Harare and Beyond: In which I kill a goat

It was good to leave the city finally. Harare sprawls and sprawls and disregarding the unreliable electricity, it reminds me a lot of Beaverton. Imagine a suburb, with the requisite wide streets and high walled housing developments. The homes vary from sprawling single story to enormous 2 – 3 story constructions that don’t vary uniquely from one to the other. The only major difference is the security, as EACH property is fully enclosed in brick and concrete 8 feet high. And razor wire, broken glass or electric guard wire (or some combination of the three) adds an additional 2 – 3 feet of defense at the top. Martha Stuart would approve, I’m sure. It brings together her love for gardening AND her time in maximum security.

So remove the over-the-top security measures and a few of the extra chicken restaurants and you essentially have a Portland-Metro area suburb. We go to yoga. We have brunch at “The Bistro” or “Doon Estates” on Saturday. We were harassed by monkeys instead of the standard parade of homeless people looking for food. But I surrendered my leftovers just the same. We have a BBQ (only the call it a braai) and drink beer in the sunshine and complain about work. We run to the super market where 90s ballads play over the loud speakers and you try to avoid the screaming child one aisle over. We adjourn to a pub to watch the soccer game. We go home and watch Game of Thrones.

I’ve been invited to join a running group, but am dissuaded as on Sunday they accidently ran through the botanical garden and into Mugabe’s state house where they were met by a dozen men with guns demanding to see their papers. Apparently it was quite the hassle to avoid arrest and required ninja-like flirtation and gratuitous use of the “doe eyes.” But honestly, who thinks to carry their passport on a jog? Not I. Luckily “damsel in distress” translates across all cultures.

To get outside Harare, you really have to try. You drive and drive and drive and then there is very little to see for at least an hour and a half.  And highway driving is an adrenaline rush, to be sure. Your cruising speed is about 95-100mph.  (Does she mean kilometers per hour, you may be thinking? No. I mean mph. That is the converted speed for the bat-out-of-hell driving we did all over Zimbabwe. And don’t even get my started on the drunk driving. It is OBSCENE. Officer McGruff would be livid). For the most part though, it works because very few people own cars outside the city. For the most part.  

From that point on it’s like watching civilization in reverse. We drove through small suburban areas, rest stops, shops. I would like to take a moment to formally recognize the Coke company for the absolute global infiltration of their advertising campaign. I don’t know how it works, but every single shop had a big rectangular red sign above the door, the name in white block lettering, and a giant coke bottle emblazoned on the left. I would bet Coke is THE ONLY truly global brand.

Then the houses and shops got smaller and gave way to tiny towns that are serving as focal points for the rural communities. Through the grass spider hundreds of well worn foot paths, reaching homes and villages at immeasurable distances. Along the roadside are groups of people that grow from sunrise and shrink to sunset. Women selling oranges and tomatoes, children in their care break off into marauding groups. Men gather to talk, or huddle around fixing a broken down vehicle, or sell baobab fruit and handicrafts. 

Beyond the towns (which we passed at 90mph, so the experience was short lived anyway) are the villages. I would always be able to tell if we were coming up on a village because I would start to see children. Not like 4 or 5. Like an exodus of children. It seemed like they were perpetually either going to, or coming from school and they must walk for miles and miles every day. Split up into walking groups of 3 or 4, but that extended along either side of the freeway for 200 yards. All in uniform. Waves of green, or blue, or maroon, or grey kids waving at the car every morning, eating sugar cane in the evenings. And punctuating the landscape behind them were their homes.

Clusters of round huts with high, pointed thatched roofs. Sometimes 4 or 5, sometimes 40 or 50. Some are built around lush green farm plots, others seemed to grow out of the dirt. Cattle, goats, dogs, chickens, pigs, donkeys would all wander aimlessly across the road. Sometimes they were well directed by boys with sticks, but most of the time it was like a giant, ongoing game of high-speed chicken. With real chickens. (That’s one for the bucket list) We would slow down some through the villages, but nothing below 60. The baboon troops would even come at us with some kind of fierce purpose. We had so many close calls, and by close calls I mean we slammed on the breaks, swerved and a dog or goat just made it past our front bumper. It’s chaos. Furry, dusty chaos.

For the sake of comparison: Here is an average street in city center, Mutare. Taken from the steps of a Nando's Chicken restaurant. If you were curious, I had a wrap. And it was delicious.

 And here is an average street in a town 3 hours away in Checheche. Also notice the goat. Aimlessly wandering around with reckless disregard for his surroundings. Reckless goat.

In the last leg of our 4 day trip, a black and white goat came over a berm at full speed and under our right tire. There is no doubt in my mind that we killed it, but our driver refused to stop. With no formal banking system, savings go into livestock. It’s less vulnerable than having currency lying around, and people generally know whose animal belongs to whom so stealing is hard. When you kill an animal, you’re supposed to offer some kind of compensation. I know that. But our driver got spooked, claimed the villagers wouldn’t understand and would damage the car, so we blew right on past the village at a slow pace of 80mph. I could not tell you if he was speaking from a place of authority, or prejudice, but we basically stole from some family’s savings account. And worse yet, it’s the young boys who are usually responsible for the livestock. So whoever failed to protect that goat was held responsible for the damage done by our front tire. . . and whatever that may imply. I cannot tell you how much like a complete asshole I feel. But honestly, that we didn’t hit a child is a miracle as far as I am concerned. 

Here are some more goats, for good measure. Just so you can see all the goats I DIDN'T kill in Zimbabwe. This photo was taken at a health clinic we stopped at between the above two locations where they were giving vaccinations. About every 30 seconds, a new child would begin to wail. "YOU SAID THIS WOULD BE GOOD FOR ME!" I imagine they would say if they could speak yet.

There were more than a few health concerns at the clinic. Like for one, the goats lying around like they don't give a shit. Reckless goats. Endangering everyone's health and things. 

Things I learned this far afield were to avoid the livestock, the dark and anything perishable. Baboons are mean little jerks who aren’t threatened by much of anything. The disparity between the capital and the rest of Zimbabwe is dramatic. And no matter where you go, the children look like they belong in an Osh Kosh B’gosh commercial. 

To close: I feel like most of my posts come off a bit dark, so to combat that, here is a fun fact for you:

 

 In the US, it's a "Snuggie"

 In the UK, they call it a "Slanket"

And in Zimbabwe it is just "Blankie"

And when the Serbian woman pulled it out of her closet (because no one has heating here) the entire room erupted in excitement, and then surprise, and then annoyance that we were all "Calling it the wrong name."