In this installment I'll tell you a little about the journey there, particularly my experiences of Zimbabwe through that journey by road.
It's about 2,000km from Durban, South Africa, to Harare, Zimbabwe, which is going to take some time no matter how you go about it. We were travelling with the guys from Mtubatuba, about 2 1/2 hours drive up the coast from us, so we went the slightly long way of going to them, and from them mostly up along the coast, cutting in before Mozambique. We left at about 8:30am from Durban, though we had to go back down the road to Amanzimtoti because someone forgot their passport. Anyway, before long we were off on our way and hitting some nasty rain on the way up to Mtubatuba. By the time we were there it was in full force and much of Mtuba was a squelchy mess. While we had arrived early it seemed there wasn't any point to it, so there was a frustrating wait until we finally left at about 3pm - once more in the pouring rain. Myself, Themba, and Mandy, the Hope Church people, were actually now all travelling in a car owned by the deceased uncle of one of our church members, which we were returning to his family in Zimbabwe. It was a slight last minute twist, but on the whole it wasn't a big issue.
Driving in the remaining daylight up the N2, which at this point is a single carriageway with no lights and many trucks, was difficult. The rain spray often meant you had no chance to overtake. Every time you thought about it a car would suddenly emerge from nowhere out of the spray thrown up by the lorries. It was going to be a long trip.
Things continued mostly like that until we got to Ermelo, in Mpumalanga. We'd had some pretty crazy lightning, which at one point completely blinded us, as well as the rain, which was still coming down. We stopped in a dark garage at about 10pm and ate our dinner. Someone had lovingly made lasagne for us and then found an ingenious way to insulate it using pillow cases and polystyrene beads. All these hours later it was actually at a very nice temperature! That was one of the last nice touches we were going to get on the journey.
We settled in for the long haul and started driving once more. By now everything was dead. We often passed through towns which were reasonably lit up, but there was not a person, not a car (not even parked), not a single sign of life in sight - which is pretty eerie! When not in towns (most of the time) we were driving through countryside in the pitch black along wet single carriageways. It's a battle to stay awake, but we helped one another. Shane, the hardcore driver of the van from Mtuba in front, was driving along with plenty of haste, even with a trailer on the back. He was headed for the border and he wasn't in any mood to waste time. We followed him along another winding, dark road when suddenly he braked, swerved, and then put his hazard lights on. We couldn't see what the problem was, but we slowed down anyway. Before long we could see something in the road that looked big enough to be a problem. Themba slammed on the brakes and we skidded to a halt no more than a few feet away from....... A COW! It was a huge, light brown (if it had been dark we might not have missed it!) cow just lying down in the middle of the road facing us. It barely even blinked as we nearly turned it, and ourselves, into mincemeat. It was shocking to see how such a massive cow could only just about be seen in time, and certainly made us more cautious as we continued the journey. Almost anywhere in SA at night the combination of unfenced, unlit roads, and loads of wildlife, means you've got to be very careful when driving at night.
At about 2am I decided I needed some sleep and drifted in and out between wherever we were and the border. Our last stop in SA was at a filling station just north of Messina, Limpopo. It was now close to 4am and signs that we were near the border were evident. Every vehicle around us was stacked to overflowing with all manner of things from beds and bikes, to foodstuffs and fuel containers. Literally every piece of available space was used, with wide loads sticking out of top and sides of pick up trucks and anything else. Empty containers hung on the outsides of these wheeled masses (the vehicles generally looked smaller than what they carried) like decorations dangling from a Christmas tree. Just what kind of place were we going in to? Things like toilets had gotten worse as we got north too and in a dimly lit rest room at the service station we were met with all sorts of smells, stains, and mosquitoes breeding all over the urinals! If this was SA, what was to come?!?! As with many places in Zim I was itching to take pictures to show you all just how mad it all was, but in many of these places you barely felt safe as a normal person, let alone one waving around expensive electronics.
So on it was to the Beit Bridge border crossing. We arrived at the SA side and queued (thankfully ahead of a number of buses that started to arrive) to clear our passports for exit and to register our vehicle for return to SA later. The car we were returning had been imported on a temporary import permit into SA and we needed to present that in order to get a gate pass to be allowed to head on to Zimbabwe's immigration area. Things looked bad when the woman I was dealing with insisted that the original, not the certified copy, of the import papers be given to her. We didn't have it, we didn't know where it was, but she wanted it and implied that we might use the original for some unlawful purpose. After a little argument however she relented, and stamped our gate pass shaking her head. Although it was 4:30am and there were many people at the border, everyone was dead quiet, and the atmosphere was palpably tense. Again - what were we headed for that seemed to produce such solemnity in everyone around?
As the sun began to rise we passed a troup of babbons, seemingly emigrating to SA, as we headed on toward Zimbabwean officials. Our car was waved on, but the van was stopped for a while. We waited, and it was not going to be the only time that our being able to be seperated was going to make for nervous times. All the people who had lived in Zim were in the other vehicle, and so all their experience and knowledge was not something we wanted to be cut off from - they were our guides! After a long few minutes they came through and the clouds filtered Wednesday morning sunshine onto what looked like a post-apocalytpic border crossing. Again, I would have taken pictures, but here it would have been guaranteed trouble from the security guys, some of which walked around with AK47s. But it was mad. You saw all these vehicles bringing everything they could carry, a border post that looked like it had had no maintenance in a decade or more, broken rocks and abandoned stuff strewn all over, all sorts of people frantically trying to wave you on so they can sell you forms that are free and perhaps con you into paying them the border fees, temporary buildings for cops, and just general chaos everywhere! It looked like people were fleeing from some disaster, but in reality people were fleeing into the disaster zone. For some unknown reason we saw a man running back toward SA and another man followed and shouted, "Get him!" Immediately soldiers started running after him and soon brought the man back. What happened to him or what he did no one knows, but it was not a helpful image at this point! We got out and went into the immigration office, batting off the mosquitoes that would sneak up on you every few seconds.
Everyone told you something different. You'd fill out one form only to be told you didn't need to, be directed to the wrong person, etc, etc. With all the foodstuffs we were carrying we struggled to work out how to declare it so that each person took a share of it on their duty free allowance. We wanted no mistakes, because we knew these border patrols would take any opportunity to fine us, confiscate stuff, or worse. In the meantime the brits among us got our visas, each costing R390 (about £30). After about 2 hours we had our paperwork done and went to go through customs. We were told we needed another gate pass, which is actually a bridge toll. We had already paid it, but were given no pass. There was no use contesting that though and simply had to accept it. It's so difficult when you have no idea what to expect and when you can't trust the people who will tell you. After unloading everything from the cars for inspection (I was at this point a little more worried than I had been about all my camera gear which Shane, an ex Zimbabwean, said wouldn't be a problem) and then paying the relevant duty we loaded up and were on our way. As soon as we were clear of the border we all shouted for joy. Phew!
However now we were in Zimbabwe and the tale of ruin continued as we saw all sorts of disorder, people everywhere, broken down stuff all over, and people clearly having salvaged anything they could to get by. There was so to keep grabbing our attention that by this time I can't really remember any of the specifics of that point. Being weary from lack of sleep only intensified the feeling of uncertainty.
Our celebrations at getting over the border were short lived. Within only a few minutes we met a police check point. The van was ordered to pull over while we were ordered to drive on, once again seperating us. We decided to pull over at the next junction for Harare, from where we could still see our travelling companions. With so many desperate people about it was not really a comfortable feeling sitting and waiting. Nonetheless after about 10 minutes they were moving again and we followed them into the countryside. After another hour of so we stopped for breakfast in a large layby and found out that the other vehicle had picked up a passenger! In fact there were two - one of the police officers and his mother, who were both needing to get to a funeral! Not surprisingly the police didn't have any vehicle they could run for that, at least not where we were, and "commandeered" ours! I say not surprisingly because you could see this police check point was pretty ill equipped by the small folding table that functioned as their "desk" at the side of the road. When seeing that Mandy remarked, "This whole thing is a joke", and she wasn't wrong. Many of the police and border officials had no uniforms, or perhaps only a luminous bib with the word "police" for their uniforms. They all try to keep an apperance of formality and of their official status, but it's an attempt that doesn't work so well. What a statement of Zimbabwe though - hitchhiking police officers!
The "joke" started to get a little more serious as we went on however. On the main road from the border to Harare, the capital, we were seeing hardly any traffic. But we would pass areas where there was perhaps a couple of shops, or sometimes just a clearing, and there would be hundreds of people standing around, or lying down, or burning some wood - just waiting. Many were hoping to catch a lift, no matter how slim the odds. Others just seemed to be waiting around. When I said to my host that it seemed everyone was waiting around expecting something to change he said that was a pretty good description of Zimbabwe. Some, I'm sure, were hanging around hoping to be the first when fresh stuff/any stuff came into the near derelict shops. Where there is simply no such thing as an economy there isn't a lot for people to do but wait.
We reached Masvingo, the first "major" town on the way to Harare and the scene was much the same, only on concrete streets. People manned petrol stations that had no fuel, nor anything in the shops. If they don't the government seize the "disused" property. Everywhere there was people there was police. It would seem like their job is mainly to make sure that people carry on as normal and don't descend into rioting and looting. The empty routine does at least give people something to do. Many queued at ATMs to get cash, others stood around counting theirs (we saw a lot of people doing this in Harare especially - money is an obsession in Zim), and people walked the streets in great numbers going who knows where. One large clothes shop was open and I managed to catch a glimpse of one woman looking at something on one of the three small rails of clothes that were in the otherwise empty shop. It's just bizarre to see - shopping when there's nothing to buy, selling when there's nothing to sell, trying to go on as though things were before but being constantly shown how things have changed by the things that haven't, e.g. many petrol stations for few cars, big stores for little or no produce, etc.
At Masvingo we got pulled over again by police. We had had another stop before this, again with us in the Zim car going through and the others being detained. That time it was only a few minutes before the others caught us up. This time it seemed something was wrong. We drove on slowly thinking, "They must be on their way by now, just needing to catch up". But after a while of driving and thinking they'd show up soon we decided to pull over and wait. Some 15 minutes passed, so we reckoned that they were at least 25 minutes detained. Something was wrong. We had hardly had any mobile phone signal since being in Zim, so no chance to call them and find out what had happened. Should we turn back? Should we wait? Should we carry on? We prayed. We had enough fuel to get us back to the border (though we could not have gotten the car back across), and enough to get us to Harare, but not much to play with for looking for other people. What if we went back and they were no longer there after such a long time? We could go on to Harare, but they were the ones who knew where to go, and had the contact details of the people we would be meeting. We'd have no chance of finding our way around in Harare! So there we were, in a completely foreign land, no place we could really go to, no way to contact people, with no chance of finding anything along the way to help us. We were in a right mess and it began to get more and more tense as the minutes ticked by.
In the deathly silence we saw a cow scamble over a fence and wander into the road. A large coach started to head our way and seemed to presume to cow would keep moving. It didn't, and the coach braked and lurched to the side, but ended up slamming into the rear legs of the cow and knocking it to the floor. It got up and hobbled away, with the coach stopping to investigate. Just then our fellows came along (who thought, "Oh no! They've hit the cow!"). We got back into the car and drove like the wind, not wanting to hang around this crazy scene unfolding around us. Mandy commented that in SA a similar thing happened and people simply got out and started carving up the cow! We didn't want to stick around for perhaps more police to show up or anything else.
What had happened was that the police in Masvingo decided they'd like to try and throw their weight around. They said, "Your vehicle is only allowed to carry 8 passengers". The reply was, "Fine, we have 8 people in the vehicle!" They then continued to change their mind, reducing the number until it became clear they wouldn't get anywhere with that. After a while they started to concentrate on the trailer. Unknown to us in the other car it was only found out at the border that the trailer's paperwork didn't match up with its markings! Somehow we got through, and other police didn't look carefully enough to see a problem. But these guys were threatening fines and who knows what else. After some discussion and telling them that we were on our way to a church prayer and fasting gathering they eventually changed their minds and said, "Make sure you pray for us then", and let them go! It was so odd, and it was a reaction we got a few other times too. It made for a very anxious half hour on both sides though!
Onwards we went to Harare. We reached the outskirts and went to the house of the in-laws of one of the ex-Zimbos in the van. We in the car weren't really told what was going on, so we never quite knew what was happening. We asked and were told, "We don't know exactly where the church is!" This guy had gone to find out though, so that wasn't too bad. After a while we set off again and drove through Harare. Harare was very different from all else we'd seen. There was some evidence of decline, but it was busy, full of cars, and it almost looked like there wasn't any real problem there. It was very grey though, full of police and soldiers, and full of dried out grass. Following the guys around town we almost lost them, but eventually turned up outside a store somewhere in a busy neighbourhood. After a while we asked, "What's going on?" and were told "We're just looking for a phone book and a phone to see how to get to the church!" I bit my tongue and held back the understandable, but useless tirade of questions coming into my mind. Just another stressful element.
So driving around the grey, harsh environment of Harare, doing U turns every now and then, and having no idea when or if we'd actually arrive, you can imagine our relief when suddenly we spotted the church! It was literally at the end of a strong rainbow (I've got pics of that,as you can see!), and had flowing fountains, lush green grass, bright colours, and just a general sense that some standards were maintained. All this stood in such contrast to the city around and it was like some beautiful oasis to us. We had arrived! For the first time since getting near to the Zim border we felt like we could relax.For this experience I'm glad we drove. Flying we would not have seen anything like as much. What it helped me to understand was the sense of continual anxiety, frustration, and uncertainty that much of Zimbabwe (and many other places) must live in all the time.
Nothing could be relied on, nothing could be trusted, nothing was predictable. If you were fine with one set of police, who could say about the next. Having the official papers doesn't mean you won't find trouble with them. If something works for you at one time there's no certainty about next time (e.g. bread in the shops). If you set off on a journey, you couldn't tell what you'd find at the other end or along the way - you had to take everything you might need with you. If something broke down on your journey, what could you do about it? You're very much on your own and it feels very vulnerable. Nothing is routine, everything must be questioned, and all your plans can fall apart at any minute. It's enough to drive anyone insane, which is what makes the Church in Zim so impressive. But that's part two.....
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