The Italian Chapel of Masvingo, Zim

I’d like to make this location sound romantic… tucked away in a little hamlet just outside of Masvingo… but really, the A-K 47 staring down at us from the watchtower made this anything but comfortable.  

When we asked for directions to the Italian Chapel, the woman at our hotel desk said, “Oh!  I know just where that is.  I gave someone directions to this last year, and they never said they didn’t find it.”

They probably never said they didn’t find it because they weren’t speaking to her anymore.  Our search for the World War II prisoner of war camp’s little-known chapel lead us to three -gulp- military bases we surely did not belong anywhere near.  Note to self: when trespassing on a foreign military base, having a kid in a car seat and putting away your camera helps a lot.

“The Italian Chapel,” as it is simply referred to, is a small church built by WWII prisoners of war.  It sits below a still-waving red, green, and white flag as a reminder of the Italian ground it sits upon.  When we arrived, a caretaker named Jennifer walked over to unlock the building for us.  As we signed into a dusty book requesting nationality information, we realized we were just a handful of people whose eyes had viewed the church in the past year.  

Unique is an understatement for this Catholic relic squatting strangely in the midst of an African landscape and shadowed by a military-base guard tower. The church, which is parish-less but occasionally opened for intimate weddings, is known for its intricate painted murals, which cover every inch of the interior.  Some murals ornately tell biblical stories, and some illustrate fake-stones along the walls, while others hauntingly outline skulls and crossbones as that quaintly unforgettable reminder of the tortured souls that created the space.  "I would ring the bells for you," Jennifer had 
said, "but Italy has not paid the ZESA bill in months.  We have no electricity to open the bell tower."

Now if I haven’t yet successfully made our visit sound wonderfully unromantic, let me add Kurt’s favorite little anecdote for you:

Me, pointing to some abandoned burnt-out-looking cement buildings near the chapel: “Is that where the prisoners of war lived?”

Jennifer, the caretaker: “No… That’s where I live.”

Do check it out if you’re ever near Masvingo. The spirits of these artists would be proud to show you around.  But maybe get directions ahead of time...

 

Pieces of Learning: Southern Gonarezhou and the Low Veld

-The tribal people who used to live in Gonarezhou before it was taken over for national park land are called the Shangani.  Efforts have been made to get the land back to its previous caretakers.  Arguments against allowing the people back on the land are that tourism and space for wildlife needs to be promoted, as the droughts that occur five out of seven years make the last almost impossible to live upon.  Arguments for allowing people back on include the viewpoint that tribal people like the Shangani know how to live on the land because their ancestors have developed sustainable lifestyles there for thousands of years. The longer they are off the land, the sooner this cultural knowledge dies.

 

 -The land is currently extremely difficult for humans to access, requiring petrol and food to be carried for hundreds of kilometers into the wilderness. Large vehicles are required to fordge rivers and streams during the rainy season.  The debate continues: develop the park more to improve accessibility and, therefore, tourism dollars, or leave the park as pristine as possible?

-The village closest to our entrance to the park is called Chikombedzi.  Known for its poverty, the Shangani people that live there have little economy.  Much of the isolated village consists of living space for people under tarps and blankets.

-Poaching has been a long and uphill battle for the park.  Not all gates are manned, and the vast expanse of wilderness makes it very difficult to supervise.  Anti-poaching teams can be found throughout the park at all times, following herds and monitoring migration numbers.

 

-Though the park does not have one of Africa's most endangered animals, the rhino, it does have another.  Packs of painted dogs roam the land in small numbers. Counting efforts used to monitor these populations have dwindled over the last ten years, though the animals are occasionally found.

-The park at one time had prison locations within it.  This is because the land is so hard to survive upon that no one in their right mind would try to leave the walls in escape.

-Not one road goes all the way through Gonarezhou from the south to the north or from the east to the west.  This meant that if we wanted to see the famous Chilojo Cliffs on the other side of the park, we had to travel about eight hours out of the park before getting a road that would lead back in.  Examples like this mean the park is extremely hard to manage.

 

The Landscapes of Gonarezhou

 

Despite the sour weather and power issues during our first try, Gonarezhou is definitely on our list of places we'd love to see again.  Next time we'll hit the northern part, including the famous Chilojo cliffs.  Though not all of the animals advertised themselves well, we did enjoy the curious ones we met and the landscapes we took in.  The mostly-dry Mwenezi riverbed proved to be a gorgeous landscape for our enthusiastic eyes.  Meet some of the beauty we found in the Low-Veld of Zimbabwe:

Meet the Mwenezi.  Just two weeks after our visit, this region is sure to look entirely different.  Rain makes all the difference!

Much of the vegetation in Gonarzhou proves that this piece of land holds more elephants per square meter than any other natural habitat in the world. Broken limbs, pulled away bark, and stunted height is a dead giveaway.

Famous nyala and impala litter the landscape, as do tortoises.

 

 

 We arrived at a good time of year- these ditches (they look innocent, but don't be fooled) are now impassable to a car our size.

 

Termite mounds everywhere!

Friend Ryan stretches his arms as we begin walking along the Samelema Gorge.

A ladder made of wire and logs helps us into the riverbed surrounding the gorge.

 Here Ryan gets out of the car in lion territory to move branches from our path... very quickly.

 Next to a baobab, Jonas gets a dose of bug spray.  This is a high malarial area, even in the dry season.

 The national park provides occasional look-out points over the river basin.  Here a cemented stone wall sits on the edge of a cliff under a thatched roof.

 A pair of giraffes- the most curious animals!

 These lion tracks look small, but don't be fooled. They were as big as my hand.

Baboons (above) and impala wake us from behind our cabin.

Gonarezhou: Adventures of the Powerless in Swimuwini

When Kurt and I found out that national parks lodge reservations were one of the most affordable ways to travel Zim, Kurt had hurried down to the parks office to make reservations right away.  We had been told time and again that the parks can be booked for 6-9 months in advance, so Kurt went with the instructions that he should get anything he could for our October break still 3 months away.  We had heard talk of a five dollar deposit.  And so we figured Kurt would put a tiny deposit in, and then if we changed our minds down the road, we could always forfeit the deposit and do something else.  My husband, of course, changed that. Kurt came home and said in a surprised voice, “They wouldn’t let me pay a partial deposit.  So I booked us an entire week in Gonarezhou!” Which was so not what we had decided.  I knew nothing about it.  …And neither did anyone else.

Every local we spoke to about Gonarezhou for the three months leading up to our trip had one of two things to say:

1) “Whoa!  That’s the worst time of year to go! Nobody ever goes then!  You will die of the heat and mosquitos!” (much laughing) “Look out for malaria!” This is more ironic than imaginable when you consider that we drove into camp on the day the rainy season decided to start.  Temperatures that are over 100 degrees for most of the year suddenly plummeted into the sixties and birds unused to the temps were literally falling dead out of the air all around us. But more about that later…

2) “Seriously?  You’re going to Gonarezhou?! Never been there.  Nobody ever goes down there!” With just a week to go until our trip, we found out from the parks office that no one else was scheduled in the whole entire national park during the time of our reservations.  No one.

No one.

In the whole park.  You can imagine how thrilled I was with my husband.  And it became clear.  We not only became even more grateful that we had roped our friends, the Mullen family, into going with us, but that it was a necessity to travel alongside them.  With no phones or cell reception and no petrol station for hundreds of kilometers, we had a lot planning to do to stay together, pack heavily, and prepare properly to go into the remote wilderness safely.  Preparations were difficult.  We borrowed extra jerry cans to carry our fuel and searched everywhere for maps.  Unattainable, unfindable, uninformative maps!

When we left for Gonarezhou, we laughed about the fact that we started with week long reservations and whittled it down to three days.  When we arrived in the midst of the first rain and were then told by a park employee, "Oh. ZESA (electrical power) went out yesterday when the storm started. I guess we should report it sometime tomorrow," we knew immediately the trip had to be whittled again.  Our coolers of food, waiting expectantly to be promptly transferred into coldly awaiting fridges, had already been in the car for a solid day before our arrival.  They would not last our whole trip. In a humorous turn of events, we now laugh that we only spent two nights in Gonarezhou, with much of our time and energy going towards cooking and eating everything we brought to keep it from spoiling.  I'm sure not one of us returned to Harare without an extra five pounds!

The weather and power problems made for one of those experiences in which we could be either miserable, or have the time of our lives.  Our good company made this nothing but a fun and hilarious adventure. Here are some photos and info from our stay at accommodations in the Mabaulauta Region's Swimuwini Campsite:

 Each "lodge" at Swimuwini has an outdoor grill and a giant baobab tree of its very own.  Loved the baobabs of Gonarezhou.  Legend among local tribes has it the tree grows upside down and the roots grow out of the soil.

 Here Jonas stands in our outdoor kitchen.  Many a dead bird, pile of animal poo, and frog was found on the counter tops and sinks.... But no meals!  We took those at the Mullens' fancy-shmancy lodge, complete with indoor kitchen and apocalypse-worthy ant infestation.

After checking out our lodge, we ran over to the Mullen's.  A park employee admonished us and said that we should never again walk by ourselves when lions and other animals visit the camp so often.  We drove everywhere, even the hundred meters between our lodges.  Here I gently remind our tasty morsel about the importance of following directions and staying close.

Nothing says classy lodging experience like filling your plastic water bottle with wine by candlelight.

 Jonas especially loved throwing rocks over the drop-off cliff behind the Mullens' lodge.  It was a gorgeous view that probably looks entirely different just two weeks into the rainy season.

 

 

 Where we spent most of our time at the lodges... next to the campfire, eating, eating, eating...

Here a random man with a rifle asks for a lift.  We didn't say no.

Next up, The Landscapes of Gonarezhou...