August 1

I'm set to go south tomorrow morning. Nothing startling to report here in Harare. I went to the Botanic Garden, which was well maintained (to my surprise) but lacking in anything grand. Today I spent a couple hours in the National Archives brushing up on my Zimbabwe history.

July 30-31

Nothing remarkable has happened in Harare so far. I was very fortunate in finding that the 2011 Harare Book Festival was taking place while I'm here. I spent a couple enjoyable hours talking with folks at the fair about how teachers are trained in Zimbabwe; how black farmers are faring now that they've been given land seized from white farmers; the state of literature in Zimbabwe (I bought three books for my classroom library by Zimbabwean authors); and the state of libraries in Zimbabwe (I agreed to try to send some books to help the cause).
Most of my time has been spent wandering around Harare, learning the layout of the city. I've ridden some more omnibus commuter buses into the suburbs, always an interesting thing to do. I've been searching for the best way to get to Botswana from here. It turns out the cheap buses leave from a crowded suburb called Mbare and that I'd need to get there at around one a.m. to secure a seat on the 6am bus. It sounds dangerous. So I'm going to research whether I can take a luxury bus from the city center to Bulawayo (remember Bulawayo, my favorite city of this trip), then transfer to a bus going further south to Botswana. We shall see.
I've been pondering several questions about Harare and Zimbabwe:
1. Why are there no Chinese restaurants in this country? I can't remember the last nation I've been in where there were none. And I know, from reading the local press, that there are many Chinese in Zimbabwe either mining minerals or searching for new deposits. In fact that is a controversial topic hereabouts. The MDC people (the major party opposed to Mugabe) resent the Chinese, saying they are raping the country of its mineral wealth. (Most of the refining apparently happens in China). Yet somehow all those Chinese workers are keeping a low profile. I saw my first two Chinese folks on the streets this morning. So why no restaurants.
Zimbabwean cuisine is the worst in the world, I'll wager. Every restaurant serves the same fare: chicken and rice; beef and rice; some other meat and rice; chicken, beef, or other with chips (french fries). And I am not exaggerating. No one sells anything else. If you are very lucky someone will serve a salad with the aforementioned. There is one chain of 'restaurants'. They have four incarnations, Baker's Inn (baked goods); Chicken Inn; Steer Inn (hamburgers); and Creamy Inn (Ice cream).
1a. Related to this is the question of indigenisation. This is a new law requiring that all foreign mining operations sell 51% of their assets to Black Zimbabweans (most of whom would presumably belong to Zapu PF, Mugabe's party). One assumes that many of these firms belong to the Chinese, yet I've read nothing in the press indicating that the Chinese embassy or any representative of Chinese business firms is upset.
2. Why are there no motorcyles or motor scooters in Zimbabwe? I've seen two motorcyles (one a nice offroad bike near Masvingo) and not one motor scooter. There are automobiles. Thousands of them in Harare. The omnibuses amount to thousands of vehicles all by themselves. So why no scooters?
3. The trash pickup system is odd. There are no streetside trash receptacle. Everyone simply throws their trash on the ground wherever they happen to be. Then a city employee comes and sweeps the trash into piles at intersections for sometimes mid-block. Generally these piles are set alite, where they smolder for hours. Occasionally a city garbage truck will come along and scoop up piles of trash from these piles into the trucks.
4. Why is it that in this terribly poor country (according to the press annual per capita income is $640; unemployment is 80%) everyone is scrupulously honest and friendly towards me? From my limited experience this is the most honest, friendly country I have ever visited, I almost didn't come here because I was afraid of robbery (or worse). What a mistake it would have been to give in to those fears.

July 29

Too tired to write much tonight. After studying my Lonely Planet I decided to head north to Harare. I found a nice hostel in an area with a lot of college students. No dorm available but I got a room for $25/night, a bit more than I anticipated but reasonable. I expect to stay here three or four days.
The bus ride from Masvingo was tight; we were crammed in like chickens one of those assembly lines that animals rights folks are always citing. I have the sore back to prove it. Luckily an old man decided to be my guide, without my asking, and he even helped me find the right neighborhood in Harare once we got here. What little I've seen of the city does not endear itself to me, but we shall see.

July 27

Today I spent several very enjoyable hours traveling to--and exploring--The Great Zimbabwe, largest archeological ruins in Sub-Saharan Africa. The ruins themselves are very reminiscent of Pergamum, Greek ruins in Western Turkey. And within the entire 'city' is a fortress-like structure that could easily be mistaken for Troy. The story of the place is that a group of people from east of here, in present day Tanzania, migrated to this valley sometime in the 12th or 13th century (I can't remember which right now). They used granite blocks, which they shaped by first heating the rocks, then dousing them with water to fracture the granite structures. Like the Greeks they splayed the stones so that the lower wall was wider than the top. No mortar was used. Like Pergamum they perched a castle-like fortification on a nearby hill, and put the King's residence there. For six bucks I hired a guide who answered all my silly questions without complaint.
Getting to the ruins was half the fun. My hostel host told me if I hoofed it to a nearby college I could catch a minibus to the ruins. I followed her instructions but one part didn't work out as seemlessly as I expected. The van dropped me off near a dirt track. The driver pointed down the road and said, "Go that way." My first thought was about the warthog that had just crossed in front of our van a mile or two back. My second thought was, "is this guy taking the tourist for a (literal) ride, dumping him in some backwater from which I will never emerge?" But so far everyone in Zimbabwe had been straight with me so I set off through the underbrush to find The Great Zimbabwe. The 'road' was a dirt pathway that had been obviously created by many horsedrawn wagons traversing the ground. Two ruts were separated by some tufts of grass. I walked for a few minutes till I came to a fork in the path. Ahead was a farm house with a lady hanging wash. So I motioned to her. "Left?" I signified. She nodded. So I trod onward, avoiding the feces on the path (cow or baboon?). After a few minutes I came to another paved road. Which way, right or left? I guessed right and, shortly, I noticed bright colors in the distance. Those turned out to be a streetside crafts market. The market ladies shouted instructions to me ("Turn here. Go through the hotel, you'll find the park behind the hotel.")
The ride home to my hostel was even better as I got a ride in the back of a covered pickup truck with an old man and a young girl going my way. The ride to the ruins was $2, the ride back was $1. Can't beat that.
Masvingo, where I 'm staying now, is a small city with an air of commerce about it--unlike Bulawayo. It's not prosperous (the electricity is turned off each night at 4:30) but the stores are very clean, and dozens of young men are engaged in building a sewer system of sorts. Their jackhammers woke me at 5:30 this morning. Most of them are digging with picks and shovels. The sad part is that the sewer is intended to direct all the untreated waste into the city's river. The river is barely a quarter mile from town. And there is a nice crafts market just beyond the river. I can't imagine the stink that this will all bring to the neighborhood, not to mention the trash that will fill the river.
I'm really in a quandary about tomorrow. I could head north to Hararre, the Zimbabwean capital. There's a train from Hararre to my next destination, Gaborone in Botswana. But really there is nothing attracting me to the capital except that Zimbabwe has been such a pleasant surprise. I admit to getting a little tired of all the deprivations of this, very poor, nation. Botswana is likely to be more modern and comfortable. I will probably head south, instead, hoping to catch that same train in Bulawayo tomorrow afternoon. That would get me to Gaborone in two days. But that is really too early. I'd rather get there on about August 2nd. I could head east to Mozambique, but transportation is so bad in Mozambique that I might never make it to Gaborone. Time to study my Lonely Planet.

July 25

I wanted to visit the esteemed natural history museum in Bulawayo today. On my way there I chanced upon 'Centenary Park', Bulawayo's central park. It epitomizes this country and this city. The park has been here for over one hundred years I think. Certainly the trees are magnificent specimens, some over 100 feet in the air. You can see that once upon a time this was a stunning tribute to the city. But time and neglect have rendered it a relic. An old abandoned miniature golf course is at the park's center. There is the shell of a once impressive zoo including an aviary. An old locomotive was once used to take kids around a narrow gauge track within the park. The track is still here and the locomotive sits nearby. There are slides and beautiful walking paths. I saw one elderly man in a uniform gamely watering plants from a lone spigot. Very sad. This park needs a benefactor, someone to spend a couple hundred thousand bucks to revive a once great piece of this community.
After the museum I went in search of something from my Lonely Planet guide. The book showed an Arts & Crafts building on the outskirts of town where locals made and sold art work. I figured that would be a great place to buy a gift. I began walking out Sixth Avenue as my guide book instructed. Within about fifteen minutes I was outside the city proper in a residential district that looked very much like public housing projects all over the world. Block upon block of identical single and double story brick buildings lined my way. The homes were small with about 200 square feet of front 'lawn'. Most had trees out front, citrus and other fruit crops in the majority. A few had paved the front area with decorative stones or cement. Most merely had sand or a few small flowers. Most residents did their gardening on the side or out back where I saw many local veggies being grown.
I got lost, as usual, but was able to quick people on the street often enough that I didn't go far astray. As I neared my objective I was greeted by a flood of school children from a local primary school who were going home for the day apparently. I suspect that the school day here is short owing to the extreme heat that covers most of the school year. I tried to ask for directions from the kids but no one understood my English. Language is an interesting issue in Zimbabwe. There are three languages, Shona, Ndebele, and English. The latter is the official tongue and all store fronts are in English. Yet most people seem to speak the native languages. Last week there was a hullabaloo because some of Mugabe's backers wanted new constitutional changes printed in Shona as well as English. My sense is that this is a side issue that crosses party lines. Anyway, I am most surprised that no store owner has opted to put up Shona or Ndebele signs. Seems like a smart marketing move to me.
I found the Arts & Crafts place. There were two buildings, one for pottery (no good for me; too fragile) and one for other crafts. But, like most things in Zimbabwe in 2011, the crafts people have fallen on hard times. I found a small store with some basic basketry and weaving from which I was able to procure one gift. But I suspect if I'd been there twenty years ago I would have found a more robust facility.
Bulawayo is so reminiscent of Malatya, Turkey, a place I found two years ago. Each has a terrific museum. The Bulawayo Natural History Museum must be one of the finest in Africa. It has hundreds of rare specimens including one stuffed elephant reputed to be the second largest ever taxidermed. Each city also has an interesting archaeological site nearby: Malatya had Arsenteppe, a 6,000 year old dig dating to the Hittites. Bulawayo has the Great Zimbabwe, which I hope to visit tomorrow.

July 24

Sunday here in a very Christian nation so not much is open. I used the day to wander the streets and read the local press. Surprisingly Zimbabwe has one of the most vibrant presses in the world if my eyes don't deceive me. I'm especially impressed with the Zimbabwe Independent, a mouthpiece of the opposition but also one of the best newspapers I've ever encountered. Zimbabwean politics is fascinating. Mugabe has been president since 1980, another guy who stayed too long. (Insert praise for the redoubtable Nelson Mandela, who just passed his 93rd birthday). In 2000 Mugabe, for understandable reasons, decided to seize all the major farms from their white owners (who got the land under the apartheid-like regimes of the previous century). He abandoned a previous system of buying the land that was funded by Great Britain. The pace was, apparently, glacial. The result of the seizures, however, was chaotic, and self-aggrandizing for those close to Mugabe. They got rich, the country went down the tubes, now listed as the second poorest on the planet. Civil war ensued. It was mostly black against black with tribal loyalties involved. In 2008 a sort of truce was put in place that gave some power to the opposition. That compromise is still in place though this week's newspapers say that Mugabe has rigged up an alternate financing system using money from mining to skirt the regular government finance system.
Bulawayo is a hotbed of opposition and the local press is full of anti-Mugabe rhetoric. All you see on the streets is the end result, an impoverished population hanging on by a thread. Hyper inflation killed most people's savings in the 2000's. The country abandoned their devalued currency and replaced it with US dollars and South African rand. A big issue locally is the scarcity of US coins. This forces businesses to substitute barter for small amounts. Groceries routinely give candy as 'change', which gives opponents a ready source of outrage. About every third business in Bulawayo sells 'air time' for cell phones. Another big chunk sells cell phones and accessories. There are few restaurants in town and nothing that could be called an upscale hotel. Trash pickups are rare, I gather, and residents simply push it into alleys or available out of the way spots. The telltale smell of raw sewage hit me randomly as I walked the streets.
But what really stands out for me is the friendliness of everyone I've met. Waiters, minivan drivers, newspaper vendors, they all give me a big smile and go out of their way to help me. The guy who drove our bus from Vic Falls chased me down the street for two blocks to try to steer me to a good place to stay.
One of the places where European influence really shows itself here is in sports. The papers are full of news from the Premier League in England, and local athletes excel at rugby and cricket.

Yesterday, through the fog of fatigue, I forgot to relate the excitement of our drive from Vic Falls. The land from Vic Falls to Bulawayo is virtually uninhabited. All I ever saw were a few gatherings of thatched roof huts, mostly fewer than five in a cluster. And the roads were almost devoid of personal automobiles. Traffic was mostly buses and semi's hauling freight. It was not a stretch of highway to liven the heart of a hitchhiker.
So when, about 100k. out of Vic Falls, I heard the telltale noise of a muffler dragging under our minibus (a large one, holding about 30 passengers) my heart stopped. The van came to a slow stop in the middle of nowhere. When the driver turned off the engine I began calculating my chances of survival. Thirty people abandoned on the highway. Who would get the few rides available? Certainly not me. The next settlement was probably forty or fifty miles ahead, and even those places probably didn't have hotels or places for me to sleep. And what of the growling teams of baboons I'd seen crossing the road ten minutes ago? Sleeping beside the road was not an option.
There's no drama, here, of course, because I made it to Bulawayo. The driver snarled, then pulled out a rope. In a few minutes he was thrusting his coat on the ground under the chassis. Somehow he managed to tie up the muffler well enough to get us 300k. further down the road.

I plan to stay here a day or two more before heading out to the Great Zimbabwe.

July 23, I think

I spent the day motoring from Livingstone, Zambia to Bulawayo, Zimbabwe. I learned never to invest in a used copy of Lonely Planet. It cost me today. I got to the Zimbabwe border this morning confident that there was no visa cost, but that was old info. I needed $30. So I had to backtrack to Livingstone, Zambia to get the cash. Luckily a kindly cab driver went out of his way to help me, even to the extent of finding friendly money changers, so it all worked out just fine. Once across the border I found a minivan headed to Bulawayo. It was an eight hour journey on a hard seat but I enjoyed it. I feel better being back on the regular bus lines and off the tours for a while.
I'm dead tired and haven't the energy for a long post. I had some trouble when I got here finding a bank that would take my ATM card (strange fact: the national currency of Zimbabwe is the US dollar) but eventually settled that. I also struggled to locate a good, cheap place to stay but that, too, is now old news. So I'm optimistic. I plan to stay here at least one full day before heading for a historical site called 'The Great Zimbabwe".