(with a nod to Jimmy Buffet, or How I went from a bikini to long sleeves in two days)
Our long drive from Vilanculos to Chimoio on Thursday was relatively uneventful, although through several severely pox-marked stretches of road, we literally came to a crawl. As we moved inland, the reed huts were slowly replaced with mud ones and the palm trees disappeared. Pineapples and bananas were still in abundance however. I should probably mention how impressed I am with women carrying everything from firewood to long reed mats to large water canisters carefully balanced on their heads. We have seen this throughout rural southern Africa, but I have noticed it more in Mozambique. Their stately gaits and perfect postures are compounded often by carrying a baby on their backs. It remains one of the most iconic and incredible things I have seen here.
For the first time in a long time, we were not wow’ed by our destination. Chimoio struck us as a hustling, run-down center where people stop over on their way to somewhere else. We had heard about good hiking in the mountainous area, but decided to keep moving instead of staying another day in a place we did not feel entirely safe. We used our remaining meticals on groceries and gas, spent the night in a noisy backpackers lodge, and crossed into Zimbabwe on Friday morning.
Except at the Komatipoort border as we entered the country, we did not pay any bribes in Mozambique. Given that absolutely everyone we had spoken to (locals and travelers) had been stopped numerous times to the tune of several hundred meticals, we felt more than just lucky. While we went through more than two dozen roadblocks, we were only stopped twice but without incident. God has an eye on us.
Crossing at Mutare could not have been simpler, albeit time-consuming. Russ was happy to be back in an English-speaking country and he struck up several conversations with the Zimbabwe officers as they laboriously entered our extremely detailed information into the computer. I did not think the Portuguese language was much of an issue back in Mozambique, but our interactions were certainly limited.
By the time we climbed into the Eastern Highlands known affectionately as the Bvumba, we realized we had entered a different season and climate zone from the sultry coast we left behind. It felt like fall, which technically will soon be here. We pulled out long pants and sweatshirts that we had been storing all along, expecting there might be a time such as this.
The Vumba Mountains are like nowhere else we’ve been in Africa. It is a lush wooded area, bordering on rain forest. Its’ hilltops encompass a 180-degree diorama, stretching as far as we can see. For the past three nights, we have lodged ourselves on top of one of the hills in a secluded cottage with a beautiful view of a lake. In the mornings, the fog settled in the valley below, giving the feeling that we were in the clouds. Watching the sun rise and set has quite literally taken my breath away. There was a caretaker who set the fireplace for us every evening, and this was the closest to home we have felt in a long time. There was even a flock of clucking chickens and we ate their eggs each day.
The elderly Zimbabwean woman who owns this land also has a small dairy herd, and delivered a liter of fresh cream to us upon arrival. What a treat that has been in our breakfast cereal and with tea. They also make clotted cream, butter, and ice cream for local distribution. Their coffee farm was seized in the land grab ten years ago, but she is remarkably non-plussed about that.
But what choice does she have? In Soviet-style paranoia, it is still a punishable crime to speak against the government, and we had been previously warned not to talk politics. Prior to coming, we met Zim ex-pats and travelers who were essentially boycotting the country until things change. Our feeling is that our tourism helps the local economy; staying away only further hurts them financially, but our absence will not be noticed by the government fat cats who have grossly profited from the country’s rich natural resources.
I am reading Peter Godwin’s When a Crocodile Eats the Sun. Being in the country in which his real-life narrative takes place sheds new light to what it was like to grow up here, flee, and then return to find the sad state of affairs which brought the country to the brink of disaster during the past decade. How it affected his family is gripping. It is an emotionally wrenching novel on many levels, but sheds light about this complicated place we now find ourselves.
What is amazing is the nature of the Zimbabwean people. They are some of the warmest and most welcoming people we have met; this despite facing unimaginable adversity and grievous sins against them (ironically, Mugabe’s madness sorely affected the average black Zimbabwean the most). They remind me of Cambodians we met ten years ago soon after their civil war, who were benign, forgiving, without malice, and presented a calm and peaceful demeanor. It is once again a lesson in faith for me, which I humbly accept. There, but for the grace of God, go I.
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