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.

Now we are only 7

Hattie: Well today Rachel left to go to Beira and the 7 of us remaining are on our way to Zimbabwe. We had an amazing time in Mozambique and met some truly beautiful people- we will post some photos from Zim. Time is always a pressure for us as we rush to make various deadlines. Today it is getting to the border before it closes.
We plan on spending the night in Mutare and then getting down to Bulawayo tomorrow. Looking forward to having some time to update the blog properly!!
Lots of love to you all.
xxx

Photos

Hattie: Finally we get to the internet and can put up photos and write the blog!
Everything has been going well, we are quite near Mozambique and are very excited. Sending love to you all!
xxx

Photos are of Rachel Christening the Car Ruach, Rachel Flying the Kite on Wilderness Beach, Rich & Sophie in the car, The Stone Cottage where we stayed early on and driving with people on the roof!

Hopefully more photos to follow!

A quick update:

Anna: So the first week - there have been many highs and fewer lows on this trip. That's actually a rhythm we've got into every evening we've been telling eachother the best and worst parts of the day Perhaps it might be interesting to here some. The highs have involved an amazing afternoon at the beach, where we raced on the beach, played tag with the waves, attempted to fly a kite and had a lot of laughs. We've also been sharing our life stories with eachother as we don't all know everyone and that has been really special We've spent some beautiful times with God and driven through some breathtaking landscapes. We've watched whales playing just beyond the breaking waves and stayed in places where deer roam freely and right up to our balconies, last night the hostel had it's very own pet Zebra! Oh yes and the offroading has been awesome especially when we road on the top in the middle of the mountains and horses surrounded the vehicle (very man from snowy river!)

The lows have included gigantic spiders, waking up in the night screaming possibly because of one of those spiders on my head. We've had two flats and an incessant beeping on the blackbox in Ruach ( we named the landrover Ruach - Rich dreamed it in the night - it's Hebrew for breath of God) which we have now learnt to shut off. Our communication with eachother has had some teething issues but we're getting past them.

We've begun to drive through more "African" towns where people stop, smile or reach into the car simply to shake our hands and I've begun to dream of a new way of relating to God and others. Much ove to you all :-)