Everyday life

Hello all!

My first post from Zim! So exciting. I have been in my new job about 10 days now. It is going well, I am super busy trying to implement a health project in 2 only months. Zimbabwe is an amazing place with such beautiful people. The situation here seems stuck in a dangerous stale mate and people are really suffering.

Everyday activities that I would take for granted back home are long drawn out affairs. Filling up with fuel is a perpetual hassle requiring serious planning. You have to get coupons- which means getting money- they you have to by them through a bank (or get them from a "commodity trader") then you wait in a queue for a long time and finally you get a set amount of fuel only. I carry 60L of diesel with me on my roof and then as this picture show,s top up when needed. We made a funnel from a water bottle- since most of our precious diesel was ending up on the road not in the tank.

Every day office life can be equally frustrating- we have no printer cartridges or photocopy toner so we are reliant on friends going to neighbouring countries to bring them in for us. Hopefully we will have as of next week.....

Trying to phone people is the most enormous palava. The networks are completely overloaded so you can try to ring someone for 40 mins before you get through. Today they crashed and all phone calls suspended- here is hoping tomorrow it is back up and running again.

Incredibly the people here are so resilient. They keep pressing on in the face of overwhelming adversity. It is a great deal harder for most people, they are not worrying about photocopy toner instead they are worrying about getting food. More on that in another blog entry....

For now though I have to dash off- love to you all

Hatts

And then there was one

Hattie: Tomorrow 'ART08' comes to an end as the remaining few; James, Anna and Amy leave me to go on to their various destinations. Amy returns to the UK and James & Anna go to Namibia, Uganda and Oman. I am driving back to Zimbabwe in the morning to my new home, Bulawayo. On Monday I start a new job coordinating DFID's health education programme for an NGO. I am excited about this opportunity and am looking forward to getting my teeth stuck into a new challenge.
Currently we are in Botswana and have spent an amazing and super hot week in the salt pans. I am running around today trying to stock up on food and supplies for my return to Zim. There is a lot to buy since the shelves in Zim are bare and any food there is available is unbelievably expensive- $129 for a bottle of squash!!
Hopefully I will be able to arrange some sort of internet in Zim, the internet cafe I found was $120, so obviously I couldn't use it! But if I find somewhere I will be updating this blog more regularly and hopefully be able to stay in touch with you all better than I have been.
Lots of love to you all
xxx

Zimbabwe

Anna:

So apologies for the infequency of our updates. Internet in Zim was prohibitively expensive we are now in Botswana having spent three weeks in Zimbabwe. We had a very special time there. Writing about the awful situation there will take another post when I have more time.

We were hosted by a very kind family in Bulawayo. Sadly said goodbye to Rich and Sophie who flew back to the UK and Emmanuel who returned to Uganda. That left the four of us - Hattie, Amy, James and I we were joined for various trips within Zimbabwe. Oria came with us to Vic Falls which was simply stunning. We took thousands of photos and had an amazing sunset cruise on the Zambezi where we saw crocs, hippos and a herd of elephants with babies swimming across the channel. Hopefully we'll get a chance to put the photos up. It was great to be there some of us had been slightly sick before we left for the falls but we all have now made full recoveries :-) No more V and D! We then went up to Mana Pools in the very north of Zimbabwe this time we were joined or rather we joined Matt and two of his church friends Doug and Min. They took us camping in style! We spent four days there and had cooked breakfasts every morning snacks throughout the day and delicious bbqs and other amazing meals at night. It was about 40 degrees so days tended to be up at 5 for an early game drive. Then lazing in the shade by the Zambezi till 4 when we did another game drive, had drinks and snacks watching the sunset over some beautiful area of the huge national park and then dinner and bed. What made the whole time so special apart from the food and the company which were amazing was the place itself. It is the only place in Zim where you can do walking safaris without a guide - although Doug has just taken his exams to be a guide and had a massive knowledge and love of the place and the wildlife. Also, there are no fences around the campsite so the wildlife are free to wonder in - and do! We had elephants, buffalo, hippos, hyenas all inches away from our tents at times - going to the toilet was an adventure - literally every time and at night required massive torches to make sure we didn't walk into a sleeping buffalo on the way. So much happened there but I'm running out of time but the highlights were a massive bull elephant walking inches away from us as we sat crouched in awe under a tree at our campsite playing cards and praying it would continue walking and not crush us! Also, seeing a pride of lions witha kill that was then stolen from them by 20 + hyenas. Doug said he had seen it on tv but never in real life. Other highlights was the stunning park itself, the mountains of Zambia across the Zambezi, the huge herds of impala (deer) and warthogs and numerous other types of game. However, I have run out of time to elaborate. We then spent a few nighs in Harare, returned to Bulaway and are now in Botswana. As a group we have a week left before Hattie returns to Zim, Amy returns to the UK and we continue north to Uganda. Much love to you all.