for over an hour, just watching the water rushing down and feeling its power.
This part of the falls is called "the devil's cataract". I stood at that spot for over an hour, just watching the water rushing down and feeling its power.
One of my hosts joined me to visit the falls. He had brought his selfie-stick.
One of my hosts joined me to visit the falls. He had brought his selfie-stick.
As the air is so moist, rainbows are a common sight all around the falls.
As the air is so moist, rainbows are a common sight all around the falls.
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At some viewpoints, the air was so saturated with water vapor that it was constantly "raining".
At some viewpoints, the air was so saturated with water vapor that it was constantly "raining".
The Victoria Falls are neither the highest nor the widest waterfalls in the world, but they are the largest as they have the largest sheet of falling water (width 1708 m, height 108 m), a part of which can be seen here.
The Victoria Falls are neither the highest nor the widest waterfalls in the world, but they are the largest as they have the largest sheet of falling water (width 1708 m, height 108 m), a part of which can be seen here.
As the air is so moist, a small patch of rainforest grows on the rocks opposite the falls.
As the air is so moist, a small patch of rainforest grows on the rocks opposite the falls.
At this time of the year, the falls are almost at maximum volume, as the rain season has just finished. Which has the disadvantage that at many viewpoints, you cannot see a lot due to the water vapor (like here), but also the advantage that you can feel the falls at full power.
At this time of the year, the falls are almost at maximum volume, as the rain season has just finished. Which has the disadvantage that at many viewpoints, you cannot see a lot due to the water vapor (like here), but also the advantage that you can feel the falls at full power.
The Victoria Falls bridge, a masterpiece of engineering constructed in 1905.
The Victoria Falls bridge, a masterpiece of engineering constructed in 1905.
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I spent the whole day in the national park to also see the falls at sunset. It was worth it :)
I spent the whole day in the national park to also see the falls at sunset. It was worth it 🙂
Just at the outlet of the falls, the water has to make a sharp turn, making it go in circles and giving this place the name "boiling pot". At this point, whitewater rafting tours start which I was planning to do. However, the season for this begins only in a few weeks as the river still has too much water.
Just at the outlet of the falls, the water has to make a sharp turn, making it go in circles and giving this place the name "boiling pot". At this point, whitewater rafting tours start which I was planning to do. However, the season for this begins only in a few weeks as the river still has too much water.
The Zambezi gorge.
The Zambezi gorge.
From the bridge, you can do bungee jumping. Probably one of the few places on the planet where you can jump into a rainbow.
From the bridge, you can do bungee jumping. Probably one of the few places on the planet where you can jump into a rainbow.
Still quite frightening to watch people jump down that little platform.
Still quite frightening to watch people jump down that little platform.
As the Zambezi marks the border between Zimbabwe and Zambia, I also went to Zambia for one day to see the Zambian side of the Falls.
As the Zambezi marks the border between Zimbabwe and Zambia, I also went to Zambia for one day to see the Zambian side of the Falls.
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At one point, we had to cross a small bridge to get to another patch of rainforest. The bridge was completely within the water vapour cloud, so it gave a good feeling for what it must be like to walk through a cloud. It's wet. Very wet.
At one point, we had to cross a small bridge to get to another patch of rainforest. The bridge was completely within the water vapour cloud, so it gave a good feeling for what it must be like to walk through a cloud. It's wet. Very wet.
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My guide apparently had the opinion that the most important purpose of my visit was to get as many pictures of myself as possible. So he took my camera right at the start and took a looot of pictures of me at every viewpoint. Sometimes, he also gave very detailed instructions what I should do: Picture 1 - "normal".
My guide apparently had the opinion that the most important purpose of my visit was to get as many pictures of myself as possible. So he took my camera right at the start and took a looot of pictures of me at every viewpoint. Sometimes, he also gave very detailed instructions what I should do: Picture 1 - "normal".
Picture 2 - "now put your sunglasses on"
Picture 2 - "now put your sunglasses on"
Picture 3 - "and now your hood". And all of this in circumstances where I could slowly feel water sipping through my jacket, running down inside my pants. But full commitment to good pictures!
Picture 3 - "and now your hood". And all of this in circumstances where I could slowly feel water sipping through my jacket, running down inside my pants. But full commitment to good pictures!
Down by the boiling pot.
Down by the boiling pot.
On the way back up, I came across a large group of baboons which were definitely less impressed by tourists walking past them than the tourists themselves.
On the way back up, I came across a large group of baboons which were definitely less impressed by tourists walking past them than the tourists themselves.
Some were posing for a nice picture with the bridge. He even asked me to send him the picture on WhatsApp.
Some were posing for a nice picture with the bridge. He even asked me to send him the picture on WhatsApp.
That's the bridge where I got soaked before. It's very interesting how quickly the conditions change, depending on wind and also time of the day. Now, you can cross the bridge without getting wet at all, it seems.
That's the bridge where I got soaked before. It's very interesting how quickly the conditions change, depending on wind and also time of the day. Now, you can cross the bridge without getting wet at all, it seems.
On my way back, I saw this couple doing a bridge swing which is probably not as bad as bungee jumping, but still.
On my way back, I saw this couple doing a bridge swing which is probably not as bad as bungee jumping, but still.
Just above the gorge, there is a nice café offering spectacular views of the bridge and the gorge.
Just above the gorge, there is a nice café offering spectacular views of the bridge and the gorge.
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And a bit further up is the Victoria Falls Hotel from colonial times, where you can still enjoy your High Tea with a view of the steam rising from the Falls.
And a bit further up is the Victoria Falls Hotel from colonial times, where you can still enjoy your High Tea with a view of the steam rising from the Falls.
On the way back from the Falls, the guy who picked us up from the roadside stopped to buy some pottery for his mother's birthday. In one pot, I discovered some honeycombs which a beekeeper had brought by. Quite often, the honey is not extracted from the combs, but they just chew them like this and then spit out the wax.
On the way back from the Falls, the guy who picked us up from the roadside stopped to buy some pottery for his mother's birthday. In one pot, I discovered some honeycombs which a beekeeper had brought by. Quite often, the honey is not extracted from the combs, but they just chew them like this and then spit out the wax.
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This is part of Great Zimbabwe, a medieval city built between the 11th and 15th century. It's the largest manmade structure from pre-colonial times in Sub-Saharan Africa. The site gave the country its name after independence, Zimbabwe meaning "Big House of Stone". This tower is the most emblematic structure of the site and is now used as the symbol of the ruling party ZANU PF, along with the two trees on the side.
This is part of Great Zimbabwe, a medieval city built between the 11th and 15th century. It's the largest manmade structure from pre-colonial times in Sub-Saharan Africa. The site gave the country its name after independence, Zimbabwe meaning "Big House of Stone". This tower is the most emblematic structure of the site and is now used as the symbol of the ruling party ZANU PF, along with the two trees on the side.
A special feature of the city is that it was built completely without mortar, only piling up granite bricks which were produced by heating larger blocks of granite and then pouring cold water over them to break it. A very tidious procedure.
A special feature of the city is that it was built completely without mortar, only piling up granite bricks which were produced by heating larger blocks of granite and then pouring cold water over them to break it. A very tidious procedure.
This circular wall is known as the Great Enclosure and is the largest structure of the site, housing also the tower from the previous picture. The whole site is UNESCO world heritage, but probably the least visited I've ever been to. Per day, there are maybe around 20 tourists coming as everybody goes to the Falls, but only few visit the rest of the country, also due to the currency problems and, in the past, the dictatorship of Mugabe.
This circular wall is known as the Great Enclosure and is the largest structure of the site, housing also the tower from the previous picture. The whole site is UNESCO world heritage, but probably the least visited I've ever been to. Per day, there are maybe around 20 tourists coming as everybody goes to the Falls, but only few visit the rest of the country, also due to the currency problems and, in the past, the dictatorship of Mugabe.
On a hill nearby was the castle of the king. This place was used for religious rituals, with the king standing at my position and the congregation down where the picture was taken from.
On a hill nearby was the castle of the king. This place was used for religious rituals, with the king standing at my position and the congregation down where the picture was taken from.
The view from up there was pretty nice.
The view from up there was pretty nice.
On markets, and even in the supermarket, you find quite frequently different kinds of insects being sold.
On markets, and even in the supermarket, you find quite frequently different kinds of insects being sold.
In the Eastern Highlands close to the border to Mozambique, I visited a small castle built in the 1950s which was merged in an interesting way into the surrounding rocks.
In the Eastern Highlands close to the border to Mozambique, I visited a small castle built in the 1950s which was merged in an interesting way into the surrounding rocks.
The view from the terrace of the castle. It is surrounded by a patch of dense rainforest with very old trees.
The view from the terrace of the castle. It is surrounded by a patch of dense rainforest with very old trees.
For example these eucalyptus trees. They might not seem large at first glance, but you can estimate their size if you look for the people in the picture or the signpost.
For example these eucalyptus trees. They might not seem large at first glance, but you can estimate their size if you look for the people in the picture or the signpost.