Zimbabwe in August

Joan & Richard awaiting the sunset

Although I now live in Johannesburg with my eldest son Anthony and his wife Pia, I like to come to Zimbabwe in August every year to pay a visit to my second son Richard and his wife Fiona.

I spent many, many happy years in Zimbabwe and love this country.

Msasa trees

The msasa trees are out and this year are dark red. Then the jacaranda trees will change the scene with their magnificent purple blooms, along with the flamboyant with their bright red umbrellas. 

It is all so magical and here at Peterhouse School where Richard and Fiona live, the beautifully green sports fields lined by trees and magnificent sunsets create a picture of harmony, peace and beauty.

In the small town of Marondera there seem to be hordes of unhappy and even desperate people trying to earn a bit of money any way that they can, selling second-hand clothes or a few vegetables. Hands reach out and faces look at you pleadingly through the windows of your car as you stop to fill gas cylinders or shop. 

Electricity is not at all consistent; sometimes you have it and many times it is suddenly gone. There is no pattern to the power cuts, and I believe in some areas it is off all day, forcing people to do their work at night. 

Money matters are extremely difficult – the shops seem to have most supplies but everything is very, very expensive. If you ask questions no-one seems absolutely sure of what is going on and I expect this applies to the government too!

Mutare visit

We paid a visit to Mutare and my granddaughter Claire attended a wedding there at Leopard Rock Hotel which is still looking magnificent. So is the White Horse Inn in the lower Vumba, although I believe some hotels in Nyanga are closed.

It is all still so beautiful. Nothing can change the beauty of the mountains, the balancing shapes of the granite rocks, the skies which go forever upwards in vivid

Msasas

blue hues.

We cannot visit Harare too often as fuel is short and queues can be long, but we did pay a visit there last week and the suburbs we visited seemed well cared for although roads are pitted with potholes, so much so that the driver sometimes has to go to the right of the road or sometimes to the left giving an effect of drunkenness.

Bob met his maker

The old man Robert Gabriel Mugabe has died in Singapore and will be flown back for burial here in Zimbabwe this week. He has, like all of us have to, gone to meet his maker, leaving behind a country struggling to survive.

My feeling is that in the years to come it will survive due to the resilience and nature of the people who continue to live here with hope and humour.

I think of Alan Paton’s book Cry the Beloved Country and so hope that it will recover and move forward and see a return of crops growing once again in fertile but unused soil.

        Love to you all,

        Joan 

Senses of sound

In the frenzy of Johannesburg I live in the suburbs of Douglasdale in a spacious home and a beautiful garden belonging to my eldest son Anthony and his wife Pia.

 Across the front of the house there is a long verandah where I love to sit and listen to the sounds of the garden. I have come to rely more on sound rather than eyesight which is failing.

Near the verandah is a swimming pool made of natural looking rock with a waterfall. Here the birds gather for a drink and a splash about. 

The doves have a rhythmic, deep-throated call while the hadedas  - much bigger ungainly birds - stomp about probing the lawn with their long beaks and sending up cries of anguish as they land or take off. Some wit told me this is because they don’t like flying and are afraid to land. Their cry is loud and unmistakable – a sort of aww soooo call.

One poor hadeda was lying dead on the lawn one morning and the other  hadedas flew in from everywhere and sang a song of grief as they looked down upon their unfortunate mate. I am beginning to believe that these birds have stronger feelings than the smaller birds with their more high pitched notes.

Myna

An Indian myna sits outside the kitchen window and sings a wonderful song of joy every morning. Anthony tells me they are “not very nice” birds as they throw other birds out of their nests. 

But one can’t fault their singing in the early mornings and in the evenings, the happy tweets and bird calls seem to usher the day in and wish great things come the evening shutdown.

Weaver nests

Pia is irritated by a little weaver bird couple that live in a palm tree next to the pool. Papa weaver bird takes enormous pains to build a nest only to have mama weaver reject his workmanship by destroying the nest which lands in the swimming pool.

As the day moves on the domestic sounds seem to intrude – the whirr of the washing machine and dish washer and then the scream of the vacuum cleaner which Memory wields with triumphant energy. 

Energetic Memory

The kettle goes on; the kettle goes off. A toaster pops. TV is on, V is off; news on Brexit, news on Trump, interspersed by weather reports and local news etc etc.

I often escape and listen to tapes, which I love. I have listened to some fascinating stories recently –

Joan at another favourite Johannesburg haunt

Sir Richard 
Attenborough’s autobiography; the start and development of the air rescue service in South Africa which has now extended to the north; a study of political ups and downs in South Africa and to our north by a journalist.

The background sounds of Johannesburg intrude every now and again. These start with the build-up of traffic coming into Johannesburg from as early as 2 am, reaching a crescendo between eight and nine and building again in the evenings until about 11 pm when there seems to be a few hours of quiet.

Galloway Avenue where Anthony lives has two bumps in the road and motor bikes speed up and down. I hear them at the first bump with a bang and then they speed up before hitting the second with an even bigger bang. Very often after the second bump there is no further sound of the motor bike and I imagine the driver pushing his way with a battered bike to the nearest garage.

Every afternoon I go for a walk around the tennis court. The two dogs, Amber (a fox terrier cross Labrador) and Stewart (fox terrier), take a walk with me. They rush to the wall of the neighbour’s grounds and incite a bark-out with the Scottie dogs next door. They return to the house looking weary but self-satisfied – as I do.

In the afternoons the noise of overhead aeroplanes seems to build up as air traffic appears to increase. I am trying to define whether a plane is coming into Johannesburg or flying away. It seems planes coming in to land have a more interrupted sound while those going out have a greater roar and sometimes a whine. Helicopters fly over quite often, whirring and with a business-like roar, watching out perhaps for mischief -makers somewhere.

I would like to communicate better with my grandchildren but they seem to be addicted to the clamour of their cell phones. I think they could be missing out on all the amazing sounds of what is around us as well as the interaction of good human communication. Then there’s the chant of crickets, harmonious songs of frogs, the clap of thunder, the trees in the wind, the rain on the roof.

Human interaction must depend too on the expressions on the listeners faces and the eye contact interchange, things I especially value and can no longer see.