We have enjoyed our stay with Andrew and Jane duToit in Harare all week, good friends of Liz and Fred’s with whom we are also quickly becoming friends. We met them last August when they visited Dalton with their four kids – Luke-17, Matthew-15, Christopher-12, and Suzanna-6. (There are also two dogs, one puppy, three cats, a flock of chickens, two chameleons and a snake.) As with any family this size, there is quite a bit of activity going on with school, extra-curricular activities, raucous laughter and lively conversations. I can't keep track of the practices, friends, and comings and goings. I know that tonight, Matthew has a prom to attend, Christopher has a sleepover, and Susie just returned from a birthday party. Tomorrow there is church, a braai, a hike, Luke's driving lesson, and who knows what else.
On Shrove Tuesday, we made over sixty pancakes, except these pancakes were not of the breakfast variety smothered in maple syrup and butter. Pancakes in southern Africa are crepes, which for this occasion were served with the following fillings – mince (ground beef) with tomatoes, mushrooms and cheese, vegetable curry, and spicy mince. For pudding (dessert), there was chocolate sauce (made with baking chocolate and condensed milk which I can highly recommend), cinnamon sugar with a squeeze of lemon, mango and pineapple, and vanilla ice cream. In return this morning, we made American pancakes with Dalton syrup that they had brought back with them. Needless to say, we are being well-fed, but balancing that with walks up and down their hilly neighborhood.
Jane has been wonderful is showing us around. Harare is a sprawling city and still quite English with corner pubs, street names like Yorkshire, Salisbury, Coronation and Devonshire, and countless tea rooms. It's more English than any other former colony we have been to.
On Thursday, we walked around a sculpture garden, watching artists carve small and sometimes enormous pieces of rock into intricate statues. While running errands of her own, she took us to an Indian fabric shop with amazing ribbons and cloths. One day, I want a sari. Later we went to a local craft market which showcased a diversity of handmade items. After driving so much, it is nice to be driven around a city and we have certainly seen more than we would on our own.
Harare is at a higher elevation and the temperature is quite pleasant, almost downright chilly in the evening and early morning. Another cyclone hit Mozambique, so it's been drizzling and raining for the past few days. Which is nice, but makes it hard for laundry. It reminds both of us very much of the Santa Barbara area in terms of temperature and hilly scrub brush landscape (although infinitely more green here). Their house is in the outskirts of the city, actually quite close to Robert Mugabe's house which of course must be gigantic but no one can see it beyond the compound wall and police barricade. It is also the same area that Peter Godwin wrote about in the book I just finished; Jane gave me another of his to read - Mukiwa - which shares more stories about Peter's growing up in what was Rhodesia. This second book is a much easier read than When a Crocodile eats the sun, fascinating nonetheless.
Power outages are common here, lasting anywhere from a couple of hours to a few weeks. The longest one we have experienced is eighteen hours. They have a generator, but it's a hard way to live when it happens often.
We feel very much at home here and will stay through the weekend with them before zig-zagging across Zimbabwe over the next two weeks. Then it’s on to Namibia and back through Botswana.
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