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