Home leave

I am now in the beautiful Lake District enjoying the freezing weather and all the delights of the winter here. I arrived on Christmas day and surprised my family, timing my arrival perfectly for Turkey and my favourite, bread sauce!

It feels wonderful to be home but also slightly strange as I adjust from Zimbabwe life. Apart from the obvious differences- food in the shops, no cholera (!), phone & internet that work, temperature etc etc there is also a more subtle difference to being in the UK. Working is Zim is exhausting. Normal activities are difficult and time consuming. You expend large amounts of energy on small tasks that in the UK would take 5 minutes-Filling the car with fuel is a classic example. Being here feels so refreshing but it makes me realise how tired I am. There is this strange atmosphere in Zim that people don't usually understand unless they have been there. It is an oppressive weight that hangs over the country. I was talking to a colleague I work with on the Cholera programme before I left. He has worked all round the world in some crazy places but he said that Zim was by far the hardest place he had been posted in and he regularly compares it to North Korea! It may sound extreme but I don't think the comparison is that far off. The continual propaganda coming from the government and the messages they pour out through state television and radio all contribute to the atmospheric temperature. The people of Zimbabwe truly are remarkable, so resilient and strong in such horrible and intense circumstances- and they don't get the break I am having! It is an enormous privilege to be working with them.

I return to Zim on the 9th Jan and will dive straight back into work.
Before then however, I intend to eat a great deal and enjoy the luxury of British life. The Africa road trip gang will be reunited for New Year (with the exception of Emmanuel & Rachel) so it will be great to catch up and go for some lovely Lakeland walks together.

Hopefully I will get to see as many of you as I can before I leave. I don't have a UK mobile but I am on email and my UK landline.

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!!

Poo, poo and then more poo

Cholera has arrived in Zim....big time. I have the job of coordinating my NGO's response to this outbreak. We are desperately trying to prevent the epidemic from reaching what the UN has predicted will become a catastrophic disaster. It is proving difficult however when everything seems set against us. The main international agency coordinating the entire relief effort has no fuel, we are short of most other things and interagency collaboration is proving a nightmare. It takes about 15 minutes to get the networks to connect to make a phone call if you are lucky.

Today we started trying to get to every primary school and tell the kids about cholera before they shut for the end of term- 91000 children in 5 days. When you arrive at the schools most of the teachers are absent because their wages don't cover their transport into school and the children just stay for a few hours. Thankfully we were able to find some amazing volunteers who have given of their time for free to help us spread the message. People are so generous with the little that they have.

As the rain gets more intense the outbreak will intensify so although I know Zim is desperate for rain part of me wants it to stop to give us more time to prepare. The sewage system is here has broken down and sewage floods the streets (as the above photo shows). The water company are running out of the chemicals needed to treat the water- it feels as though everything here is grinding to a dangerous halt. The 10 years of decline in Zim have taken a serious toll and this rapid onset emergency is therefore all the more devastating.

I am quite exhausted and there is so little time for a break. I am torn between wanting to keep going but feeling as though my reserves are running so low. I do not want to get burnt out- but getting burnt out seems a luxury that most of Zimbabwe cannot afford. Having said all this I still love it here, it is such a privilege to be here for such a time as this.

Love to you all
xxx

The breadbasket of Africa....

Well this is my local supermarket (no joke). As you can see we are spoiled for choice. (I'm not sure if the sign comes out on the blog- it says shoplifters will be prosecuted)!

Getting food and other supplies is a perpetual hassle and trying to work out whether I need Zimbabwe dollars or foreign currency is another time consuming activity. On Thursday I bought pay as you go airtime for my rarely working Zim mobile- it cost me 50,000 Zim dollars, I had to buy more on Monday and the same amount cost me 500,000 Zim dollars! Crazy crazy especially when I can never get through to anyone on the phone anyway since the networks are so bad (although they still charge you for calls that don't go through, humph).

So life here can be slightly irritating on a day to day basis. My mild irritation is nothing however when compared to the suffering of millions of Zimbabweans as they battle to survive here. I can get food and although it may not be my first choice, I have the luxury of being well fed. For most Zimbabweans the story is so different. Everyday presents new challenges and feeding a family is a hard slog. You wouldn't really know it though- people are so joyful in the most hideous of situations. I am surrounded my people who continually 'make a plan'. This is a well known Zimbo phrase now! The people here are seriously creative problem solvers....although you would rarely find these plans are within the confines of the Zimbabwean government's oppressive laws.

The creativity and passion of the people here is amazing. I am loving working with my colleagues- so much joy and enthusiasm despite the situation. The problem is that the people are drip fed messages that they are worthless from their own Gov. There has been no investment here in health, sanitation, education for years and things are unravelling. The messages coming from Harare are that you are not worth our time and money and you certainly are not worth any form of justice. Instead the money goes on 'personal' projects while the beautiful people of Zim continue to die and suffer. I am about to start working on a cholera prevention and preparedness programme because we have cholera here and it will devastate the township areas. Cholera is in Zim because the money that should have gone on water treatment and the sewage pipes has been stolen. Try encouraging a child to believe in themselves and take care with hand-washing etc when no one has bothered to treat their water. The lie here is that 'you are worthless'- I can't wait to see that lie exposed for what it is.

Love to all of you- thank you for all of your messages- apologies for not getting to reply to them more or getting onto Facebook- internet is hard here. x

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