Wednesday, October 30, 2013

Meeting Gonorrhea

“I’m gonna die in a ditch in Iowa!” I remember screaming once as Kurt and I lost our way driving on a Midwest gravel road surrounded by cornfields.  How funny that the girl who used to illogically panic herself into tears whenever the location of the nearest hospital was unknown recently found  herself in a little place called Gonarezhou.

Complicated name?  Yes.  I think they just wanted to use all the vowels in one word.  Though I often can’t remember the name and simply call it “Gonorrhea,” the actual national park of Gonarezhou seems to have about twelve pronunciations among even the locals of Zim: “Gah-nah-rez-oo,” “Gah-na-rez-oe,” and “Gah-nah-res-au,” and “Gah-na-re-zow” to name a few.  However you say it, our trip to this hard to pronounce land caused a great deal of trepidation.

“Are we seriously ready for this?” I had asked Kurt.  “Do we actually think we are ready to camp on safari by ourselves with no guide or human being for hundreds of miles?? Just us, alone with the lions?!? And our newly four year old?”

The more I thought about it and the more I found out, the more I panicked.

Our trek took us off the map as far as it is possible in the 21st Century.   Located deep in the south of Zimbabwe, Gonarezhou is one of the three adjoining national parks (along with Kruger National park of South Africa and Limpopo National Park of Mozambique) that make up the Limpopo Transfrontier Conservation Area.  The joining together of these parks into one massive area (36,000 square miles!) of unfenced land has allowed animals to take up their old migratory routes that were previously blocked due to political boundaries.

Gonarezhou, meaning “place of many elephants,” is notorious, above all, for its plentiful -and aggressive- elephants. With over an estimated 11,000 elephants, Gonarezhou has more elephants per square kilometer than anywhere else in the world.  But don’t try to convince me of that.

You will not see one picture of a Gonarezhou elephant on my blog this week.

After eight hours of driving, we arrived the day the rains came.  While this would usually be an exhilarating, special moment to be in a notoriously hot and dry track of land, in essence it drove the herds deep into unreachable hiding places in forests suddenly green and moist.  Good for elephants.  Not so convenient for the girl holding the camera.

The rains also provided a fun but challenging time in a number of other unexpected ways I’ll make sure to get your sympathy about in the many days of Gonarezhou blogs to come!  Stay tuned…

 The river behind our cabins- the rain was desperately needed!

 How most of my pictures turned out... blurry, through fogged up car windows dotted with rain.  Can you see the impala in this picture??

Traveling: Our friends, the Mullen family, joined us for our latest safari. Who's bored by the rain? Not us. Here Ryan entertains us all from the backseat.

Welcome back chongololos!  Meet our happiest reunion with the arrival of the rainy season... the famous African millipede.

Saturday, October 26, 2013

Spinning Our Wheels in Zim

Before the vacation photos start flying to feature the highlights of our freshly-taken trip to Gonarezhou, I am surprising even myself by interrupting for a few family updates.  This is because while en route to returning from this week's adventures, we suddenly discovered that we are taking another trip tomorrow... this time to South Africa.

For those of you who don't follow the gory details of my Oregon Trail life, I have been on, in, or on the floor next to, the toilet for the last four months.  I have lost almost thirty pounds and spend most days like a half-zombie with food poisoning.  After nine doctors visits, three medication attempts, five trips to the lab, and one week of mistaken identity with someone else's labs (in which my -former- dr accidentally put me on anti-suicidal medication),  it is time to fly south.  We are migrating to Johannesburg for a week involving drs appointments and "exploratory surgery" on Wednesday.  My -new- doctor and I are hoping that I have an African parasite-induced colitis, the only curable kind of colitis.  I would prefer this option, but after that I really would just settle for any ol' solid answer someone can give me.

Our travels sound unusual, but welcome to life in Africa- where flying to the doctor is sometimes the only option.  Our local friends often like to say, "There is nothing more challenging than living in a third world country that likes to pretend it is a first world country." Though they are usually talking about electrical supplies and traffic, nothing could be more true of the medical world in Africa. Though Zim is full of competent general-practitioner doctors, the labs and testing can only take things so far and specialists are limited. (Oh, that, and the competency of lab technicians and support staff can be questionable!) We are told there is a stunted ability to do histology here, and that should we actually have discovered the issue, often the necessary medicine is in South Africa anyway.

The good news is that South African clinics are used to having their patients fly in from all different countries.  And often, as in my case, they will set up an entire week of consultations, tests, surgeries, and labs during one phone call, all crammed into one action packed week.  Talk about service.  It is a relief that at this very time next week, I may be five times farther in the process than I am right now.

In the meantime, we are finding humor in another piece of the puzzle... the day after we return to Zim, our visas and TEPs expire and we will no longer be allowed in the country.  Unless these passport stamps are sorted at the last minute this week while we are away, we could be flying back out to South Africa the day after we return to Harare for week -and trip- number three! Like flying to the doctor, this would not be atypical, either. We'll keep you posted, and in the meantime, perhaps even get to some of those Gonarezhou stories we are itching to tell!



Friday, October 25, 2013

Spring Botanicals

 

We are days away from rain... Rain, rain, rain, beloved, needed, cleansing rain!

But for sure, though the wet season has yet to start, summer definitely has.  Here are some pre-scheduled pictures of the botanicals from our short Zim spring while we take in some of our first days of summer in a spectacular, off-the-map place called Gonarezhou.  (More to come soon on our latest adventures!)


 

Tuesday, October 22, 2013

Bus-ted

More bus pics to add to the collection! As we trek again across Zim on another roadtrip, here are some more great bus names we have found in our strange experience with the humorous public transport system in Southern Africa:

"God Is Lord, Grasshopper"

"Golden Breed"

"Angel Theo"

"Takomborerwa" ("We Have Been Blessed")

"Man City"

 
"No Way Out"  "Red Carpet" (notice the spelling above)

"Rise Up and Stand Firm"

"Gokoko Power"  "No Going Back" 
(Gokoko refers to a famous British juvenile book series about a train.)

"Major"

"O'Neal"

"My Messiah"

Mighty Crown

And here a few last ones I would have killed to get a picture of:

3 Missed Calls
The Big Five
Boom Boom Boom
The Blessing
Blessed
Blessings
Bless It Up
Count Your Blessings
Why U Cry?
Master Key
Moving Couch
Getting You There
Amen and Amen
Can I Get an Amen?
Doing Our Job
And my favorite this batch?  Sniper Baby Boy

Friday, October 18, 2013

Purple Blankets: The Jacaranda


I’m pretty sure if someone flew over Harare right now, they would find it looks like a blanket of purple.  Just as we recognize spring from the msasa trees in the region, summer would never be official without the jacarandas.  Meet one of my favorite things about southern Africa:  the jacaranda tree.

The jacaranda (jack-ah-ran-dah), initially a South American ornamental tree, has an interesting history in Harare.  Planted in the early 1900s, the trees defined the city, known as the “City of Flowering Trees” until the 1960s.  It was then that the city council decided too many of its once lustrous trees had been removed for the growth of four lane roads and re-declared the city “The City of Sunshine.”  I find it hard to believe one tree has been removed from the looks of our neighborhood.

Blooming in October and November, this long lasting flower comes in hues ranging from bright blue to purple.  The trees have such an abundance of flowers, that the fallen ones create a blanket of purple on the ground that often mirrors the purple canopy above. Without its flowers, though, the tree is easily identifiable during other times of the year, as well.  Its seed pods, half the size of my hand, are flat atypical ovals with a hard stem. In layman's terms, these seed pods are known for looking like stingrays. 

Pretoria, South Africa, is now known as "The Jacaranda City."  The blooming of these well-known trees coincides with the University of Pretoria's year end exams.  A well known legend has it that should you be hit in the head by a falling jacaranda flower, you will pass all of your tests.

Though jacarandas are known to cause a great deal of allergy problems to local residents, most people would say they are worth it- two months of living under these whimsical canopies makes Harare a magical place.

 



Friday, October 11, 2013

Foods & Supplies Continued: A Healthier Africa?

After years spent in the aisles of Wholefoods, a store we lovingly referred to as Wholepaycheck, looking at labels and organic free-range stickers became second nature to us. When we decided to move, us lovers-of-all-things-green assumed that relocating to Africa meant a healthier food supply, more locally grown food, and pretty much everything organic.   Unfortunately this assumption has left us disappointed time and again.  We have been eating our misconceptions all year.

After believing for years that the pesticides, processed foods, and Genetically Modified Organisms populating our US grocery aisles were poisoning us, we have been pretty shocked to find that getting away from these things is not as easy as crossing a border or an ocean.  I am sorry to say it, my friends, but the food supply even in Third World countries appears to be full of these things.

Because of its recent agricultural history, Zim lives on imports.  Our food comes from a variety of places, including Zambia, India, Britain, and especially China and South Africa.  Few goods actually come from our country.  In addition to giant box stores and small groceries, we also have vegetable stands and roadside markets everywhere.  But we have come to find out that many of these items are sourced by imports brought over the borders, as well as by people who shop at box stores and then take them to roadsides.  Not quite the quaint locally grown food we had hoped for!

Even most of the maize/sadza grown on small subsistence family farms is GMO, and often grown in combination with a number of chemicals.  After a year of having a large garden in our Zim yard, we can attest.  Keeping African pests away, whether it is colonies of ants and termites, rats and mice, cutworm, grubs, or birds, going organic is extra challenging here among the tropical wildlife.  Our gardener begs us for "chemicals" for the garden.  He doesn't know what kind, he just wants something to keep the pests away.  Soap solutions, coffee grounds, and vinegar have helped us moderately.  But we plant and plant and plant.  And we reap about 20 percent of what we sew.  It’s hard to blame challenged farmers  -uneducated about environmental concerns and trying desperately to feed their families- for dumping magically helpful pesticides onto their crops whenever they’re able.

Labeling laws are also different in this country.  Many goods do not have labels, or have labels that say things like “herbs and other ingredients.”  The goods that do have well explained labels are usually from imported processed products that have made a very long journey, and whose ingredients are, for example, fifty unidentifiable items long.  It makes eating healthy even harder than in the US, where we at least always had some labels to navigate through its notorious landmines of fake food.

Alternatives are difficult to find.  Though the shelves are more plentiful every day, things like coconut oil, alternative milks and flours, gluten-free products, and other foods made for those with allergies or specific diet preferences are not available.  Safe seafood can also be difficult to obtain, as the country is landlocked. Though the lack of alternatives is not at all surprising to us, it adds to the challenge of eating the way we would like to.  People here are clearly not as often exposed to things like the "latest health craze" or recent studies on heart health, cancer research, etc.  So products that are exploding with popularity on American health-food shelves are often no-where to be found in Southern Africa.

I would be remiss if I didn't also mention the expense of eating healthy in Africa.  Though there are hundreds of thousands of people who live on less than $50 a month in Zim, no one would ever say they are well nourished and enjoy a diverse diet.  In order to eat diversely and nutritiously, the price tag is high. Nuts, for example, are so expensive that a six inch tall tub of mostly-raisin (pictured) trail mix is over twelve dollars.  Our family does not eat as diversely and healthily here as we did in our American days of Wholepaycheck.  And yet, we spend more on groceries here than when we ate only organic, gluten free food from the bustling Columbus Circle Whole Foods in the heart of expensive New York City.

Our own garden in our backyard is our saving grace.  Though we cannot find organic seeds, or even just un-dyed seeds that are not a bright blue, the resulting produce could not be fresher or more in-season.  And aside from the rotting batteries and shards of glass we often pull from the soil as we dig, the produce -uglier than a US government shutdown- is extremely cheap and entirely chemical free. (Never mind the typhoid water. Otherwise it's safe, I swear...)

I ask myself all the time if we are healthier or less healthy on this continent than our last.  It is always surprising to me that I don't seem to have the easy answer I expected...

Wednesday, October 9, 2013

Foods & Supplies Continued: The Ingredient List


Our running joke is that pretty much everything we Americans cook or eat in Zim has one common ingredient:  substitutions.  We eat squash pie for Thanksgiving. Put sadza in our (brittle) cornbread.  And make s'mores with tea biscuits.

There is almost nothing we make in our household that does not have some form of substitution.  Here are some items that are very difficult to find:

Chocolate chips: You've heard of the superiority of European chocolate, and how American chocolate is sub-par and too waxy.  Meet the lowest of them all: African chocolate.  Most often chocolate here is inconsistent at best.  Baking chocolate will sometimes melt and sometimes harden.  It is extremely expensive. And there are mystery ingredients that make it often taste more like a fudge-cicle than a piece of chocolate.  And actual, proper chocolate chips are still impossible to find.  The one chocolaty exception? A specialty store in the Northern Suburbs of Harare that carries Belgian chocolates...  One dollar per tiny piece, but sooo delicious.

Limes: Almost unknown here.  Most locals I have spoken to have never tasted lime.  This blows my mind, as lemons are available year-round by the truck-full, and because lime is one of my favorite flavors to put into a variety of things, from pancakes to pies.  So many avocados here, but no limes?  Some might call that downright torture.

Corn flower/Corn flour: Here "corn flower" means cauliflower.  "Corn Flour" is what Americans call corn starch.  Confusing?  Yes.  And want cornmeal?  You're out of luck. No such thing.  Buy some mealiepap and do your best!

Corn chips: Non existent.  This blows my mind in a country brimming with corn.  But here all corn is used for the favorite comfort dish, also known as the national dish of Zimbabwe: sadza. The closest thing we Americans have to tortilla chips/corn chips is a thing that looks like a tortilla called a "rotie."  We cut them in four pieces, bake them for a little while, and they harden into flour chips. No corn chips in a country full of avocados and salsa ingredients??  Insanity!

Guacamole: Lovingly called "avos" here, avocados are so prevalent that if you buy an avocado at the grocery store, you need more friends.  These trees are so prolific, one friend's good avocado tree can supply at least twelve families with avos for a year!  Still, few know how to make guacomole here. My staff asked me to teach them how to make it, as most avos here are only used at breakfast, mashed on a piece of toast. The food available in this country looks so very similar to that available in Mexico... yet it is amazing how different cultures evolve and produce their own uses for food!

Sweet Potatoes: Sweet potatoes in Africa are an entirely different beast than those in North America.  My child has gone from loving them to hating them.  Sweet potatoes in Zim are a starchy white potato that can literally be well over a foot long and hard as a rock.  Even when cooked for a long amount of time, these mushy monsters still maintain a dry, almost chalky texture.  Save your butter and ketchup for something else- these sweet potatoes offer little to the palate, let alone anything sweet!


Peanuts: Peanuts, also referred to as "ground nuts" are everywhere in this country, as is peanut butter.  But peanut oil has never been seen on a grocery shelf.

Cheese: There are three basic kinds of cheese in our country.  Feta (very mild here-yum), mozarella (never fresh or very tasty, but always non-offensive), and gouda.  Pronounced gow-dah, this cheese comes in every shape, size, color, and flavor. (Though none of it tastes like the gouda we eat in America.) What I wouldn't give for a little swiss cheese on a sandwich or some fresh mozarella to go with the plethora of tomatoes and basil in this country...  Here is Jonas' favorite gouda, which I liken to cardboard and feet.  Do take note of the description:


Stay tuned for more on food this week...

Tuesday, October 8, 2013

Foods & Supplies: The Shelves

One year can make a difference, indeed.  

Though the country continues to progress and regress in a variety of ways since the 2008/2009 "Imbalance," as it is called by locals, a number of changes are detectable just within our past year living in Zim.  As I've mentioned in previous posts, the country went through a period of empty grocery stores, out-of-control inflation, farm take-overs, and currency problems. During that time the population survived by crossing borders, or paying others, to purchase goods in other countries and haul items back. Though unemployment remains high in 2013 (95%, according to CNN!), the economy has leveled out.  And although it may be hard to feel this real-life progress in a number of ways, grocery shelves may speak louder than any news report can.

Last August we entered the country somewhat satisfied with the products available to us. Stores that literally only carried ketchup and beans among empty shelves in 2009 had recovered enough that they were able to stock more and more products as the months went by.  We found shelves full, though at times there were entire aisles full of the same product (usually soap), displayed one or two bottles deep.  


 
(here, an entire aisle is full of dish washing soap and another is full of toilet paper... yet the baby cart would indicate the previously upscale nature of this store)

Variety and brand choice was not an option. And staples like flour, sugar, and bread could not always be counted on.  This we found most challenging. We expected not to find specialty things like make-up or toothpaste.  But it was difficult to go to the store and find out they were out of something like flour or sugar for another three weeks.  


Jonas' birthday last October was memorable for me.  That's because I spent much of the day looking for one staple: sugar.  Unable to finish Jonas' cake, I trudged to four different stores until I finally found a bag a few kilometers farther than my feet could carry me.  "Sugar?  The stores did not order enough sugar? How is that possible?!" I grumbled as I sweated between stores.  The next time I saw sugar on a grocery shelf, I felt compelled to buy five bags... which everyone else did, too...  And hence the stores would run out for another three weeks!  


A trip to the store was always hit or miss.  And this meant hoarding when we found things.  We used to joke that the stores never reordered fast selling items because that meant more work for them.  "Ugg- we always have to re-stock that flour.  Let's just stop ordering it."  And that, in a nutshell, is the business sense one can often encounter on this amusing continent.


One year later I can smile about trudging along to find groceries.  Because the shelves are different for sure.  If you lived in Zim during The Imbalance, you would have wanted to be a travel agent or a deep-freeze salesman.  Three years later, you would want to be opening a grocery store.  Though we can't count on every product being available, the staples are dependable. South African chains are starting to move in.  Choices abound. And shelves are full.  



 
(here, at a newly opened South African chain store in Zim, options are growing.  Though our choices are hilariously strange at times, we have choices none the less!)

One of the biggest questions that friends, used to seeing reports of African famines on their televisions, ask us about Africa is our food supply.  My answers do not speak for the continent entirely, but rather just our one year in a rapidly changing Zim.  My answers are entirely different now than a year ago, as we watch (and eat!) the recovery that is happening daily on the shelves around us.  Stay tuned for more thoughts about food in my upcoming posts...


* * Please note that this blog is never intended to provide or participate in political commentary in any way. * *

Friday, October 4, 2013

Typhoid Trials

As I sat by our housekeepers’ hospital bed last weekend, watching her writhing in pain as tears rolled from her swollen eyes, my head spun.  I’d like to present myself as the brave hero that was nothing but confident that everything would be fine, but that would be entirely untrue.  Thoughts of handling a Shona funeral, Ziwone’s baby, and what I’d tell her husband crept into my mind.  And hospital bills…

I had refused to do it.  I just could not drop her off at P.N., the federally run hospital downtown used by gardeners and housekeepers all over the city.  The hospital is notorious for its day-long waiting lines full of corpses and all body fluids. When I thought about our gardener’s  uncle, who died in that very waiting line just a few short months ago, I turned the car and took Ziwone to a private hospital. It was more expensive for sure, but she was in bed hooked up to an I.V. within ten minutes.  And thank goodness she was.  It was typhoid.

Our first contact with typhoid fever has led to an exhausting week of medical tests for everyone on our property, clinics and hospital visits, and water samples.  Our high-elevation city of Harare has an amazing track record when it comes to malaria. But it is known for its outbreaks of typhoid, a serious, life-threatening disease still present in the Third World. The city’s water supply is often compromised with the bacteria, causing epidemic rampages among lower socio-economic citizens who use the water supply as their only available source of water.

Boreholes (sort of like private wells) on properties throughout the city are sworn to be safe.  But occasionally septic seepage can infect a borehole or, in some cases, an entire neighborhood.  When a person tests positive for typhoid, the city sends an investigator to test the water, as it is serious business.  Though we did have an investigator come quickly, he took samples from our hot water geyser when we had no electricity to run our borehole pump.  Therefore the accuracy of his test is anything but reliable, so we await a private company’s results.

Typhoid can be spread a number of ways.  Though it is a salmonella bacteria most often transported in water, it can be found on fresh produce washed with infected water, communicable through bodily fluids, and occasionally carried by an insect that has recently landed on infected feces.  It is a good reminder, if nothing else, to keep our guard up despite our comfort in the Third World. 

While we await our water results, we had everyone on our property tested. Four people tested positive for typhoid and were treated immediately, including little Lilly. Kurt, Jonas, and I, all vaccinated last year, were left unscathed. We’re quite thankful after watching the agony of Ziwone, who is slowly on the mend. 

Now to go buy some more bottled water…

Thursday, October 3, 2013

Hitchhikers


Hitchhiking is more than common in Africa. Still, I was surprised to find two hitchhikers waiting on my car today; these peacocks needed a ride downtown.  Unfortunately I was going the other way...