Monday, 8 April: Drive to Bulawayo

The drive from Gorongosa to Bulawayo (pron. "bullah-way-oh"), Zimbabwe was going to be a long drive and we would be making it in one day. All of the other teams, except Mozambique, were planning to split their trips into two days. The Malawi team would be spending the night in Tete (pron. "tet". A city northwest of Gorongosa) and the Zambian team would be staying in Mutare, just across the border of Zimbabwe.

I got up at 5:30 am to pack and take a quick (and cold!) shower. I loaded my things into Jake and Nancy Shenk's vehicle then headed up to the house where we were having a cold breakfast. Jake wanted to leave as soon as possible so I ate quickly, but was interrupted by questions concerning recent changes to the missionaries' health plan. Jake came over to let me know they were ready to leave. I hurried to finish my breakfast and said my good byes to everyone.

We hit the road at 6:30 am with the hopes of arriving in Bulawayo before dark (Nancy doesn't like traveling at night because of cattle that wander along the roads.). We drove to the main road and headed south towards Inchope. At Inchope we would turn and head the opposite way as Beira on the Beira corridor to the Zimbabwean border.

When we got to Inchope, we were stopped by another police checkpoint. They asked for our passports (passportes?) and search two of the suitcases in the back. The first one was mine. They felt my bathroom bag then put it back after finding nothing. Next, they searched Jake's suitcase and asked him a lot of questions about medications he had. Finding no reason to fine or delay us longer, they let us go.

The rest of the drive through Mozambique was scenic. We drove through some villages and by large mountains. The roads west of Inchope were much better than the ones east of it. Jake explained that this was because they were built prior to the Chinese building roads in Mozambique (aka they were well-built). This drive was fairly uneventful except for one oddity I'll mention. I saw an albino Mozambican. At first I thought it was strange to see a white man walking along the side of the road. Then I realized that he was albino. This was the first albino person I can remember seeing since one of the girls at my elementary school. I wondered about the challenges of growing up as an albino in Africa as opposed to the United States.

When we got to the border at Machipanga we had to go through Mozambican immigration. Jake had to fill out some paperwork for his vehicle. It took us a while to get our passports stamped because there were only two workers and the one queue wasn't moving at all. We finally got to the lady who stamped the passports and was generally friendly. She appreciated me using my little knowledge of Portuguese. This is one thing I picked up. People of another culture will really respond to you if you can speak (or attempt to, in my case) their language, or else, they appreciate the opportunity to test their English on you.

We received our gate pass and moved on to the Zimbabwe side of the border crossing. Here I had to fill out an application for a visa. Jake and Nancy went straight into the queue since they had their residency. I joined the queue once I had filled out the form, about 8 people behind Jake and Nancy (It could have been more, but many of the Mozambicans needed the help of an official to fill out the form in English.).

When Jake and Nancy got to the immigration agent, Jake said that I was with them so he called me up to the front of the line. This action was partly the result of Jake’s interaction with the official. Jake is an amazing communicator and knows the culture of Zimbabwe extremely well. He greeted and spoke to the official in Ndebele (pron. "en-da-bay-lay"), a language which is often looked down upon by the Sena speaking people in the eastern half of Zimbabwe. I'm not sure what Jake said, but after a short conversation he had the man laughing and in good spirits. He didn't even look at my application when he stamped my passport.

After getting my visa, Jake and I stood in the line to pay for the road tax. They didn't have change for Jake so I gave him $10 for the tax (Zimbabwe uses USD and South African Rand as currency.). We received the gate pass and were now officially in Zimbabwe after spending an hour at the border.

The eastern part of Zimbabwe is very hilly and mountainous. After Mutare, we drove through Christmas Pass where the road was under construction. A lot of the roads in Zimbabwe were under construction. This slowed us down, but it is good that the government is maintaining them. We headed north towards the capital Harare (pron. "ha-rar-eh") until turning off that road towards Chivu (pron. "chee-vu"). We continued on to Mvuma (pron. "ma-vuma") where we stopped for petrol and to get something to eat. This was at 2:00 pm.

Christmas Pass, although with all the construction is could have been  the ghost of Christmas past.

At the fueling station, Jake and Nancy went to the restroom and met a lady who worked at the station who had been a student of Jake's at Mtshabezi mission. After talking for a while, we got milkshakes from Creamy Slice. Slice is an interesting chain. It started as Chicken Slice and has expanded to a strip of a couple different stores, all ending with the word "Slice". For some reason, I found Creamy Slice a humorous sounding name.

Well, Chicken and Pizza Slice make sense, but I'm still a little unsure about Creamy Slice, not to mention the logo with mad cow disease.

Mvuma is at the junction of the road between Harare and South Africa and the road to Bulawayo. Because of its strategic location, Mvuma is starting to see some businesses move into the area. We proceeded onwards through Gweru (pron. "gway-rue") and arrived in Bulawayo at 5:30 pm, 11 hours after leaving Gorongosa.

An important part of this story is a description of Jake's driving. Before the trip, multiple people warned me of Jake's driving. They told me my prayer life would be much deeper after riding with him. I found that his driving wasn't as bad as people made it out to be. He drove 110-130 kph (69-81 mph) on most of the decent roads. I only found myself praying for my life on 2 or 3 occasions when we passed on a turn.

There are five main things I'll mention about driving in Zimbabwe. The first thing was all the construction that was happening. At each spot flaggers were directing the flow of traffic to one lane. The longest we had to wait was over 15 minutes. This was on a newly tarred section of road. The open lane curved and weaved all over both lanes. We had to follow a bus driven by a construction worker just to know where to drive.

The second thing was the numerous toll booths along the road. At each toll booth we had to pay $1, except for the one before Bulawayo where they were only counting cars. Between the road tax at the border and all the toll booths, the government was receiving adequate funds to keep the roads in good shape (maybe even better than in Pennsylvania!).

The third thing was the police speed traps/checkpoints. These occurred quite often along the road. There would usually be 3 officers in bright yellow safety vests standing beside the road under a tree. One would have a radar gun. As long as you were paying attention you could spot them in the distance and slow down by the time you got to them.

The fourth thing was all the people along the side of the road. I saw a lot of people along the side of the road in Mozambique, but there were stark differences between the people in both countries. In Mozambique, the people were almost always walking towards their destination unless they were standing at a chapa stop. In Zimbabwe, nearly everyone I saw tried to flag you down for a ride. They would stand there and try to get you to give them a ride. If you didn't, they stood there until the next car came by.

The fifth thing was Nancy reminding Jake every time the speed limit decreased. Jake and Nancy have a wonderful relationship that a couple can only develop after loving one another for many decades. She would say, "Jake, the speed limit dropped down to 80." He would respond with a smirk and, "Yes, dear. I see." It was quite comical from my vantage point because it happened so often.

The sixth thing: there were also a lot of cool rock formations. Zimbabwe's a gold mine (quite literally!) for geologists.

Since the Shenk's had also been away the week before the retreat, we stopped at TM, a South African supermarket chain. There Jake and Nancy bought groceries for the week. At the checkout line, Jake talked to the young woman in Ndebele. I couldn't understand what he was saying, but from the way she reacted it must have been something about me.

After the supermarket, we headed back to their house which is in the Hillside suburb of Bulawayo. Jake explained that Hillside is classified as low-density housing. This means that the population density is low compared to other areas of the city and only individual family houses can be built. There are also medium-density and high-density sections in the poorer parts of the town. The low-density sections of Bulawayo are where the whites lived before independence. Jake and Nancy were able to buy their house from one such family during a time when many people—both white and black—were fleeing Rhodesia (what Zimbabwe was called before independence). Jake said he had a friend who told him that for $5,000 he could get him any house in Bulawayo that he wanted. This was because it was at a time when it was difficult to get foreign currency and people were willing to sell low to have cash on hand.

One of the first things I noticed while driving through Hillside was that all the houses were surrounded by walls, many topped with barbed wire. Jake and Nancy's house had a wall but no barbed wire and a blue steel gate across the driveway. Their house also had steel bars over the entryway and all the windows. It was a little like they were living in their own little compound. They also had an alarm which Jake had to disarm upon entering the house. Every door had multiple locks. I wondered if all the security was a reflection of the current situation in Bulawayo or remnants of the past.

Entrace to the the house. You have to get through this before you get to the door.

Entering the Shenk's house, I greeted by the décor of their living room. The first thing that caught my eye was a full body mount of a leopard. There were also shoulder mounts of a kudu, a lion, an impala, a reed buck, and one other type of deer. Other novelties included two stools made from elephant feet, two waste cans of the same, two smaller containers made from hippo feet, a painting on an elephant’s right ear, and bookends made from buffalo hooves.

The pride and joy of Jake's collection.

The guestroom where I stayed was separate from the rest of the house (technically it's connected but it feels seperate). I had to walk through the kitchen and out into an open air pantry area to get to the room. The room had a queen-sized bed plus a single bed. There was also a full bathroom attached.

The room wasn't much bigger than this, but it was more than enough room for me to stretch out.

Both the power and water were off (both regular occurrences in Bulawayo) so Jake fired up a generator so Nancy had power to cook dinner. The power came back on during dinner, but we'd be without water for the rest of the night.

My bathroom. Notice the buckets for flushing.

For dinner we had chicken with some other vegetables which Nancy had bought at TM. After dinner I was able to catch up on some of my emails and got a chance to check Facebook. Then I went to bed. It had been a long day.