This is the twelfth in an ongoing series of posts that capture journal entries from my incredible trip to Zimbabwe in 1997. You can read more about my motivation for the journey and why I’m revisiting it now in the original post. I was 21 at the time I wrote this.
 
Part 12
7/8/97, Chitungwiza, Zimbabwe
I was supposed to go to the movies with Jayson, but he had more family obligations so I had Lucilia drop me off near the theaters in city center but they didn’t have anything I wanted to see. I ate at a place called Wimpey’s. They server breakfast, burgers, milkshakes, etc. It is a pretty common chain (no McDonald’s here), but the food wasn’t very good. Here the french fries are called ‘chips’ and you are expected to put vinegar on them. Lucky for me there was also ketchup on the table. I got a paper from one of the waiters and discovered that The Fifth Element was playing at Westgate, a mall which I discovered was very far away. I took a taxi and it cost me over $70z. I got out there early, a very fancy mall, but as I wandered around, most of the shops were closed because it was Sunday.

I bought my ticket, only $13z! Then I looked at the fabric store, I haven’t figured out how much meter of cloth is so I didn’t want to buy anything. They had some really nice polished cotton prints, $80z for 5 meters. The woman there said it was enough to make one outfit. Everyone around the mall and in the theater was clearly wealthy, no one from Chitungwiza would go to this mall. It made me feel a little uncomfortable. The movie had assigned seats which was strange, but the movie was good, it was nice to lose myself in something familiar.

The taxi was waiting as I had instructed, to get back I just gave him $100z. He let me off at the wrong bus stop though and I had to ask several people where to go. The bus stops have recently changed so nobody really knew where to to, it was getting dark and I was getting pretty worried. I finally was directed to the right bus stop for Zengeza 3 and actually managed to get off at the right stop and find my way home unmolested. Florence, Anna, Kuda and Tapiewa were in the living room with the fireplace going. They had just returned from a weekend in the ‘rural areas.’ Francis was asleep, I guess he had too much to drink. The power had been off due to high winds and it went off again soon after I got home. We ate around the fire and I went to bed, exhausted from my adventure.
 
To be continued…

This is the eleventh in an ongoing series of posts that capture journal entries from my incredible trip to Zimbabwe in 1997. You can read more about my motivation for the journey and why I’m revisiting it now in the original post. I was 21 at the time I wrote this.
 
Part 11
7/8/97, Chitungwiza, Zimbabwe
I left the theatre meeting early, at noon on Saturday, to catch a bus into Harare. I was just going to walk to the stop nearest to the CHIYSAP offices, but Lance insisted on driving me to Makoni where the buses originate. It took 20 minutes just to get there! So I got on a bus there and after basically re-tracing the path I had just taken, we headed for Harare. The walk from the bus stop to the hotel was much farther than I thought so I was about half an hour late to meet Jayson (the South African boy I met on the bus from Johannesburg). It turns out that he only lives 15 minutes (walking distance) from the hotel so he had at least been there on time. We got into a taxi to try to find the 4th of July picnic for Americans that I had heard about from the embassy. It was in Mt. Pleasant, one of the poshest suburbs and pretty darn far away, it cost $50 Z to get out there! There was baseball, pony rides and one of those jumpy castles for kids, lots of tables with American theme stuff as well as a books and magazines table containing old American publications for purchase. Jayson, being only 18, wasn’t too excited about the name tags and the silly American flags. It was nice to hear familiar accents and eat hot dogs and hamburgers, but it only made me realize that I don’t much fit in among Americans either. The soon to be ex-ambassador was there and some Marines. There was a speech, they displayed the colors, played the national anthem, then we said the Pledge of Allegiance, it was all a little silly. We ate, drank several beers, then left. The taxi driver actually came back as agreed! We went back to the hotel for more beers and I called Graham’s (my friend in San Francisco who helped me organize this trip) friend Lucilia as we had arranged earlier in the week. She came and picked me up, I left Jayson to deal with his relatives who were coming to see his Grandma because she just got out of the hospital.

Lucilia had just moved all of her stuff into a new ‘flat’ and was still cleaning so she took me to her girlfriend Leslie’s house (an apartment). Lucilia is from Mozambique but she is here attending the University of Zimbabwe studying business. It is illegal to be homosexual in Zimbabwe so very few people are out. I would never have met these friends if Graham hadn’t initiated this contact. Leslie was very sweet, she works for an architectural firm in town and she is also a painter on the side. She is white and a native of Zimbabwe so some of our discussions touching race were colored by her views of black people which were not negative but occasionally ignorant. Lucilia, her girlfriend, is park black like me so she doesn’t have that much prejudice I suppose. I got to take a hot bath at her house and it was heaven! While Lucilia was cleaning up back at her new flat I talked with Leslie, we discovered we had a lot of things in common. Later Juan, another friend of Graham’s, came over. He was very cute and very gay, he helps run GALZ (Gays and Lesbians of Zimbabwe). We ate dinner: some chicken and broccoli baked in the oven with bread, then went to pick up another friend, Ruth. It was decided we would go to “The Tube” club first to see if it was crowded. It wasn’t so we headed to Xscape, in a suburb called Borrowdale. The people there were a mix of gays and straights. It was almost like the Blue Lagoon (at home in Santa Cruz, except that the music was different.

I spent most of the night dancing, it was a mix of predominantly ’80s music but it included some stuff like Michael Bolton, AC/DC and Guns & Roses which I didn’t find very danceable. Juan is a fabulous dancer and we spent a lot of time together after he had cruised the place and declared that there was no ‘eligible talent’ for him to take home that evening. Ruth had a bit of a crush on me I think, but I found her a bit abrasive. She knew I had a girlfriend at home. We danced all night and went home around 3:30am. Lucilia dropped me off at her place and she slept at Leslie’s house. It was nice to have the bed to myself. In the morning after several tries I manage to talk to Jennie on the phone. My Sprint card doesn’t work in Zimbabwe and I couldn’t remember the AT&T number so I had her call me back and I left money for Lucilia’s phone bill. It was so great to hear her voice. I think her phone bill is going to be huge though…

 
Continued in Part 12

This is the tenth in an ongoing series of posts that capture journal entries from my incredible trip to Zimbabwe in 1997. You can read more about my motivation for the journey and why I’m revisiting it now in the original post. I was 21 at the time I wrote this.
 
Part 10
7/3/97, Chitungwiza, Zimbabwe
I’ve been busy writing postcards and letters because I actually got to the Zengeza Post Office today and sent 23 postcards and three letters. Getting there was an ordeal because the hours are within my work schedule (8:30am-4:00pm). Joseph and Talita, driven by Emanuel, the designated CHIYSAP chauffeur (very few people drive here), came and picked us up early so I could go. We thought it opened at 8 but when we got there, we discovered it was 8:30 so that whole exercise was futile. I got a ride there later in the day and spent half an hour in line and another half hour liking stamps. Postcards cost $5.00 each and letters anywhere from $5-15.00. I bought some extra stamps so I won’t have to go there for a while. I’ll just have to estimate the weight.

I spent most of the day at the dressmaking training unit, a total waste of my time. They were supposed to cut out their trousers today but only one had her material. I helped three people transfer the master pattern into a copy of their own, the other two refused to do even that. After I did that I sat around for a while and then told the instructor to call me when she actually had something for me to do. I walked back to CHIYSAP where I had a productive meeting with Lovemore, then got into the back of the CHIYSAP truck (we took the station wagon in the morning but it wasn’t running very well) and came home.

I spent the weekend in the city; I went by myself so it was a test. I actually made it home in one piece (after dark) on Sunday night. Friday I stayed home after work because I had to meet with the theatre group on Saturday morning at 9:30am. Friday during the day was leadership training. It consisted of a male forum and a female forum. I was bummed because I can’t really relate to any of those girls except Judith, the welder. We spent our time writing articles for the CHIYSAP newsletter so it wasn’t as interesting as it could have been.

Saturday morning, James, the leader of the theatre group, came to get me at home. We actually walked all the way to CHIYSAP, something I was not expecting. It is a really long and sweaty trek! James is an actor in some Shona language TV dramas and as we walked down the road people not only stared at me, but stared at the TV star and called him by his character name: Tony. We started the theatre meeting with a discussion of future events, there are many planned but we have few concrete details on anything. I’m trying to put together a calendar for them. Then we did warm-ups which consisted of some dancing and singing games. I showed them “prunes and suns” (probably the only useful thing I took from my Beginning Acting I class at Santa Clara University). After warm-ups we practiced the traditional dances which I had seen on the previous Friday. I want to make some choreographic suggestions but I’m not sure how to go about it, I’ll have to discuss it with James.
 
Continued in Part 11

This is the ninth in an ongoing series of posts that capture journal entries from my incredible trip to Zimbabwe in 1997. You can read more about my motivation for the journey and why I’m revisiting it now in the original post. I was 21 at the time I wrote this.
 
Part 9
7/3/97, Chitungwiza, Zimbabwe

Today was a good day although it started with some guys harassing me on the bus this morning. They were saying something about the color of my skin, but I couldn’t understand them so I turned away. They continued talking and pointing at me and Francis even talked to them which I thought was rather rude. I’ll just assume he was defending me.
 
Every morning we walk across a field to a main intersection and get a ‘lift’ to the St. Mary’s Area which is closest to CHIYSAP. Then we walk across another field of dry grass to get to the office. The lift can be provided by several different types of transportation. There are large buses that look like American school buses which are owned by many different companies; there are mini buses of every sort, some are owned my companies, others by individuals; there are “emergency taxies” which are about the size of a station wagon; there are also just random people who will give you a ride. Buses cost $2.80 and private rides are $4.00 I think.
 
I am getting more accustomed to the layout of this place and basic ways to get around. I’ll test that this weekend when I go into town by myself. I’ll have to figure out how to get home. I wrote my address down so I can ask if I get lost, but I fear that people here generally don’t have much good will towards me, a light-skinned foreigner. It is definitely a new place for me, but somehow it reminds me of my college experience at Santa Clara University. However, I could get along on my own there an at least it was safe. Here everything is unfamiliar and uncertain, but maybe someday soon I’ll be able to feel at home.
 
I spent the whole day (9am-5pm) at the office today, with two breaks for snacks and food which is becoming more palatable. We usually have bread with margarine and mazoe for snacks and a plate of sadza with greens and beef for lunch. Mazoe is like Hawaiian Punch, it comes concentrated and then you add water (four parts water to one part mazoe). It only contains ten percent juice, but it is better than water. Today’s meeting was the Council of Youths. It took place outsize under the tree and was actually pretty interesting. CHIYSAP is an extremely complex organization which allows everyone their input so things take a while, but I think that is a good thing. By the time I come home I’ll be used to their mode and everyone at home will be impatient with my new ‘developing country’ attitude towards time!
 
Continued in Part 10

This is the eighth in an ongoing series of posts that capture journal entries from my incredible trip to Zimbabwe in 1997. You can read more about my motivation for the journey and why I’m revisiting it now in the original post. I was 21 at the time I wrote this.
 
Part 8
7/2/97, Chitungwiza, Zimbabwe
OK, feeling a little better today. I had a small breakdown in Talita’s office today and was told basically to get over it. So I have to be strong and endure the amazingly slow pace of life in a developing country, as well as the poverty and inconvenience. It took me two hours this morning to produce two letters at work, because I did not have all the information and had to wait on others , all of whom are incredibly slow and extremely irritating. I finally got all the information and got the letters printed out and then went into town with Lovemore, my partner in crime (at work anyway). We had several errands to run at the Embassy and at Speciss College. Lovemore had to make a delivery to a lawyer and I finally bought some postcards.
 
Lovemare is a very interesting young man, he actually works for CHIYSAP as a Project Officer and unlike most people his age, he lives alone and has some logical plans to make money outside of CHIYSAP because they don’t pay very much. Harare during the week is much more bustling than on the weekend, but I still didn’t see very many white or ‘colored’ people. The buses from the outlying areas all come to one place and to go anywhere else you have to take a taxi, which is expensive, by CHIYSAP standards anyway. So we walked to the embassy.
 
This is the second time I’ve been there and I guess I was expecting to be treated differently there because I’m an American citizen. This has not been the case. Most of the people who work there aren’t American anyway so they could give a shit. When I registered there the other day I got a flier for a 4th of July celebration taking place at some park in Harare on Saturday (July 5). I’m going to try to go and I hope it will be a positive experience. Anyway, we went to the embassy because they fund the dressmaking training unit and we have some questions about the practical application of those funds. They guy wasn’t there and we were told to wait outside or come back later.
 
So we walked all the way back to the bus station area and got a ride to Speciss College to register the three secretarial trainees for their placement tests. This was a complete fiasco. First we were given the wrong form, that fact was only discovered after we filled out all three. Next we found the real form and were told that we had to fill out 9 of them (one for each person and each subject that they were taking the test in)! I was extremely frustrated, that college is worse than CHIYSAP! So after we finally got all the forms done, we had to wait for this guy to manually create a receipt for each and every one of those forms. In the end I felt sorry for him because I wasn’t very nice to him at first. I should learn to be more patient I suppose.
 
Next we took a bus back to town and walked back to the embassy but the guy still wasn’t there so we walked back to the bus area and stood in line (the queue as they call it here). We got back to CHIYSAP before everyone went home.
 
It has been sprinkling/raining since the afternoon. Everyone says it is very cold but I don’t think so. I’ll probably say something different tomorrow morning in my ice cold shower. Last night I was awakened by shouting, a thief was stealing something from next door I guess. The neighbors discovered him and he jumped over the fence into our area and ran around the back of the house and jumped the fence again. Apparently they caught him and beat him (that was the report from Francis). This afternoon when we came home we found that he had left his shoe in the front yard. This is the second incident in the week that I have been here. I guess that’s the reason for all the bars and locks. I hope my stuff doesn’t get stolen while I am here.
 
Continued in Part 9