The Rural Areas

Since I have the time, I should explain further exactly the state of the rural areas in Zimbabwe.  Outside of the major cities, the majority of the population lives practically as if they exist in a different century.  The rural areas do not have running water, electricity, or indoor plumbing; the main methods of transportation are walking and donkey cart, there are no metal fences, and old plastic bottles are saved and treated with reverence.  Most water is gathered in old gas cans from either local streams or boreholes (which are few and far between).  As I've explained earlier, the rural clinics cover vast areas of the rural areas, and only staffed with nurses (the Victoria Falls hospital only has nurses, what does that say about the staffing in the rural areas) serving thousands of people with only the most rudimentary health care practices.

As for accommodations, typically, a family compound consists of a few thatched mud huts, one of which is partially open-air with half-walls for cooking.  When a son of a rural family wants to get married, he builds a house for himself and his future wife/family close to his family compound.  After this house is complete, his father then negotiates with the father of the future bride for her lebola, the price the groom's family must pay for taking the bride from her family.  Traditionally, this is paid in cattle, but in modern days, it can now consist of money and modern goods as well.

All of the buildings in a housing compound are made of mud and thick logs with pointed thatched roofs.  Mud benches are built into the inside of the buildings for seating and sleeping as furniture is understandably scarce.  The buildings are either round or rectangular, the best and most prestigious of which even have windows.  Although the buildings are made out of natural materials, they are quite beautiful.  Extreme care is taken when building, resulting in clean, symmetrical buildings with smooth walls and neatly thatched roofs.  The thatching can be done in stylized layers or cut-out swags as decoration.  Often family compounds have beautiful designs painted on all the houses, each design unique to each family group. 

A typical cooking hut (foreground). Also, notice how the buildings match in the decorative painted stripes at the bottom.

Another rural house, with thatching drying (on the right) and a traditional stick fence.

Quite a large rural house although its grounds are desolate.

A housing compound, in pretty bad shape

Another housing compound

And another

These pictures were taken at the height of the dry season (mid-October).  That's why the vegetation is nonexistent and there is no visible wildlife.  At the moment, even though the rains are not at full force, all of the trees that were brown and barren have fully sprouted their leaves.  The terrain has changed so much, in the rural areas the dirt is no longer even visible outside of the roads and the housing clearings.

Home Visits

On the twenty-sixth, I went with Lorren and a local community leader named Priscilla Moyo, to the Jambezi area for home visits of child carers.  E. Africa has an extensive child carers program for assistance to children (under the age of 18) who are responsible for the care of their chronically ill parents or grandparents.  Unfortunately, this is an extremely common situation in Zimbabwe, with most of these children taking care of their chronically ill grandparents.  Most of these grandparents became infected with HIV while caring for their ill children, the parents of the now-child carers, most of whom have already passed away from HIV leaving the ill grandparents and possibly ill children behind. 

The visits we conducted on this day focused on child carers who are also chronically ill themselves.  The first household we visited was that of Happiness Nyoni, a ten-year-old girl who is in charge of the entire property, and the care of her chronically ill and blind grandmother.  Originally, Happiness was trained in home-based care (HBC) to take care of her mother, but her mother has since passed away.  The BEAM program (basic education assistance money) pays for Happiness’ school fees, but she is not given any other assistance in running the household or with other fees. Since Happiness was at school when we visited, we got as much information as we could from her grandmother.

Happiness' grandmother, Lorren, and Priscilla (top)

The next household we visited was that of Precious Ncube, 15, who lives with her grandparents, taking care of her chronically ill grandfather.  She is currently not in school due to inability to pay the fees, but she attended through grade seven.  Precious was also the recipient of goats and chickens through the E. Africa small livestock program for child carers, and these animals seem to be doing well.  This family is currently having problems with their garden, due to lack of a steady water supply (a typical problem, none of these houses have electricity or running water).  The goals for Precious are to work on the garden, and to find some way to raise money to send her back to school for next year. 

Precious and her grandfather

The whole family, Lorren, and Priscilla

The last visit we were able to complete today was to the house of Nothando Ngwenya, 14, who is currently taking care of her chronically ill grandmother.  The grandmother was recently in the hospital for quite a long time for complications from HIV and problems with blood flow to her hands and feet, but she is now at home again.  The other three children and families we tried to visit were not at their houses, the sad reality being they were probably at the clinic for treatment.  We were unable to complete the last visit of the day due to the first huge rainstorm in the rural areas.  The roads went from perfectly dry to Indiana-Jones-quality raging rainstorm flooded in about fifteen minutes.  It was terrifying to drive in, but quite a blessing that the rains are finally here!

Support Group Visits

On October 19^th and 20^th, Lorren and I went to Jambezi and Ndlovu Clinics to visit HIV support groups and check on their activities, attendance, and progress.   Even though the turnout at some of the clinics last week indicated that the stigma against testing – and maybe against a positive diagnosis – is lessening, support groups are an essential part of HIV treatment and positive living after a positive diagnosis because the stigma against AIDS still exists, particularly in extremely rural areas. 

First up was the Siyaphambili support group at Jambezi clinic.  Their current membership is at sixty-four people; quite an impressive number considering the group started with only ten people in 2005.  They meet the first Monday of every month, unless there is a special occasion, in which case they will meet at the occasion instead.  Like many HIV/AIDS support groups, they used to maintain a nutrition garden, which provided social support, work, food, and profit for the members of the group; however, they were unable to keep up the garden due to water problems and chickens eating the vegetables.  They would like to start another farming project on a donated piece of land, but they do not have the seeds to do so.  Hopefully, E. Africa will be able to provide some assistance in acquiring the seeds they desire.  Other potential projects in the works are a livestock-raising program, sugar marketing to local villages, and a cooking oil press project (for sunflower seed oil). 

As a group, their achievements thus far are impressive.  They plan, organize, and fund their own workshops as well as provide the food and refreshments.  They were also able to keep up the garden for an exceptionally long period of time without any outside assistance.  In their first year, they had some assistance from the DAAC (district AIDS action committee) in the form of food rations, but other than that, they have been functioning autonomously.  Their levels of knowledge about HIV and AIDS transmission and disease course are very high, and they specifically remarked that the support group is instrumental when someone is commencing on ART as the person starting treatment can see positive results in the other support group members even when they themselves are struggling through difficult side effects.  Although they are currently experiencing some difficulties with their projects, overall the group seems to be functioning very well.

At the end of the meeting, they all stood up and began singing a beautiful song.  I didn’t understand the words, as it was in Ndebele, but Lorren explained that the lyrics were all about rising up and lifting each other up.  These people had the most amazing voices, without any training or planning or instruments.  I was completely speechless.  They all thanked me specifically for coming, although I was really nothing more than a glorified recorder.  After the meeting, I was also able to say hello to an elderly gentleman that I had made an acquaintance of the previous week.  He has never traveled outside Zimbabwe, but he has a map of the US in his home, and he recited all the states for me.  His wife was brought back from the brink of death when she commenced ART, and he is eternally grateful to any and all people involved in making the drugs available to him and his. 

The next day we headed to Ndlovu Clinic for the annual anniversary of the Nkosikhona support group.  This was quite an affair with the headsman for all the local tribes, a chief’s wife, a local preacher hired for the occasion, entertainment, and a communal meal afterwards. Nkosikhona support group membership is at around one hundred people, and most showed up because of the important occasion.  The preacher spoke first for quite a while both about local anecdotes and quotations from the Bible.  After him, the Headsman was given an equal amount of time to address the group (the headsman is similar to a governor, he ranks higher than all the chiefs). After the Headsman, it was Lorren’s turn to address the group after which I gave a small speech.  This was the conclusion of the formalities and the beginning of the festivities.

Members of the Nkosikhona support group

More members

The Headsman addressing the group

A local teacher, and member of the support group, brought eight of his students to sing and dance as the entertainment.  They were a little bit shy at first, but with the encouragement of the audience they were soon dancing around and singing with confidence.  Once again, there were no instruments other than the voices themselves, and I quite enjoyed this music as much as I did the songs from the day before.

The local schoolboys singing and dancing

Ministry of Health Outreach Program

From October 12^th through the 15th, I participated in the Ministry of Health’s outreach program for registering of all HIV positive persons, testing for HIV, counseling services for pre and post testing and pre-ART (antiretroviral treatment), and distributing of ARV's (antiretroviral medications) for the Hwange district.  The program involved seven clinics in the Hwange area: Mabale, Dinde, Lukosi, Kanywambezi, Jambezi, Ndlovu, and Chisuma clinics.   The whole group conducting the outreach program included Daniel, a driver from Environment Africa, Sister Masenga, a senior nurse from Vic Falls Hospital, Mrs. Dube, a councilor from Vic Falls Hospital, Lorren from Environment Africa, an opportunistic infections nurse from Vic Falls Hospital, a pharmacist from Congo, and me.  We also had ten boxes of testing supplies, registers, medical supplies, and drugs that we distributed to all of the clinics.  As for my role in all of this, I tagged along with a different group of people each day to help with the various tasks and basically did whatever needed help doing. 

The previous week, we visited each clinic involved in the outreach program and taught the local nurses how to use the new HIV registers, as well as asked them to mobilize their treatment area for the actual outreach visits this week.  This is no easy task seeing that, on average, each clinic serves the surrounding 30km area and up to 6000 individuals.  The result was generally a resounding success.  Difficulties arise from both getting all the patients that need testing, counseling, and supplies treated and organized in one day and from discouraging everyone from the catchment area flooding the clinic on the designated day (not only patients) simply because having any outsiders come constitutes an event of some note. 

Moblilzation visit, from left: Mrs. Dube, Daniel, Sister Masenga (sitting), local nurses, and me (melting in the corner)

At Mabale clinic on the first day, I stayed with Sister Masenga and Lorren and helped by recording and registering all HIV positive individuals.  Zimbabwe does not have enough money to treat every person who tests positive for HIV; as a result, their treatment system is based on CD4 counts and the onset of AIDS.  Patients are only eligible for ART if their CD4 count is less than 350.   Even after they are immuno-compromised enough to warrant drugs, the patients are required to attend four teaching sessions on how to take ARV’s and what to do about side effects, pass questioning about taking ARV’s, and have no current opportunistic infections before they are actually started on ART.   Registration of the patients involved taking their name, age, OI registration number (given to each person as they test positive for HIV), and their current treatment regimen. 

Sister Masenga addressing a group of patients before counseling

The next day, at Kanywambezi clinic, I stayed with Mrs. Dube and the OI (opportunistic infection) nurse for PMTCT (parent or mother-to-child transmission) counseling and HIV testing.  An HIV positive diagnosis is given after a positive antibody test, as well as a more specific test for the strain of HIV (1 or 2) are completed.  The antibody test used is called “Determine” and consists of a small test strip where a few drops of blood are placed along with a buffer.  The OI nurse conducted the testing which involved the person being tested getting pricked in the thumb with a small disposable lancet, placing the blood and buffer on the test strip, and waiting fifteen minutes to identify a positive or negative result. 

Packet of 100 Determine antibody tests for HIV

A negative Determine test, the second line is a control (a positive test would also show a line in the first white space)

 The second test, for the specific strain of HIV, called the SD Bio Line test, is only administered after a positive Determine test result.  On this day, we only used the Determine tests.

SD Bio Line Test

At Kanywambezi I also sat in on pre-ART adherence counseling sessions conducted by Mrs. Dube.  As I mentioned before, after having a CD4 lower than 350, patients must attend four of these sessions, then answer questions about taking the drugs correctly before they are started on ART. 

Counseling session.  I particularly like this picture because the gentleman second from the left has an INSPI(RED) AIDS campaign shirt on (I think its a ladies shirt but no matter)

On October 14^th, at Dinde clinic, I helped Mrs. Dube and the OI nurse again with HIV testing and recording the statistics and demographics of who we tested their test results (men as compared with women and children as a separate category).  Unfortunately, so many people showed up for testing, that we were unable to get to them all.  The number of people able to be tested is limited both by the fifteen-minute wait before test results, and mainly by individual post-test counseling required by law.  Luckily, most of the people tested on this day were HIV negative; the odd thing is that most of those who tested negative were surprised by their results.  Perhaps they were surprised because of questionable behavior they engaged in prior to testing.  It made me wonder.  A positive observation about the overwhelming number of people who came for testing is that, at least in this area, the taboo against getting tested appears to be almost completely gone. 

Dinde Clinic

People waiting outside the clinic to be tested

More people in line to be tested...

Even more people waiting to be tested right outside the door

After Dinde, we packed up and headed to Lukosi Hospital for the second round of distribution for the day.  This time, I stayed with the pharmacist and learned about the drugs that we were dishing out.  Everyone who tests HIV positive is given cotrimoxazole, a broad-spectrum antibiotic, to take constantly as a preventative measure against opportunistic infections.  I helped out by labeling the prescription bags and filling them with a two-month supply of sixty tablets.

The pharmacist, with his registers. (the 'office' we had to use was the x-ray suite, the desk is actually the x-ray table)

Prescription baggies of cotrimoxazole (cotri for short)

In addition, if a particular patient also needs ART, they are supplied with the specific medicine or combination they need.  There are three different lines of HIV treatment drugs; the first, and most common, is a generic trisome treatment (combination of three drugs).  The second line drugs, two different types of pills, are needed when a person on ART is also being treated for tuberculosis as the TB treatment drugs interact poorly with first line ART.  The third line drugs are the rarely-to-almost-never used and extremely expensive HEART (highly effective antiretroviral treatment) drugs, for difficult cases of AIDS.  Trisome treatment and cotrimoxazole are also made in junior and baby-liquid forms for HIV positive kids sick enough to need ART.  Thankfully, there are few of these, although we did distribute about ten junior trisome and two baby trisome prescriptions.

Boxes of ART drugs, the light blue labels are the junior trisome, the pink are the baby trisome and the orange are the second line ART.

The last day of the outreach program saw us at Ndlovu and Chisuma clinics.  At Ndlovu, the nurses misunderstood the mobilization instructions from the previous week, and unfortunately only six people showed up for registration and resupply of their medication.  The nurses thought that only the patients needing refills this specific week were to come, instead of all persons who are HIV positive.  A a result, we will need to come back at a later date to fulfill the registration requirements set by the government.  At Chisuma clinic, there was a better turnout.  Once again, I helped sister Masenga and Lorren with the registration of all HIV positive people by keeping a record for the Environment Africa files.  This wrapped up the outreach program for the time being.  We will make another visit to each clinic at the end of November to register anyone who did not show up during these visits, but other than that, the program was sucessfully concluded. 

Hwange National AIDS Council District Meeting

October fourth was my first day of work with Environment Africa, and they tossed me right into the thick of things.  I went with Douglas and Lorren, two of the Environment Africa workers, to Lubancho House in Hwange for the annual Hwange district meeting and workshop for planning the distribution of AIDS funds for 2011.  Hwange, the town, is not close to Victoria Falls at 110 km away (close to the border of Hwange National Park), but Victoria Falls and the entire northwestern quadrant of Zimbabwe are in the Hwange district, including fifty-two distinct local areas, making it necessary for us to travel the long distance to the meeting.   Since the two AIDS funds are only broken down by province, the goal of this meeting was to come up with a comprehensive district plan for Hwange district for all AIDS funds for 2011.

The meeting attendees were thirty people representing numerous organizations and locations from around the district including the police, various churches and religious organizations, the local legislature, UNICEF, Save the Children, Environment Africa, and others.  

The first day of the meeting focused on deciding the distribution and projects the NAC (National AIDS Committee) fund will support in 2011.  These projected projects are based on the previous years plan (the 2010 plan), with baseline numbers calculated from the current levels of success reached in 2010 and a projection of what numbers should be reached by the end of the year.  In this way, all of the projects will hopefully have both realistic projections, as well as at least equal if not better implementation from each year to the next.  Generally, the NAC fund is used for projects in either all the districts, or for the majority of developed districts and areas. 

The second day was similar to the first, but focused on the Global fund, as opposed to the NAC fund.  As the NAC fund focuses on developed districts with towns and cities, the Global fund is directed more towards rural districts.  There is some overlap between the funds, and another task of the meeting was to sort out which fund was supporting overlapping projects.  The final step of the meeting was to plan which projects outside organizations (including E. Africa) would be undertaking and funding in Hwange district, separate from the NAC and Global funds.

Both days, they broke the attendees down into groups based on the specialization of certain projects and members.  The four main categories were prevention, mitigation, care and treatment, and coordination. These groups then calculated the projected projects for 2011 and their budgets, the results were then presented to the group as a whole, discussed, and recorded to be approved at the national level. I worked mainly with the mitigation-planning group, and I got a fairly good broad-spectrum view of the current interventions being done for AIDS prevention and treatment in the area on the district level.

Language

The main two native languages spoken in Zimbabwe are Shona and Ndebele. I can't tell the difference between the two by just listening, but The E. Africa employees started to teach me Ndebele (apparently Shona will come later). Many people's surnames are animal names, that is how I started to learn.

Nyathi, pronounced (n-eye-at-ee), is cape buffalo
Ndlovu, pronounced the way it is spelled, is elephant
Ncube, pronounced (n-click-oo-bey), is baboon
Ngwenya, pronounced the way it is spelled, is crocodile
Sibanda, pronounced the way it is spelled, is lion
Nyoni, pronounced (no-nee), is bird

I've also learned the Ndebele greeting sequence:

Salibonani (meaning hello, how are you), the responding person then says yebo (literally 'yes', but more of an acknowledgment), the original speaker then says linjani (meaning how are you, again), then the responder then says siaphile or sikohlo. This is just enough Ndebele for me to convince anyone I am talking to that I know what I'm doing (when I really don't) and to set them off into a conversation in Ndebele that I cannot follow in the slightest.

A few other random words I know: iminyaga means age, buhle means beauty, and thando (pronounced tan-doe) means love.  No, as a prefix, means mother, so in combination with the other words, Nothando and Nobuhle and common names for girls (meaning mother of love and mother of beauty)

A few longer words I have learned are Nkosikhona, meaning 'the lord is there' and Siyaphambili, meaning 'going forward.'

Another odd thing here with relation to language are the names that some of the locals have. I'm not very good at spelling or pronouncing the Ndebele names, but many people are named English words that are not common in the western world.

For example, I have met women named Precious, Prettygirl, Pretty, Beauty, Prudence, Sister, Flatter, Sympathy, Progress, Rejoice, and Loveness. Similarly, I haveve met boys named Gift, Bright, Progress, Profess, Preacher, Clever, Trymore, Studymore, Prevail, Wisdom, Remember, and the most unfortunate of all: Nobody.

I'm nowhere close to trying to hold a conversation in Ndebele, or to understanding what someone else is saying, but maybe by the time I leave, I will have a better understanding of conversational Ndebele, and maybe even Shona.

Random Facts

Here are some random facts about Zimbabwe that I’ve noticed are significantly different from life in the US:

·       No one can type properly, and they think I have an unbelievable skill by being able to type quickly (I have been called a computer wizard, which is an undeserved title)

·       Everyone has cell phones, sometimes more than one, but to use them you have to purchase ‘airtime’ which is a long number on little pieces of paper which you enter into your phone, then you have so many minutes to talk (there is no such thing as yearly contracts or even any kind of contract at all you simply buy a phone, then buy airtime)

·       Elephants are the biggest threat to wild painted dogs, and the biggest threat to urban construction.  If there is a damaged wall or garden, nine times out of ten, it was an elephant's fault

Repaired elephant damage to a wall

A juvenile elephant cruising around town

·       Seatbelts are required by law when you are in the front of a vehicle, but you can have up to six people sitting unrestrained in the back of your truck legally

·       It seems everything is accomplished by bribes and payoffs. If you want something done, pay more, even if it is illegal or difficult to accomplish, you simply bribe them and it will be done. 

·       Amarula is a local fruit that they make a creamy alcoholic drink from. It’s essentially African kahlua or baileys

·       Everyone uses big fancy English words whenever possible (for example 'assist' or 'facilitate' instead of 'help'), and any explanation is not complete unless it is given a minimum of twice (probably at least three times)

·       There is one doctor in the entire Vic Falls region (50,000 people), and he doesn’t work at the hospital anymore (so the hospital here has no doctors, only nurses)

·       Strollers do not exist here, although almost every woman has a baby or a small child.  Instead, they take a towel or a scrap of cloth and tie the babies on their backs like backpacks.  Similarly, diapers aren’t used either.  Pinned towels are the main option used instead. 

Pregnant and nursing mothers waiting for PMTCT counseling with their babies on their backs

·       Lunch is eaten at one in the afternoon (I think because they start the day at nine or ten in the morning)

·       A pack of cigarettes costs seventy cents; one dollar if you spring for the nice ones. Consequently, most people smoke like chimneys. 

·       Women prefer to carry everything on their heads; even things made to be carried in different ways (including backpacks, grocery bags, and suitcases)

·       ‘Africa time’ is a local saying meaning everything is perpetually late and unorganized, and that’s just how things run here.  I have yet to be picked up any less than fifteen minutes late (half an hour is the average) and the record so far is two hours late. 

·       Similarly, if you want something done, you ask for it ‘now now.’ ‘Just now’ means perhaps at some point today.

·       The locals think everything in the US is incredibly cheap; that you can go to the store and buy eggs, bread, and milk for a dollar. 

·       The letter “z” is pronounced “zet” instead of the “zee” I’m used to, this makes spelling and acronyms confusing to understand

Soap

Dishwashers, washing machines, and dryers do not exist in Zimbabwe. Every house has a clothesline and all of the washing is done outside in a basin either by an adult of the household, or by a maid (if you have one). I’m lucky because Stanford does all the washing for us on Fridays, but we still wash all of our dishes by hand. For our laundry and dishes, I have normal washing powder and dish soap; however, the locals use huge, foot-and-a-half, bars of soap for EVERYTHING.  Key Blue is the most common type, but these massive bars of soap also come in green, brown, red, and black varieties if those are more to your style.

Key Blue bars

They use this kind of soap to wash their clothes, their dishes, their bodies, basically anything that needs washing. To my western nose, key blue smells very pungent, and combined with the fact that due to water and electricity problems that are rampant in the country, very few Zimbabweans are able to bathe with extreme regularity, making busy public areas or small cramped settings (like the inside of a van transport) an interesting olfactory experience. This is a particular problem while traveling in "ET's" which are local transport vans. ET's are dirt cheap to take, but they are jam-packed with people, bags, and animals, and never have AC or even open windows.

Food

The average diet of local Zimbabweans is COMPLETELY different from anything I’ve had before. The staple food is sadza: thick maize-meal dough that is usually served hot (but can be eaten cold).  Sadza is typically made with maize meal, but it can also be made from sorghum or millet meal (millet sadza is particularly off-putting since it is gray in color).  The proper way to eat it is to pick up a small amount with your right hand and roll it into a ball.  You then dip this ball into the accompanying meat or vegetables and bite off some.  After your bite, you re-roll the ball and repeat the process until the food is almost gone.  It is customary to leave a small bit of food on your plate to signify that you have been given more than enough to eat (even if you haven't).  Nicole is not fond of sadza in the least, therefore the only member of the current family who eats it is Nyasha. 

Sadza, for Nyasha's dinner

Sadza is usually eaten with some sort of meat dish or stew (all parts of an animal are fair game for food: gristle, tendons, feet, eyes, you name it they eat it). Zimbabweans LOVE their meat. A meal is literally not complete without it, as far as they are concerned. All of the E. Africa workers thought I was crazy when I told them that not only do I often have meals that do not contain meat, but furthermore, where I come from, there is no staple food.

The last part of the staple diet is tchmollyia; a local plant that is very similar to collared greens.  Almost every family keeps a small garden outside their house specifically for growing this plant.  The locals eat the leaves thinly chopped and cooked, usually with tomatoes, almost as often as they eat sadza.

Tchmollyia leaves, up close

A large garden of Tchmollyia at Jambezi Clinic

This meal of sadza, tchymollia, and meat is all eaten with your fingers, two times a day without fail. The only exception from sadza is breakfast, usually consisting of bread and tea. I asked one of the Environment Africa workers how many meals a week are typically not sadza and she answered maybe one (!!). I’m lucky to live with Nicole because we never eat sadza at home. Its really not too horribly bad, similar to an extremely thick cream-of-wheat blob that you pick at with your fingers, but I just cant fathom having it at literally every meal (and for now, I don’t have to contemplate that situation).

The other neat thing about the food in Zimbabwe is that most modern, processed kinds of foods simply don’t exist here. Don’t get me wrong, they still have chips and they drink soda by the gallon, but homogenized peanut butter doesn’t exist. Refined sugar is difficult to find, as is anything but whole cream milk. There are almost no canned soups or ‘just add water’ boxes and what they do have in these categories are outrageously expensive.

As for drinks, the locals drink soda like water, and almost everything comes in old-fashioned glass bottles. Diet soda doesn’t exist at all, with the exception of the occasional coke zero, and a coke in a 330ml glass bottle costs fifty cents, if you bring back an empty bottle to give to the store when you make your purchase. My personal favorite local flavor is Sparletta pine nut soda, but just plain old-fashioned coke seems like the overall popularity winner. Fruit juice is incredibly rare, and prohibitively expensive (and what they do have is all from concentrate). What Zimbabweans call ‘juice’ is flavored syrup that you buy in two liter bottles, and dilute with water.

Another thing that I just cannot get used to about the drinking customs here is that cups are basically communal. Its very normal for someone to bring one plastic bottle of water, and one cup, then you all take turns pouring and drinking from the same cup. With my background, I cant help thinking that this practice spreads TB and cholera like wildfire, but that’s just me.

The Suburbs

Environment Africa has set me up to stay with local families for the duration of my time in Zimbabwe.  For my first three months, I am staying with a young couple: Darryl and Nicole.

Darryl, Nicole, and Nicole's parents

Darryl is a native Zimbabwean, born and raised in Bulawayo (500km south of Vic Falls) with the defining characteristic of being a diehard rugby player and fan of the Springboks (or the Sharks, if necessary). He currently works editing the bungee films for the bridge bungee jump at the Falls. Nicole was born and raised in Germany before moving to Zimbabwe a few years ago. They are absolutely WONDERFUL people, and took me in with open arms. Nicole was actually a founding member of Action Africa, working with them for two years, but currently, she is no longer with the organization after starting her own marketing company and travel agency. They live in the upper class suburbs of Vic Falls proper, in a three-bedroom house with their dog and three cats… one of which just had three kittens! The last addition to the household is a storage shed and cottage by the property gate where Stanford, their jack-of-all-trades, lives.

My room

The house

Stanford's cottage

Since Darryl and Nicole do not have children yet, their pets mean the world to them and are treated as their surrogate kids.  Currently, they have a dog who came with the house, Nyasha, and three cats (plus the three kittens).  Their black cat, James Squash, is their 'firstborn' and the other two cats, Butternut and Butch, are her grown-up kittens.  I love living with the animals, but they all get quite bleak when Nicole isn't on hand (I haven't quite been accepted yet, especially by the cats). 

Nyasha

Butternut and her newborn kittens!

James Squash

Darryl and Nicole have really gone above and beyond what they were asked to do for me; they always invite me everywhere they go, and have introduced me to quite a number of locals here. With their help, I’m starting to feel a little bit less like a complete alien as I am accepted more and more Vic Falls’ small-town culture.

First Impressions

I arrived in Victoria Falls on September thirtieth with relatively no hassle from my flights, and after a small misunderstanding involving a mix-up of arrival dates and an unplanned night in a hotel, I'm all settled in for the next few months.

Right from the get go, it's pretty obvious that things run a little differently here than in the developed world. The airport is teeny tiny; it only has one runway, and there aren't any gates. There is only an entry room, combining arrival, customs, security, and baggage claim, and an exit door where I'm assuming you leave out of to walk to a plane when your flight home leaves. Additionally, there is a front reception/check in area. I didn't take any pictures of the airport because it is illegal to do so. It is also illegal to take any pictures of any government buildings, employees (including police and military), or vehicles. Similarly, with the exception of the Zimbabwean military, it is illegal for anyone to wear any camouflaged clothing (I'm curious to know what hunters wear instead of cammo gear).

Within one hour of my arrival, I experienced my first encounter with tourist/foreigner/American discrimination and government corruption. At customs, they made me pay forty-five dollars for a thirty-day visa (according to the Zimbabwean embassy in the US, that amount should have been good for a three month visa). I wasn't given any other option, and I didn't feel like pushing the envelope by arguing with the customs officials, in case they decided to deny me entry. So I took what I got and I’ll have to deal with the paperwork issues in the next coming weeks. Thankfully, all of my bags made it without being damaged, searched, or confiscated. I doubt they would be able to locate anything once it was lost, seeing that the airport workers are both logistically as well as motivationally challenged.

Environment Africa Offices

The next Monday, I started up my volunteer work at Environment Africa.  My first impression of Environment Africa is that it is a small organization that is chronically strapped for cash, but that it is able to do amazing things for the local community, particularly for people affected by HIV and AIDS.  The offices are located outside of Victoria Falls proper, in a township called Mkhosana - about ten minutes drive from downtown Falls.  The staff members are very friendly, and what they lack in organization and knowledge, hopefully they will make up in enthusiasm.  The whole organization has a chronic problem with always showing up late, but I'm working on making them more prompt every day.  I'm currently the only volunteer with the project, but they are expecting a few more to come this month. 

Aside from all the procedural red tape and the chronic delays, the country itself is absolutely stunning. It's the middle of the dry season, so there isn't a whole lot of greenery, but even so, on the drive from the airport into Victoria Falls proper, I saw a bunch of baboons and the classic, picture-perfect African sunset with a blood-red sun dipping below the horizon. Definitely not home, but beautiful nonetheless.  I cannot wait to see where these next nine months take me!