Zimbabwe
Trip Start
Jun 19, 2007
1
12
14
Trip End
Aug 18, 2007
Masvingo,
Zimbabwe
Monday, August 13, 2007
the poorest or the least developed; compared to Malawi it's practically first
world. But it is incredibly sad watching a country that was doing so well not
long ago, sink into a downward spiral. Since its independence 27 years ago,
Zimbabwe has seen great prosperity in the 80's; steady decline in the 90's;
and economic disaster in recent years. What makes it such a travesty is the
fact that it could be a prosperous country today. Instead, it's an economic
train wreck and you can literally see the once solid infrastructure crumbling
before your eyes
1
.I ranted previously in this blog about corrupt leaders causing most of
Africa's problems. Robert Mugabe, the president of Zimbabwe, is the poster
boy for an evil dictator in Africa right now. That inhuman despot is single
handedly destroying Zimbabwe's economy and severely hampering the economy of
the entire region. Probably his worst economic crime has been the arbitrary
seizing of private property; most notably the farmland of whites. Talk about
a one way ticket to disaster, why doesn't he just build a gigantic neon sign
over the country that says: Never invest here, ever. What sensible person
would ever buy a home or invest in a business in Zimbabwe when the government
can simply steal it from you, leaving you with no recourse whatsoever but to
tuck tail and run thankful you didn't get killed by government cronies
10
. Itdidn't use to be this way, but this is the direction Mugabe's insanity has
taken the country. What's worse is that Mugabe's madness has a ripple effect
on the entire region: if it can happen in Zimbabwe, it might happen in
Zambia, South Africa etc.
When Katie and I crossed over the bridge from Zambia to the small Zimbabwean
town of Victoria Falls, you could feel the difference between the two
countries. There was a real sense of desperation that wasn't on the Zambian
side. A steady stream of young men approached us holding wooden sculptures
(probably stolen) trying to sell them. Whenever we waved them off they would
invariably say something like, 'You want ganja? I have cheap marijuana.
Cocaine? You need Zim dollars?'
A quick glance through my guidebook revealed that probably half of the hotels
and restaurants listed in my four year old book are now closed in a town that
should be brimming with tourists. Zimbabwe, after all, is considered by most
to be the best side for viewing the falls
2
. Instead, it's quickly becoming aghost town with restaurants, internet cafes and hotels either boarded up and
closed or completely empty of customers.
When we arrived at the Victoria Falls Guest Camp I saw a portrait of Robert
Mugabe on the wall behind the front desk. He looks ridiculous: a mousy
African man with huge glasses and a tiny mustache that resembles Hitler's,
except that it's even smaller covering only the small divot on his upper lip.
I felt a strong urge to rip the portrait off the wall, throw it on the ground
and stomp on it.
The next day Katie and I visited the falls. I would have to agree with the
general opinion, the Zim side is better. Although it wasn't quite as breathe
taking, since we had seen the falls already, the views of the biggest set of
falls, aptly called 'the main falls', were spectacular. Someone had told me
the day before that during the wet season, when the water in the Zambezi is
particularly high, elephants sometimes get caught in its current while
crossing and are sent plummeting to their deaths over the 300 foot falls
3
. Sad, but that would make for one hell of a photo.
That afternoon Katie and I parted ways. She was heading to Botswana followed
by Namibia and I was boarding an evening train for the city of Bulawayo in
central Zimbabwe. Katie didn't have an adequate guide book so I ripped out
the Botswana and Namibia sections from my book and gave them to her. When the
driver showed up to take her to the Botswana border I felt a sort of older
brother (maybe even paternal -- Ack!) responsibility and I looked the driver
in the eye and told him to take care of her. She's a nice young lady and
will be an amazing doctor someday.
That evening, after a three hour delay, I boarded a train heading to
Bulawayo. I had a 2nd class compartment all to myself because I had bought
out the other three bunks for a grand total of about five US dollars, or
around 700,000 Zim dollars
4
. Due to hyper-inflation, changing money here canonly be done (realistically) on the black market. The official rate of any
bank is 250 Zim Dollars = 1 US Dollar. But the 'real' rate is about 160,000
Zim dollars = 1 US dollar. Yeah, welcome to Robert Mugabe's world of printing
more money to pay bills. Of course, that was the rate I got on the street a
little while ago, it will probably have changed by tomorrow.
The train ride, though pleasant, was uneventful as the best scenery had been
passed through the night. During the morning I could only see sparse woods
with leafless trees. We arrived about six hours late.
When I got off the train in Bulawayo, Zimbabwe's second largest city, I
caught a taxi in front of the station. The driver, Nare, was an elderly but
energetic fellow
5
. I asked him how Bulawayo was and he said, 'We have nothinghere. No meat. No sugar. No bread. Nothing.'
As we drove through the streets of the city I could see long lines of
hundreds of people on the sidewalks of main thoroughfares. Nare would point
and say angrily, 'See that! They are waiting for bread! Bread!'
The image of those people in those lines was a powerful one for me. Mostly
because the city of Bulawayo, at least on the surface, appears quite
prosperous. There are tall buildings; smooth, wide tarmacked roads; traffic
lights set up in all the right places; the standard modern signs most first
world businesses have today. It looked like a smallish city in the states
might have looked a couple of decades ago. And yet there were hundreds,
probably thousands of people waiting in lines to get bread right in the
middle of the city
6
.Poverty is a subjective thing. I've seen so much of it in Africa that perhaps
I've become a bit desensitized to it; or at least certain types of it. Seeing
Ethiopians herding goats in the middle of their capital city or Malawians
subsisting on tiny gardens didn't hit me quite as hard as seeing the poverty
in Zimbabwe. I think it's the fact that Zimbabweans actually had something to
lose; and the others have just always been poor (Or at least what my first
world perspective sees as poor). In the end, maybe it's just easier for me to
relate to the feeling of loss than the feeling to have never had.
Nare was quite fired up while we drove through the city. He really wanted to
show me the empty shelves in the grocery stores, but I declined. I did manage
to ask the question of why there were so many problems
7
. It was interesting tosee fiery Nare suddenly become evasive and vague. He mumbled something like,
'There's just problems' and grumbled unintelligibly. Of course, it goes
without saying who causes those problems, and people don't live to be Nare's
age in Zimbabwe by saying them out loud too often.
The hotel Nare took me to, The Grey's Inn, was my first experience with
Zimbabwean nationalism. At the front desk I was informed anyone who was not
Zimbabwean had to pay 60 US dollars a night. The rate for a local was 1.5
million Zim dollars, or about ten bucks. The staff smirked at me when my jaw
dropped and then happily told me this is a new law in Zimbabwe. Robert
Mugabe, besides being an evil dictator, is also a racist. It's no secret that
he hates whites. Although technically this treatment is nationalism, I saw it
as backhanded racism
8
.I was very lucky to find a basic hostel around the corner that only charged
me 15 US dollars for the night. After dumping my heavy pack, I went in search
of a famous restaurant my guidebook showed to be just a few blocks away. When
I got there, The Cape to Cairo Restaurant -- described as a must see -- was
shut down. It's been around since 1923 serving African game food, but a sign
out front read: Closed until further notice. It might as well say, 'Closed
until Robert Mugabe is overthrown.'
Slightly depressed, I ate at a fast food place called the Chicken Inn. It
didn't exactly cheer me up because they were out of nearly everything: No
chips (french fries), No salt, No ketchup (or any other sauces). My order,
with no other options, ended up being two chicken sandwiches
9
. One sandwichconsisted of a small chunk of chicken between two pieces of bread. I ate
them feeling lucky not to have waited for hours in a bread line.
The next morning I woke up very early to try to find transportation to the
town of Masvingo. Transport is a major problem in Zimbabwe right now because
gasoline can only be purchased on the black-market. The pumps at all the gas
stations, and there are many major gas stations, are all dry. This left me
with only one option -- hitchhiking. That morning I stood for three hours at
a BP Petrol station that looked like something out of a post-apocalyptic
film. The bright, shiny, and useless gas station pumps were overrun with
hitchers hanging about trying to catch a ride from any vehicle heading east
that might give them a lift. Every time a truck pulled near a crowd of people
would descend on it like hungry jackals. At first, I was typically docile
about this process, but after a few hours was shoving my way to the nearest
vehicle with the best of them and found myself in the back of a small pick-up
with about 15 others heading to Masvingo. The further south I go, the colder
it gets. The four hour ride in the bed of that pick-up was freezing, and I
was wearing everything I've got for cold weather, too.
When I arrived, sore and shivering, in Masvingo I was greeted by more
nationalism from all the local hotels. After visiting several that just
flatly refused me, I wound up at at a place called 'The Flame Lily' that was
at least willing to entertain the idea of putting up a foreigner for the
night. The woman behind the front desk started by telling me I needed to pay
for my room using the official exchange rate and I laughed right in her face.
They were charging 700,000 Zim dollars for the night. At the black market
rate that was about 5 US dollars; at the official rate it would cost me about
2,800 US dollars. Like I said, I laughed in her painfully ignorant face. With
a bit of cajoling and a small bribe she agreed to let me stay in the room as
long as I laid low and didn't let the police see me staying there.
The lovely town of Masvingo, which, sadly, also had bread lines and empty
shop shelves, wasn't what I had almost frozen to death to see. About 25 km
south of it are the greatest set of pre-colonial ruins in sub-Saharan Africa
known as 'Great Zimbabwe'. The only stone ruins bigger on the continent are
the Egyptian pyramids. In 1980, upon independence, the country took its name
from this site and its former name, Southern Rhodesia, was no more.
Shortly after checking out of The Flame Lily the next day I found an
interesting Rastafarian dude name Astwell to drive me out to Great Zimbabwe.
He was a classic Rastafarian with his dreadlocks and funny way of talking. He
always started off and finished speaking by saying, 'Eee-yaaaah.'
'So are you from Masvingo?'
'Eee-yaaaah. I'm from Masvingo. Lived here all my life. Eee-yaaaah.'
I'm not sure if I was disappointed or relieved that he didn't say 'Mon.'
The city of Great Zimbabwe was built by Bantu speaking Africans around 1200 AD
and was the greatest civilization in sub-Saharan Africa until about 1500 AD. The
ruins of the city are divided into two main areas: The hill complex and the
great enclosure.
The hill complex was where the King and other royals lived. Being on a hill
was obviously more defensible and it was interesting to see how the ancient
people had harmoniously combined the natural rock formations on the hill with
their own man-made walls. The rocks of the walls were well shaped and they
needed to be because no mortar was used between the stones.
I hired a guide for the day named Chris for three US dollars. Chris, Astwell
(who tagged along), and I were the only three people I saw in the entire
complex during the three hours we were there. A crazed dictator and economic
crisis apparently don't help tourism. The guide knew his stuff. He spoke a
lot about the king -- a man with over 250 wives -- and how he had absolute
rule over the people of Great Zimbabwe. As he described this sort of thing
to me I couldn't help but think about how little things have changed here
800 years later. A ruler with absolute power is still in control, although
I'm pretty sure he doesn't have 250 wives. From time to time, when Chris would
make a particularly strong point, Astwell would help emphasize by saying,
'Eee-yaaaah.'
With the hill complex finished we made our way to the biggest structure at
the site -- The Great Enclosure. It's basically an enormous circular stone
wall which has a circumference of around 800 feet; is about 30 feet high; and
up to 15 feet thick in places. There is a lot of speculation about what it
was exactly used for with the most widely accepted theory being it was a sort
of schooling area for the young boys and girls of the city. Inside the
structure is the very symbolic 30 foot high conical tower which can be seen
on many of the Zimbabwean bills that Mugabe is so fond of printing. As with
the hill complex, none of these structures used mortar; they are simply well
shaped stones carefully stacked.
When I returned to Masvingo I had a lot of time to kill because the bus I had
booked to South Africa wasn't coming through until 11:30 that evening.
International buses had gas, at least. The power was out in town (a common
occurrence) so with no chance to get on the internet I went to the only
happening place in town that didn't involve waiting for hours in a line --
the local pub.
Bob's Tavern was a dark, dingy bar packed with only Zimbabwean men. There was
a brief hiccup to the crowd buzz when I walked in as everyone turned to look
at me, but they quickly went back to jabbering and drinking. I sat down at
the only available stool at the bar and ordered a half liter bottle of Castle
beer which cost me about 30 US cents. Within minutes the fellow seated to my
immediate right started talking to me. His name was Gift and when I didn't
understand and asked him to repeat it he said, 'Gift, like a present.'
Gift is a middle-aged, college educated Zimbabwean who works at an asbestos
factory; one of the few factories still running in the country. When we
started talking, he was, like many Zimbabweans, very proud of his country. He
really wanted to know where I had been and gave me countless suggestions on
other places I needed to visit. He raved about and repeatedly insisted I
visit the city of Mutare in the highlands to the east and the Chinhoyi caves
Northwest of the capital of Harare. This conversation was somewhat surreal
for me. I was polite, but at times I wanted to scream at him, 'Do you know
how hard it is to travel in this country right now?' Gasoline can only be
bought on the black market and this guy was acting like nothing is wrong.
In time, I came to realize that it was all a show, though. Beer has the great
side effect of bringing out a bit of honesty. Gift, like everyone else not in
cahoots with Mugabe, was miserable. He was vague and evasive, just as Nare
had been, but he acknowledged repeatedly there were 'problems'. When I told
him I lived in Dubai he became extremely interested in job opportunities
there and drilled me with questions about the place. Knowing full well he had
little chance of ever getting a job there I tried to cheer him up by saying
things will have to get better. But he just seemed so hopeless about any
prospects for the future. Gift was a nice man and when I shook hands with him
and headed off to go catch my bus to South Africa, it felt like I was boarding
a life raft and leaving him on a sinking ship.
Cruising south down the perfect blacktop highway on my expensive Greyhound
bus, I was feeling torn between the sadness of Zimbabwe left behind, and the
joy that I was leaving it behind.
South Africa is next...
