During my travels, some places capture my heart more than others. Zimbabwe was one of those places. I met so many wonderful people who were gracious and smiling despite suffering unbearable economic woes and political suppression. Finally, I am happy to report that my friends in Zimbabwe, who keep me apprised of current events, tell me that things are starting to improve. But before things got better, they got very, very bad.

By the end of 2008, inflation had skyrocketed to 231,000,000%, unemployment reached 80%, and the Zimbabwean dollar was basically worthless. Violence ratcheted up during the 2008 presidential election, with despot Robert Mugabe using every means at his disposal to stay in power. Although the consensus is that Morgan Tsvangirai actually won the election, Mugabe refused to give up the office and mounted a brutal campaign of violence against the opposition that left more than 30 people dead and hundreds wounded. As if life weren’t unbearable enough in Zimbabwe, a cholera epidemic broke out in August 2008, killing at least 565 people and infecting another 12,000. Fortunately, world opinion turned against Mugabe, ultimately forcing him to consent to a power sharing agreement with Tsvangirai.

Just last week, my friend Victor Sibanda, who lives in Victoria Falls in the southern part of the country, emailed an update on the current situation:

Victor "Veneto" Sibanda

“We recently had the COMESA Summit here in Victoria Falls and we had our roads revamped and the pot holes on the roads that had become so big to be called ‘dish holes’ were sealed and that has been the positive thing that our town has benefited since the unity government. We are very grateful for the development. Among other things that are beginning to change face are the foot ware and clothing shops that were restock a few days before the Summit began.

Supermarkets are restocking and the prices are now packed in South African Rand and this makes the items affordable such that we have stopped going to the neighbouring countries for shopping and are now supporting the local shops. Other cities and towns are still cheaper than Victoria Falls as what seems as tradition but strange enough there are still challenges in the money making system. Salaries are ranging from $30-$150 per month from domestic to professional level respectively and this still makes buying bread at $1.00 a challenge. This may Read the rest of this entry »

A few days ago I received an email from my friend, Victor Sibanda, who lives in Victoria Falls, Zimbabwe. There is so much bad news coming out of Zimbabwe these days that it surprised me to learn Victor has started his own tour hosting business. I was encouraged by his news; it indicates there is still some small sense of normalcy in this devastated country.

I met Victor last year when I backpacked around the world for six months. I spent about a month and a half in Africa and realized my childhood dream of going on safari. The other destination I had always dreamed of seeing was Victoria Falls, so when I planned my safari, I also booked a side trip to Zimbabwe. All the arrangements had to be made prior to leaving the U.S. because the tour operators and hotels will no longer accept the local currency, as it is virtually worthless. Consider the following:

• The regime is surviving by printing money. The German firm Giesecke & Devrient holds the contract for printing Zimbabwe’s currency and they have been delivering bank notes at a rate of Z$170 trillion each week. Last month Giesecke & Devrient decided they would no longer print bank notes for Zimbabwe, bowing to pressure from the German government.
• John Robertson, a respected Zimbabwean economist, estimated inflation in July 2008 to be forty to fifty million percent.
• An egg costs $50 billion Zimbabwean dollars and withdrawals from ATM’s are limited to a maximum of Z$100, about the cost of a loaf of bread.
• On August 1, 2008, the government devalued the Zimbabwean dollar, making Z$10 billion worth ZW$1
• Shops can only cash checks if the customer writes double the amount, because the cost will go up by the time the check has cleared.
• Most credit card companies will instantly cancel any card used in Zimbabwe

At the time I booked and paid for my trip, the situation in Zim was not yet dangerous, but by the time I was scheduled to to visit, the situation had deteriorated. I contacted the company that had handled my reservations and asked their advice, explaining that I would rather lose my money than put my life at risk. The tour operator assured me Read the rest of this entry »

Ask anyone if they think Christmas has become too commercial and they will most likely answer with an unequivocal “YES!” Stores bring out the Christmas decorations earlier every year. Kids’ wish lists get longer and pricier. Parents go deeper into debt each year. Christmas morning dawns to frenzied ripping of gift wrapping, with the contents of each package barely examined before being discarded in favor of the next package. By noon the gifts have been abandoned, and the kids head for the hills as soon as Christmas dinner is finished. Not unexpectedly, the true spirit of Christmas is often lost in all this.

The message of Christmas – love – is one that everyone should be able to appreciate, regardless of his or her religion, but each year I find it more difficult to feel the spirit. Fortunately, I always travel home to Illinois to spend this holiday with my family and the impending visit gets me excited. This year is no different. Read the rest of this entry »

During my week-long safari and subsequent three-day Maasai home stay I had three showers – suffice it to say that I was definitely ripe by the time I got back to a town. While I would have loved to stay with my Maasai friends for a few more days (and indeed they invited me to stay longer), I also loved every second that I stood under a scalding hot shower at the Outpost Lodge in Arusha. The Outpost is a nice place; basic but clean and with a wonderful staff that makes you feel like family. Arusha is nothing special – just another city – but it is the staging place for all safaris in northern Tanzania and for everyone attempting to climb Mount Kilimanjaro, so you meet some fascinating people.

Arusha, Tanzania

Arusha, Tanzania

Although there’s not much to do in Arusha, I opted to spend three nights here after returning from the bush because I figured I’d need a rest. I did – but after a day of lounging around I started to get restless. Fortunately Hamisi, the cook who had accompanied me on safari, lives in Arusha. He stopped by the hotel at the end of my first day and offered to show me around town the next day. Read the rest of this entry »

I have been back from my Maasai home stay for two days now and I am still struggling to write about it. I could variously describe the experience as appalling, fascinating, stimulating, exhausting, rewarding, frustrating, mind-expanding, enraging, or gratifying, and each one of those adjectives would be appropriate. But, let me start at the beginning.

Home of Morani and Sara Poyoni

Poyoni living room

My host, Morani Poyoni, picked me up in his older model Land Rover and drove me the nine kilometers to his house, located high in the hills above the town of Monduli. Morani and his wife, Sara, are among the few Maasai who have adopted western ways and left the traditional village. Both pursued educations and became teachers. Sara still teaches at the local primary school but these days Morani concentrates on his home stay program, which can include anything from allowing two dozen British teenagers to camp in his backyard while preparing for a climb of Mount Kilimanjaro to planning intensive multi-day programs for people like me who want to learn more about the Maasai culture.

I scheduled this cultural home stay with some romantic notion that I could discover the true Maasai way of life, meet with Maasai elders, and learn from the village healers. I accomplished all those goals, but I was totally unprepared for much of what I learned. Maasai is a patriarchal and hierarchical society. The women do Read the rest of this entry »

The Ngorongoro Crater is a caldera – a volcano cone that has collapsed inward, creating a 15-mile wide hole in the earth surrounded by a high rim on all sides. Over the eons, sediments accumulated on the crater floor and a shallow lake formed in the center of the caldera, providing an environment where abundant food and water are available year round. Here, protected from the vicious cycle of drought and heavy rains that mark the Serengeti, the animals in Ngorongoro have no need to migrate.

From atop the rim, looking across the vast collapsed crater

If the Serengeti was all about the big cats, Ngorongoro Crater was about zebra and wildebeest. Certainly there are other animals here, a few of which are shown in the following photos:

School of hippos

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The Serengeti, one of the harshest environments on Earth, is all about survival. The fact that you are reading this is proof that I survived two nights camping in the Serengeti without being eaten by a lion. On the first day my guides had warned me not to leave the tent at night, as lions and hyenas regularly came into the camp after dark. But nature called and leaving the tent was unavoidable. Rather than brave the long walk to the squat toilets I crept around the side of the tent at midnight, trembling the entire time I was emptying my bladder.

On the second night the campground filled up and there were tents all around mine, so when the inevitable happened around 2 AM, I braved the walk to the toilets. Earlier in the day my cook, Hamisi, had softened his position about leaving the tent at night, telling me, “Just look for the eyes of the animals in the dark – they are always red.” As I hurried to the toilets the fact that I saw no red eyes was not much of a comfort; I couldn’t see the animals but I could certainly hear them. Hyenas howled in the distance. Closer to camp – quite close – I heard low growls that I assumed to be lions but later found out they were baboons. Even that didn’t make me feel much better, since baboons are vicious – in a pack they can bring down a lion or leopard with their long, sharp teeth.

The Serengeti is a wonder. Upon entering the park my first impression was of a land so severe that it could not possibly support life. I later learned that this was an area known as the southern grasslands – flat, featureless plains for as far as the eye can see – and indeed, there is little animal life in this part of the Serengeti. As we traveled northwest the landscape began to change. Acacia and Sausage trees appeared – the latter so named because it bears a fruit that looks like an overstuffed sausage hanging down on a string, just as in a butcher’s shop. In addition to trees, here and there the plains were relieved by granite outcroppings called kopjes (copies), which are the favorite abode of lions.

Pride rests in the tall Serengeti grasses

Mama giving the cubs a bath

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For the past three days I have been on safari in Tanzania, Africa, and both my mind and my soul are overflowing. My guide, Joseph, has retired to his tent for the night, exhausted from driving eight hours over bone-jarring, roughly graded gravel roads. My cook, Hamisi, has left me alone to write as he cleans up from our dinner. I momentarily look up from my notebook and realize that I can only see what is illuminated by the kerosene lantern on our camp table – a circle of light about three feet in diameter. Beyond that is complete and utter blackness.

Serengeti campground

I step away from the table, which is set up under a thatch-roof shelter, and into the dark night. The sky is littered with stars – there are so many that it is difficult to identify specific constellations. I find Cassiopea’s Chair and Scorpio, then think I see Orion but can’t be sure because it is partially obscured by the luminous glow of the Milky Way that paints a wide swath across the sky. When a hyena howls in the distance I am reminded – uncomfortably – that Joseph and Hamisi have warned me not to leave my tent in the middle of the night – not even to go to the bathroom – because lions and hyena regularly prowl the campground at night.

I tell them I am 55 years old, for goodness sake, with a 55 year-old bladder that can’t last through the night. They insist I should wake them up if I need to use the bathroom during the night so they can accompany me. Pardon my ignorance, but wouldn’t waking them up entail leaving my tent to go in search of their tent in the pitch black? I make up my mind that if I have to ‘go’ in the middle of the night, I will unzip the tent flap and stick my bare butt outside, rather than endure the embarrassment of needing an escort. Read the rest of this entry »

I’ve arrived in Tanzania after 17 hours of travel and I head out into the bush early tomorrow morning for a nine day safari, followed by a four day stay with a Masai family in a tribal village, so I won’t be blogging for at least a week.

However, I did just post about the day safari I took in Botswana and there are some amazing animal photos on this post that I hope you’ll read during my absence. Also, I’ve uploaded all the photos for Zimbabwe, Zambia, Botswana, and South Africa to the photo library pages. If you’d like to take a look, just click on the above button labeled ‘Photos’ and follow the directions on the resultant page. Enjoy, and I’ll be back in a few days.