Day 4 started with a bump.

Literally.

I was awoken by a loud and jarring thump that sounded as though the boat had been hit hard by something large, and produced the immediate thought that somehow the boat was being attacked by hippos. There came a gentle rocking sensation, and a few seconds later there followed a series of smaller, then larger thumps and bangs.

We had moored in a bay that, the previous night, looked not only idyllic, but was also dead-calm and seemed sheltered. So much for appearances!

Presumably because of the calm, the boat had been moored loose, and although the crew tightened the lines a little later in the evening, they were still fairly slack. When the wind and the water picked up a little later in the night, voila, the boat moved around with them and repeatedly bumped the rocky shore, waking almost everyone. We'd planned an early start anyway, so this was a little bit of nature's alarm clock.

Cold showers also help one wake up.

Our final trip back to port showed the lake wasn't always dead calm, and as alluded to earlier, the pontoon design floats like a cork, rather than cutting through the water like a hull. If I ever owned a boat like this I think it should be named 'Bob'. There came one moment when we made a valiant rescue as the table tried to take leave of the upper deck, along with breakfast, but no-one was seasick and we made it back in one piece. However the day after, even as I write this I have retained one final legacy of Kariba, and when ever I lean on something solid I have the sensation of a boat swaying under me.

Back home to Chinhoyi, unload, shower for those who didn't want a cold one, catch up emails, sort and compare photos, relax. Sleep.

Lake Kariba, day 3

I managed to get offered a pre-breakfast fishing invite again. This time the best fish was a large cichlid with a rose coloured belly weighing about 750g, caught by Ty who also had the tiger on the previous day. I managed a couple of palm-sized 'bream' and was much happier, having added a bit more weight to take the kinks out of line that was designed to cope with Tigerfish rather than bream.

After breakfast we motored out, re/discharged various tanks, then found some more game, plus a couple of crocs sunning themselves on a small cluster of islands. Elephants had been spotted on the opposite side of the bay where we were moored, and so we went over to view and photograph them in the launch. While the second sortie was out, hippos were seen nearby and they gradually moved into the bay just behind hippo basher. When the launch came back it serendipitously came in from one side and at speed, neatly missing the hippos – this could have been nasty, since there were 5 or 6 in a pod, and mostly hidden under water less than 50 meters away – a direct line would have taken the launch straight through the group.

When we drove across to see the elephants we were careful not to get too close or disturb them. There was a single animal on it's own, a mother and baby and a small group of them further down the shore. At one point a couple of them seemed to be deep in conversation with a group of egrets that were also close by. Their skins seemed noticeably less thick and dry than those we have seen elsewhere, possibly because they could bathe and remain moist in the lake water, or maybe because they are a slightly different breed. They were certainly fascinating creatures – I can't say that I was moved by any sense of beauty, power, grace or any of the other superlatives that get applied, but that might be because the only form of contact possible is from a distance with a long lens or binoculars. Glad to have seen them though.

After the elephants we headed off to sampa karuma – a cluster of islands just a couple of hours motoring away from Kariba docks – where we were to moor for our last night. We had a brief explore of the tiny spit of land to which we were moored, dry wood was found and as the sun set a fire was built to produce hot coals for cooking. 

 

Some crayfish had been caught in the lake that morning, using hard sadsa (pronounced sudsa - mealy meal porridge eaten as a staple locally – not nice to my taste buds) in the trap, and they were prepared with garlic and lemon juice as a starter. Steak, boerewors (farmer's sausage) and more sadsa were the main course, and we retired full, content, sweaty and smoky from the fires.

Another day in paradise.

Well, kinda.

Tuesday morning we awoke before sunrise for yet another perfect day – clear skies above, cloud formations on the horizon (where they belong). On one side the sky turned to molten gold fading into blue, while on the other salmon pink faded into indigo. As the light levels increased we discovered a troop of monkeys ensconced in a tree directly opposite, getting up to all kinds of monkey business. ;-) Cameras came out, spectators leaned on rails and we greeted the sun along with the locals. 

 

I managed to get an invite to go fishing with the younger guys after sun-up but before breakfast. Fish of interest were the bream (not like bream in the UK, but some kind of large cichlid) and the tigerfish, which looks a little like a bass, but with outrageous teeth. That first morning the guys managed mostly small stuff, but with a couple of decent bream and one tigerfish, though I blanked. The larger bream and tigerfish were retained to eat later.

After breakfast we motored out to the middle to refill the water tanks and flush waste (:p). The water for showers had run out, and the water supply used was.... lake water. Don't think about where the waste tanks had just been emptied! Fortunately there were very few other boats around, and so one can trust in a mixture of dilution and rapid bio-degradation to sort things out.

Before getting to the boat we had been repeatedly warned that Kariba was full of crocodiles, and that they were known to actively swim across the lake, so that even swimming in deep water in the middle of the lake was not safe. This was clearly intended as 'for information only' since as soon as we were a mile or so out, everyone under the age of 30 plus this 51 year old donned swimming costumes and leapt off the upper deck into the water, in most cases repeatedly and sometimes with back-flips. Crazy. The water was pleasantly cool, less murky than the sea off the south coast of England (probably cleaner too) and smacked good & hard when leapt on from a height of about 10 feet. Darn, I'm getting old these days.

After our dip we motored around to another bay, where we found hippo, elephant, various birds. Games were played, food eaten (organised with military precision by Marleen and cooked by Lovemore) drinks drunk, games of cards and pictionary played. The sun repeated the previous night's trick of melting across the sky while turning clouds on the opposite side pink in sympathy.

Would you give Apple your passport or bank statements?

Because if not, they might not sell you an iDevice.

Just occasionally some large firms do things that make me think that the conspiracy theorists are actually correct.

5am starts don't agree with me

I was awake from before 2am. :p

The drive to lake Kariba was lovely and much shorter than to Vic falls, at around 350km, and we arrived around 8.15am. Loading the boat was a little manic but getting the engines started was a much more leisurely affair – at least for those of us watching. However the efforts of the crew and especially the young guys with us did eventually get them running, and we left by about 12.15pm.

Hippo Basher is a pontoon houseboat, built on 2 parallel steel floatation hulls (so effectively a catamaran) which housed the engines, with an enclosed lower deck (inc kitchen and cabins) and open upper deck, all above the waterline. As we were to discover later, this construction makes the vessel float like a cork, rather than sail like a ship – cheap and easy to build, highly effective in terms of buoyancy, but lacking the natural ability to cut through the water like a conventional hull. Internal construction resembled something like a 1970s caravan and reminded us constantly of one we used to own, but that had been modified and added to over the last 40 years. Everything worked, but in true African style things had been fixed so they could work, but would require some knowledge or insight not obvious to the novice. Like the engines. The ability to fix and re-use stuff that most others would throw away and replace is a point of pride in Africa, at least among some people, although certainly bourne out of need too. Hippo Basher was a proudly 'living' example of the art of non-consumerism.

M&M and ourselves, as the 2 oldest couples on the boat, had been generously given the cabins to share, each with a double bed. The remaining 2 young couples and 2 single guys were sleeping upstairs on the covered but open upper deck. Not necessarily bad if you're a little out-doorsy, slightly scary if you're a town mouse. Mike described it as being like camping on a boat, and that's pretty much spot on. We were being crewed by a couple of guys local to Kariba – Macdonald (pilot) and Lovemore (cook).

Through our cabin window:

 

We motored across the lake over about 5 hours; beautiful scenery on the edges of a vast blue expanse.

One couple had borrowed a tender boat, towed behind us while motoring, and as we drew near the shore of Sanyati West a few of us embarked and were taken across to see the new terrain and some wildlife.

Darkness was falling fast as we drew near the shore, and we saw distant elephants and closer hippos in the twilight. Hippos are very dangerous, being territorial and large creatures with a powerful bite, inclined to come up unseen below an unwelcome boat, tipping the occupants into the water and either attacking them directly or leaving them prey to crocodiles. We carefully observed but kept our distance, our driver keeping a sharp eye out for signs of hippo activity in our path.

Elephant in the sunset

 

The sun dipped below the horizon, and with the light fading in glorious colours, we looked around for hippo basher – to no avail! 

I'd checked to see where it was heading after we drew near to the shore, and it appeared to be heading into one end of the bay in which we were now motoring, but there was no sign: just one other houseboat moored about a mile away. So we motored around the bay with increasing speed (it was becoming dark and cold too) but of the boat could see no sign. Eventually we met a launch returning to the other houseboat, and they told us they'd seen it heading into a smaller bay that was off the main bay area. By this time we'd becoming a little nervous, and so hammered off to finally find it, tucked round a corner and completely out of site of the lake. 

There was considerable relief!

Toni online

I'm a little hesitant about this, partly for reasons of ego, partly because of reluctance to deal with criticism, but for the time being I'm going to try putting some of my messages up on t'interweb thingy.

First one (from 4 weeks back) available here: https://soundcloud.com/toni_ertl/2013-04-14-our-hearts

The heart of the young people.

Chris and I are still discussing and processing a lot of what we saw, heard and felt in Zimbabwe, and how those we've known have been affected by different things.

One of the striking contrasts for her was the difference between the young people of Zimbabwe and those of Bosnia Herzegovina that she visited a couple of years back to help with Novimost and their youth work. It seemed the main ambition of a Bosnian youngster was to get a good education so that they could leave the country and get a good job & have a typical wealthy western-style career. Entirely understandable when you see the kind of expectations that are presented through TV etc.

Contrast that with those we've known in England from Zimbabwe, most have either expressed a desire to return or already done so.

Now the outlook and circumstances ARE slightly different: those going back to Zim have already had an excellent education, and have an expectation of a reasonable lifestyle, or at least one they will enjoy due to experience and expectation.

But there's more than that. It's a whole different world view: the Zimbabwians have an expectation to succeed, even in spite of racial discimination and some of the other, darker things that have happened. I don't think this has come from being the children of the 'ex-ruling class' as some might see them, but instead from their strong Christian faith, and an expectation that God will be at work in their lives, giving them a sense of calling and success.

There was also a conversation I wasn't party to about patriotism, but which Chris has mentioned a couple of times, and that's generally a sign it was significant. Someone said that they were not patriotic, but from what we've seen it seems Zimbabwians are more intensely patriotic than pretty much any other race I've known, even if the country they are patriotic towards mostly exists in memory at the moment. I've certainly been turning different aspects of this over in my head a fair bit since returning, but haven't yet firmed up conclusions.

You know how people ask questions on Ebay?

Saved here for posterity, because in a few weeks this series of gems will have gone (note - order from ebay reversed to make them read chronologically top to bottom).

1. Q:	HI there,what the least you will take ?	02-May-13
   A:	The least I will take is the auction starting price, which is one penny. I might be persuaded to go lower, perhaps to one of those Mojo liquorice sweets that used to be four for a penny, though I suspect that inflation has now made them more expensive than they once were. I am sorry I set the starting price beyond what you are prepared to pay, but eBay would not let me go any lower. Tell you what, if you bid and win then I will put a Mojo in the box with it as a discount-in-kind (assuming they still sell them. Similar nutrition-free calories may be substituted. Errors and omissions excluded.)

2. 
   

   Q:	Hi, I'm fed up with cheapest cheapest cheapest could I get it cheaper if it was made in some far eastern sweatshop... What's the *most* you'd take for it?	02-May-13
   A:	That is a more nuanced question, and nonlinear algebra starts to make an appearance. This is a bit like the interaction between the strong and the weak nuclear forces. On the one side there is my common human decency, knowing that the parts are worth no more than £15 of anyone's money, and I would feel guilty if the auction went any higher, and would quite possibly feel obliged to offer refund back to that level to anyone who bid higher. But then on the other side is common human greed and avarice. My guilt (referenced above) is well trained by a Catholic upbringing, but every man has his price. There is no doubt that were the price to be much over a million pounds that I would take the money and assuage my guilt with expensive Shiraz, fast bikes and slow women (I can't catch the fast ones). Between these limits, even I don't know which way I would swing. So, putative bidders are left with a gamble, do you bid high hoping I will refund, or bid low to deny me the life of guilt-immersed leisure I deserve?

3.  

   Q:	Hi. All this talk of money is making me wonder if you would accept other gifts. Such as naming a first child after you? Or (more practical given my age), perhaps name a pet after you. These must be much more valuable than 1p. So I was wondering what other non financial rewards you might consider with a value in the region of 1p. This should help out the poor souls who can't raise this kind of cash. Thanks. Peter (Ixie lurker).	02-May-13
   A:	I am nothing if not adaptable, but eBay may have difficulty assigning a ranking to non-monetary bids. Taking your examples, as an example. (It would be hard to take them as anything else). My personal ranking would be that _not_ naming your child after me would rank higher than naming a child after me, as i wouldn't want a child to go through life in my shadow. (or, for that matter, with such an odd name). However, if eBay were to have a different interpretation on the order of precedence, it might be awkward to sort out. Naming a pet might work, but I think naming a goldfish after me as a bid would lose to naming an ocelot after me.

4.  

   Q:	I'm desperate to lose weight. Is that desperate enough to buy this heap of tatty R1 bits, or do you require a more specific desperation? Also - what's the daftest question yet asked?	02-May-13
   A:	I can only guess at what level of desperation you would need to have to believe that an R1 front fairing would help you in that area. You must be very far indeed. I will promise not to send you any Mojos or other tempting calories, should you win the auction. I will also make a point of using UPS so that the package ends up at a depot at least 50 miles away from your house, to give you some much-needed excercise.

5.  

   Q:	I notice that you consider an ocelot to be of more value than a goldfish when it comes to animal based bidding (equally I note that no matter how many times I try to enter 'naming a horse' as my bid eBay doesn't let me complete, but that may be because I'm using a Mac.) Would it be fair to presume that you are basing your relative animal values on mass alone? Or is there a more complex algorithm at work. Only I pass a horse on my drive home each evening which probably doesn't have a name and would happily consider bidding naming that after you if I could work out how to input it. In the interests of disclosure I am considering starting my bidding with the naming of a pigeon, there is a distinctive one outside the office with a club foot and slight stutter. Any tips on inputting barter options would be appreciated incidentally.	02-May-13
   A:	I think that it probably is because you are using a Mac, and I suggest that you sulk about it on an online forum somewhere. It would, indeed, be fair to assume that I base my mental scale of animal values purely on mass. However it would also be incorrect. The scale of values is based on an ill-defined level of how much I like each animal. And I like ocelots lots. I like axalotls too. So it may be that the acme of bidding would have to be something from South America with "lot" in it's name. Just for the avoidance of doubt, axalotls are not a higher bid than ocelots. It is possible that eBay is blocking your horse-based bid pending verification of the nominative status of the horse in question.

6.  

   Q:	While ocelots, axolotls, and indeed any South American fauna are notable by their absence from my household, and would probably not be anonymous if they were present, you did intimate that there could be a potential for confectionary-based transactions. Have you any sort of scale in mind - for example, would my half a packet of Rolos have a value of 50% of the RRP, or wuld there be some other scaling factor involved?	03-May-13
   A:	Rolos would be a very complicated choice, as they appear to have logarithmic worth, with the last one being orders of magnitude more valuable than the penultimate. How would I know if you were offering the first half of the pack, or the last half? In fact, do they entangle like photons? if you sent me half of a pack, and I ate my half and you didn't, then you would have the last Rolo. But if your ability to resist were less than mine then at some point I would own the last one. And how fast does this last-ness propagate?

7.  

   Q:	The half packet of Rolos is all that remains, the other half having become (through the services of internal biology and Severn-Trent's sewage disposal system) an Atlantic Ocean-sized homepathic dose of Rolo. I am not sure what a homeopathic dose of Rolo would supposedly cure (but due to the fact that chocolate appears to be an anti-depressant, it may be that its intent would be to cure happiness) nor whether any form of quantum entanglement would operate between the remaining half packet and the Atlantic Ocean, so I think that any judgement of its value would have to be based entirely on the intrinsic value of the Rolos in question. I could eat all but the last one, of course, and that would presumably increase its value, although if you were so minded you could take a number of Rolos and distribute one to each of a number of people, telling each one that that was your last Rolo and hence increasing the value of each Rolo to last Rolo value.	06-May-13
   A:	Claiming last-ness of multiple Rollos would surely be fraudulent, and against eBay policies. I am not sure where they would stand on eating half the last Rolo, does the value-progression continue? Would Zeno's Rollo be infinitely valuable.

 The original auction is here: http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/111061250684

Another piccie

These guys were making lunch, and within a couple of minutes had a nice fire going to cook on between them, sat in the shade of the tree.

I'll probably continue

to post the Africa story next week.

However, here's another pic from the walk mentioned below. This shows the hills that run around Chinhoyi, and in the foreground some maize that forms the staple for so many people. This seemed just a small area that had been planted, rather than a serious attempt at food production and farming commercially.

I have a mild dilemma

Do I go back to doing something I've felt obliged to do but don't really want to, or do I make the most of the break our holiday brought and make a clean break?

[tussle]

And so came the first weekend.

Well we did a couple of days of doing 'nothing' Friday and Saturday. I did manage a bit of a walk around Chinhoyi, and attracted a little attention as a white male out walking alone – this was the one occasion I actually 'made it' into the countryside. There's relatively little game close to towns, so in theory I should have been safe from wildlife. Of more concern was the feeling that passing vehicles were slowing as they got close to me, though no-one actually did or said anything that might give firm grounds for nervousness. People I passed frequently greeted or returned a greeting, what ever they may have thought.

The image below is from that walk.

Sunday we went to church with M and M. A few names we'd heard in passing, and we met many people we'd not known of at all before. The time of praise was good, in that it was focussed on God, rather than being a polished performance, which is inherently not helpful. (*edit* - that sounds all wrong - the time of praise was GOOD, and we were very much lifted by it). It once again reminded me of some changes in what I feel I'm called to do within the church, and I could hear and see places that I might have contributed to what was happening. People were warm and friendly, and we had a great welcome. I was also really glad to see both black and white in the same congregation, although the decoration of the church was very 'white charismatic' in flavour, with lots of scripted banners. It felt as though we could have fitted right in, and it's obvious that the same Spirit is at work in Africa as England.

Sunday afternoon and evening were given over to social activities, with the same friends from England we'd seen at Vic falls coming over with more of their family, plus a local we'd not met before. Bed came early as we were planning a 5am start again.

Thursday - on the road again

Mark and Dixie – I have repeatedly thought of you today, with your marathon 'weekend break' roadtrips. This one started at 5.15am.

Today we drove just under 900Km back from Victoria falls via Bulawayo. There is a road between Chihoyi and Vic falls, but it's 'rough' if you drive a landrover, and although it's about 200km less, the car we were in could not have made it. Mike and I took turns driving, he in particular having not slept well the previous night, and I was glad to help out. It was the exact same journey that we'd done in 2 stages before, just reversed, and going back made the countryside more interesting with the topology easier to see. When we were heading out from Harare the countryside more or less dropped away, with the ridge of hills called The Dyke providing a small bump before dropping again to the high veldt, then again after Bulawayo to the low veldt. Going back showed us that there were hills to be seen instead of the country appearing mostly flat plains with minor undulations.

There had been some changes in the vegetation too – we had been told that autumn is short and fast here – and both trees and grass seemed much more yellowed as we drove away from Vic falls. Further on the clouds appeared, temperatures dropped (21'C at the start, 19'C by the time we stopped 8 hours later for lunch in Kadoma. 

Eventually the sun did come back out, and when we arrived back about 4.15pm it was quite warm again.

I have mentioned the condition of the roads already, but not the police and army. Roadblocks were a frequent occurrence, especially near to towns where the speed limit was dropped to 80km/h (national speed limit was 120km/h) and radar speed traps caught a lot of drivers. At first sight, to a foreigner unused to this kind of police presence, the roadblocks were unsettling: one would have to approach a group of police standing in the road and giving you 'the eye' slowly, not knowing what they wanted. Usually we were waved through – a group of 4 white people in an older Mercedes was not of interest – though on one occasion we were stopped and the boot searched for 'anything dangerous'. Mostly they were pulling commercial vehicles and buses, plus shiny new cars with black drivers.

It was observed that around the 25^th day of the month the number of roadblocks would increase, since that was typically payday. Drivers would likely have money, and police wages were not high. General advice was always obtain a receipt for any fines, and if in doubt then request the fining officer accompany you to the police station to pay the fine.

Tonight we sleep in 'our' bed again. Tomorrow is another day – I hope we CAN sleep, as there's a loud party in the house next door right now.

It's Wednesday, so it must be Victoria Falls - our story continues.

To visit the falls requires one to walk through an area described as 'rainforest', but it's neither a forest, nor is the precipitation that soaks the walker rain. We visited at the time of peak water levels, and the falls were immense, producing so much spray that, at times, it seemed someone had turned a hosepipe on us and the sun was completely hidden. We had been advised to wear waterproof jackets, which we brought (though Chris's patently was not waterproof!) and our friends had umbrellas, but we were soaked to the skin by the time we'd even made it half way along. If we ever do this again I shall wear cycling shorts or long trunks and a long sleeved technical top that will all dry rapidly. I'd also be very inclined to find waterproof housings for any cameras, because they all got very wet too, and Chris's stopped working. Or maybe just come in 'low' season in November.

But enough grumbling.

On entering the falls park we went straight to the statue of David Livingstone. Such is the respect of local people for him that, when all the colonial statues were dismantled at Zimbabwe's independence, they wished to retain this one out of respect and love for what he did. So we stopped there in the sunshine, took pictures and anticipated what was to come. By this time we had clearly seen the plume of spray and could hear the thunder of the nearby falls, and so were quite keen to press on.

A short walk to the left took us to the first viewpoint for the Devil's cataract, which is the section of the falls closest to the pathway – the falls themselves are partially in Zambia, although the viewpoints are almost all in Zimbabwe – and arguably the most spectacular waterfall of all. This cataract is separated from the main section of falls, and is formed from a deep cleft in the rock down which a vast torrent of water flows. The other fall sections appear to be relatively wide and un-channelled, but here the Zambezi rushes into a channel instead of simply shooting out into space, and the power and speed seem more focussed. This was also where we felt the first hints of spray, with just a fine mist falling if the wind carried spray from the invisible depths in our direction.

We walked back past the statue of Livingstone and along the path that led parallel to the main section of falls. As we progressed, so the amount of spray increased, and at the first lookout point we came across some young German tourists dressed in singlets and shorts, soaked through from the water that was falling. There were moments when the wind blew elsewhere and the clouds of spray disappeared to reveal the torrent of water falling over the edge, only to return shortly, both obscuring the view and making me wish to retreat rapidly – this water was not warm!

And this was pretty much the same, with varying intensity, all the way along. There came a point where the sun no longer shone and the sky was as grey as any February day, with cold water falling heavily. Yet further down the trail the sun was back out again, warming chilly fingers while we dripped along.

Around these parts it was no surprise that the vegetation was lush and enthusiastic in its growth. Both Mike and I stopped to take pictures of the undergrowth – the dappled lighting and shiny wetness of the plants would have made a great backdrop for a chocolate bar or anti-perspirant advert (tongue firmly in cheek). There were places where water ran across the paved trail, certainly not deep, but enough to encourage gentle squelching as we progressed alongside the falls.  

Things eased off as we came near the end of the trail, and here we found a lookout point where we could see the iron Victoria Falls bridge. This had been cast and formed in England, then shipped across and assembled on site in the early 1800s, and is still in use as the main crossing into Zambia over the canyon carrying the outflow from the falls. From where we watched, those with a shortage of adrenaline and an excess of cash could be seen bungy-jumping into the canyon. There was also the option to swing part way across, but that was also expensive for a couple of minutes thrill-seeking (and getting an exclusive view).

Since the trail did not loop around, we squelched (literally in my case) back to the car park, dropped off our damp outer clothes at the car, then walked down the road to cross the bridge. In order to cross, first it was necessary to obtain passes, stamped by the immigration authority, to allow us onto the bridge and enter Zambian territory which starts half way across. The view from the bridge was good in a quite different way, with a double rainbow formed in the spray below the bridge. The actual main falls are obscured by a bend in the river and the clouds of spray, but it still looked spectacular.

Outside the park there was a continual stream of people trying to sell tourist artefacts to us and being with a local made it easier to walk on by, although Chris did buy a copper bracelet. About half way we were gently accosted by a couple of Zambian guys (Patrick and Glorious if I recall correctly) who also had stuff to sell, but we chatted a little. In the end I gave Patrick $5 without taking goods (possibly wrongly, but I felt for the guy and really didn't want to bring stuff back) and Chris also gave some money to the chap talking to her. (edit from Chris: as far as far as I was concerned I paid him for being an entertaining & informative guide. When I said good bye I asked his name, & he told me it was Tomato!) The hawking was less intense than in India and the hawkers more polite, yet I'm sure their need was just as real, if not more so.

We reached the Zambian side and stopped for a coke in the cafe there, since the day was actually quite hot at around 32'C. Butterflies were flitting around, and it was good to be in the shade for a few min. The walk back was on the other side of the bridge past the bungy-jump station, and we got less hassle this way.

Back on the Zim side we tried to go through the gate, only to be sent back to the customs house for more passes stamped by immigration. The atmosphere was one of ambivalence – just follow procedures and all will be well. This kind of thing was visible in many places where we had brushes with authority as part of everyday life – it was clear that implementing western-style computerised systems would make things much more efficient, but would likely put a lot of people out of jobs too, and would therefore not be helpful. If one can be patient, doing things the 'handraulic' way can work fine, though it's also fraught with the potential for loopholes, error and all sorts of other things. At least it provides employment for many people.

In the late afternoon we visited the Victoria Falls Hotel for 'high tea'. This is a grand colonial pile set in carefully manicured grounds and preserved for tourists (and possibly wealthy locals) who wish to pretend the days of empire were still present. Service from 'Stanley' was exactly what one would expect in such an environment, and the selection of cakes and sandwiches elegant (possibly a little more so even than those we had seen in Liberty cafe in London) in presentation. We drank our tea, nibbled morsels of food and enjoyed the ambience and scenery, with views right down the the bridge more than a mile away that we'd walked across earlier.

That evening some more Zimbabwean friends that we knew from England dropped by for 'sundowners', and we sat talking until well after dark. Bed came early so that we could be rested for another stupid o'clock start.

The start of travelling in Africa - Harare to Victoria Falls

And so breakfast at a cafe (nice – where in the UK would you get kidneys on toast?) and then off.

The previous night's impression of the roads was pretty much spot on, with a very mixed quality of surface from as good as the best in Europe to ready for spelunking.

Come on, come on, enough small talk - what's this amazing African countryside like? Must be incredible, right?

I'm writing this sitting in the lodge we're sharing at Victoria Falls. The back of the lodge is open and the evening sun is just starting to shine in, while the leaves on the trees are going translucent in the golden light and the air is hazy with woodsmoke from cooking fires and braais (barbecues) everywhere. Earlier in the afternoon we had a family of warthogs and some baboons wander past. I've seen lizards and a couple of enormous grasshoppers. It's as lovely as any other wild bit of countryside we've seen, and the landscape constantly reminded us of places we've known in other countries. We've driven over 1000km at this point, and passed through at least 5 clearly distinct types of vegetation that were all good, yet not strikingly different from other places. If this land were mine and I'd fought for it then I might well be deeply passionate and in love with it, but for a traveller it needs to be enjoyed for itself and not compared to elsewhere.

But we've not yet seen Vic Falls, as it's known.

Monday we did a long drive from Chinoyi to visit another friend at a catholic mission station not too far from Bulawayo. We'd not seen her for even longer than our friends that we were travelling with, and it was really good to be able to 'drop in' on her, miles from anywhere. She made us very welcome in her house, and it was really great to catch up, eat together and spend time around an open fire as night fell. As the sun was going down she took us out for a walk around the settlement and it was clear that she was appreciated by the local people, shown by the constant stream of greetings and smiles. After our meal a guitar was brought out, and we spent an hour or so worshipping and singing the songs we didn't always quite know together. It was not like a 'church meeting' but instead a spontaneous time that was also relaxed and informal, flowing naturally instead of being organised and carefully arranged.

The drive on Tuesday morning to Victoria falls was uneventful, and we arrived around lunchtime. 

Our lodge at Lokuthula (Lokuthula means peaceful sleep) that had been rented was circular, divided in half to make 2 separate dwellings, and in a African style with thatched roof, lower ground floor with kitchen and livingroom, upper ground floor with bathroom & 1 bedroom, then mezzanine with a second bedroom. Construction encouraged a flow of air through the building, keeping it fresh and cool while it was very hot outside. The interior had painted brick walls, exposed beams and timbers and metal lampshades in the shape of guineafowl as well as 'African' artefacts on the walls. It felt cool, slightly dark and exciting. We spent time shopping, relaxing, eating and talking that first day, and it was good to just sit & talk without pressure in great company, enjoying beautiful scenery. There was a kind of curry prepared and we sat outside long after night fell using oil lamps provided with the lodge. We came to Africa because of our friends, and anything else we might have seen was a bonus.

Zimbabwe 2013 - day 1

1.30am is not a great time to get out of bed.


The best flights based on cost & changes to Zimbabwe were with KLM from Birmingham airport, and we just didn't worry at that stage that departure time was 6am. So we needed minimum 2 ½ hours pre-check in time, allow 20min transit from carpark to terminal, just over an hour to drive to the airport, 30min to dress and leave.

1.30am it was then.

I'd checked in online the night before, not realising until I'd printed the e-tickets that it was possible, and we just managed to get seats together on both flights. The flight to Amsterdam was fine, not too busy and nicely on time. The second stage flight does a loop, starting at Schipol going to Harare, then Lusaka and then back to Schipol. This was full of volunteers, and we saw groups from the US, Italy and the UK, including some doctors from Oxford going to teach trauma management in a hospital in Harare, and we were well packed in, but not too uncomfy.

We were more than a little apprehensive about the immigration process on arrival. One develops an impression of what a country is like after talking to ex-pats, and our impression was not a good one regarding administration. We had already filled in our applications for a visa before landing (very like the one required for entry to the US) and although the process was slow, it was uneventful. The one concern we had was that a street address was required, and there was some slightly panicky texting going on while queueing but our friendsboth local and in the UK came through for us.

Seeing Mike & Marleen again in the airport was fantastic. We'd not had a great deal of contact for about 2 years, and although facebook provides a form of communication, it's not at all like really talking and people do change (I'm more serious than ever before) but it was good to be together again, and little had altered in our relationship. Mike especially had put a huge amount of effort into organising stuff for us, and we'd not realised quite the level of detail of careful planning until 5min before a skype call to ask some questions that we hadn't realised he'd already answered, just from looking at the summary sheet. They hadn't seemed to have changed at all, at least on the outside. In a way, this trip was as much about seeing them again as anything else and it was a faith project that we really felt we needed to do.

First impressions outside the airport then.

Harare doesn't smell particularly different from so many other places we've been. It was about 9.15pm when we left the buildings, cool and pleasant, slightly humid and with a faint scent of dew on warm grass, fresh tarmac and wood smoke, but that was all. It seems as though woodsmoke is the chief smell of Africa, especially near meal times, though there are times when plant scents take over. Roads weren't completely terrible, but not good either, and with an almost total absence of markings, making driving after dark require a certain amount of guesswork. Some drivers were also not as careful as they might be (especially those who came screaming past in new and expensive cars) and I was therefore very glad to be driven than be driving myself that first night. M&M had made a plan (one hears that phrase often – it means to make it up as one goes along, instead of following a plan, and I'm guilty of teasing excessively about it) and instead of the 2 hour drive to Chinhoyi where they live, they had kindly arranged for us to spend our first night in Harare.

The house for that night lay in the Dandara community, which is a little piece of England with high walls around it. We talked until late, then slept in a bed so wide that we couldn't touch.


A little taste of what's coming.

  More Sunday - tomorrow we travel.

Tomorrow is another day.

And our last here in Zimbabwe.

It's been a fascinating, challenging, interesting, warm (yet sometimes cool) place to be.

There IS a blog series on the way, presently hovering around 4000 words and written up to the middle of this week. I may see if I can post the first section shortly from this borrowed computer. There will be a lot of images too, although they require a lot of sorting and processing before they are fit for public consumption.

It's been really good seeing our friends again, and I think we'll be more sorry to leave them behind than to be returning to the land of 'mist and mellow fruitfulness'.

Now - off to attempt online check-in with KLM.

Can we break the pattern?

There seem to be patterns of behaviour that can go with a pioneer spirit. The positive side is self-starting, strength of character, determination, faith and hope. But as we were talking last night in church, the flip side of determination is stubbornness: and so follows independence, imposition of will, expectation and drivenness. I know these characteristics well because, in my time, I've been a pioneer and displayed the negative aspects of them freely, even taking a certain amount of pride in doing so.

As a church we have been displaying them as well, all too clearly. So many activities that we've had seem to have been started by someone 'deciding' it was going to be started. Obvious, d'uh? Yes, but the answer as to why it's an issue is inherent in that statement.

The Church is meant to be the body of Jesus on earth. A body cannot walk well if a left foot decides to move off one way while the right foot decided it really likes the place it's already reached. What happens at meal times if the hands are carefully coordinating the transport of food, but the mouth is busy talking? So it is with any kind of church activity. If I go ahead and start a discussion group for single Asian men below 5'8" because I "feel God is calling me to do it" then we may have a group for short, light brown, unmarried men for a while, but despite everyone that comes to it being part of the church, it isn't a church group. And if, after a few years, there is a need for me to do something else, well, the group is 'mine' so I can just close it and move on.

I mean to throw no stones, but as a church we have modelled independence instead of inter-dependence as a pattern for church life.

So God is trying to break the pattern in us.

Talking after last night's meeting with Eddy made me realise this is why I'm trying to submit the things I think we should be doing to the overall church leadership, even though the reasoning was unconscious for the most part. A few times it has seemed as though it would be so much easier to get 'forgiveness than permission' - actually among men at least, we almost seem to use that expression with pride instead of shame - but God has been very gracious in keeping me from that course of action. There have been times I've walked away from those leadership meetings feeling down, ineffectual and frustrated, yet at the same time I KNOW we need to agree together on a course of action before we take things to the church.

Is this really the right way? Leadership by committee?

If this were just a committee then I'd say firmly 'NO', but I'd say that each person on the leadership team is there because that's where God wanted them to be, and we are a VERY diverse bunch with all kinds of views and perspectives. Yet at the same time there IS a unity present among us, and a determination to seek God for the best for His church at Heyford Park. We are learning to submit to each other, and the result of that seems a different atmosphere in the church, a lightness, an openness, an acceptance that we never had.

Just amazed at the grace of God tonight.

In particular, the way He seems to line things up for us. I'd already planned to use this video (thanks Mikey Mo for providing the link).

We began sharing, and John provided the natural introduction, talking about how he'd seen himself and how he'd been seen by others, all completely unaware of what was coming next. And the grace of God was very much present for all of us, with not a single person staying silent or being left out. I love watching people share their struggles and weaknesses, insights and understanding, being built up as they hear and as they share. It's so much better than me standing at the front, telling everyone how it should be and how they should live.

The video is interesting on many levels, and while it's been very carefully designed to be emotionally provoking (and it's highly effective too) as well as being personal it could also be applied to churches. I had a real sense that some parts of the church would see themselves as ugly (or worse, see other parts as ugly). But Jesus loves this church, died for it, and instead of telling us we don't look too good, He's bringing words of encouragement, comfort and reassurance to us.

One gig two.

And so I reverted.

Back to Pear Linux 7 that is.

Mint KDE worked, mostly, except for DVD playback - though it wasn't opening DVDs at all until the region code on the drive had been set - which was too much to expect of an older machine running a demanding modern operating system. I really like the way that when opening an audio CD, KDE's file manager offers the audio for download to the hard drive in every format for which the machine has codecs loaded.

But it was sluggish and the machine ran warm all the time, even when idling, which was going to kill battery life quickly. Less good was the lack of hard drive encryption, and if I am to take personal data with me then I really don't want to risk it falling into anyone else's hands.

I'd been discussing the issue of getting 'non-free' codecs onto pear with one of the guys on the forum, and it turned out the problem the previous day was my failure to direct the machine properly. So a quick reinstall, a few minutes on the command line and the install of a bunch of updates and voila, DVD playback!

Security is better with pear too, and to access the machine a hard drive decryption password is required as well as a (different) user password to access both the desktop and any control functions. A real time battery life check gave a genuine 2 hours including some thrashing of the hard drive when too many programs were open at once while installing updates. Audio quality through some cheap Radiopaq headphones (£1.99 at ebuyer) is also more than fair, and Dire Straits Lady Writer was clear, detailed and involving.

Looks like that's pretty much sorted then. Just need to set up email accounts and it should be ready.

How do you cope with only 1 gig?

Sorry - this is geekery, rather than music.

:-)

If you're going to travel somewhere that theft is apparently natural and property considered to be common, is it a good idea to take shiny, desirable bits of kit or is it better to haul something old and borderline disposable?

This week I picked up an old laptop from another business owner where I work to take away. He'd put Vista on it when he first acquired it 7 years ago and had hauled it round to use making presentations, gradually silting up the OS under layers of applications with varying degrees of usefulness. It had got to the stage of taking about 5min to boot and then another 3min to open a powerpoint talk, while battery life had dropped under an hour. The poor little thing only had 1 gig of RAM (hence the title) and was thrashing the hard drive just to start up.

The plan was to swap out the original 80Gb HDD for an old WD 320Gb drive (warranty replacement for a failed drive) I had laying about. The memory was a bit more problematic, because although it would *probably* take a 2Gb stick, there was only 1 slot, and the theoretical max was 1Gb. Plus I didn't really want to spend £25 on a 2Gb stick of PC-5300 laptop memory if it was going to get nicked.

So the trick is to find an OS that can cope with 1Gb RAM and still not play the waiting game.

I tried a bunch of different OSs run 'live' of DVDs and to my surprise Pear Linux 7 came out well ahead. Now this seems wrong because it's basically Ubuntu (slightly slow) with a heavily modified  Gnome 3 interface (also slow) but running a newish kernel (3.7 - fast). So on it went and it was very usable indeed, except that some aspects were broken and I couldn't be bothered to keep trying to fix it. I moved down the Pear scale and installed 6, but that hung & crashed.

Right now it has Mint KDE on and has just finished updating. Tomorrow I'll see how KDE copes on a 1Gb platform.

On a slightly geeky topic - .png or .jpeg

Those who are observant and care about these things will have noticed that all the images posted recently have been .png files. I've begun using this format because it doesn't degrade the image quality, however the file sizes are a little bit bigger than a similar size 'jpeg file.

One of the image sharing sites I've used will not allow anything but .jpeg files, and it got me wondering how much difference there really was between the 2 for file size and image quality. I'd be interested in any opinions you might have.

About hearing God

When looking in from outside, I think many atheists see us wacky Christians talking about 'hearing God' and are pretty sure we're either:

a) Barking mad and dangerous.
b) Gently self-deluding.
c) Inclined to invent stuff that gives us permission to do what we want.
d) Trying to fit in the the rest of these odd people.

So I don't want to talk about the mechanics of hearing especially, other than to say that various (strong Christian) people have come to me independently all saying the same thing - it makes you start to take note when you hear that, especially when they aren't necessarily even doing it to help you.

But regardless. :-)

This morning I was sat at breakfast, just reading the bible as usual, and it seemed to me the Spirit said "you need to make some notes about this and that, because the man who was due to preach may not be there this morning". And that's how it turned out. So today I actually spent less time in preparation than I did speaking, and I felt far happier about what was said and the response it produced than last week when hours were spent in preparation.

There's a sense of Deju vu

It can be SO hard to be different from one's parents, unless one has a strong determination not to follow.

This afternoon Ben asked for help with a soldering job again. Yesterday we replaced a component in the CPU of his Mazda MX5 that should make it run cleaner and today it was fixing a loudspeaker by re-attaching the flexible braid for the voice coil. This is JUST how things used to be for me growing up, where my father had all these skills and I had some jobs I just knew he'd do so much better than me. When he was in hospital with the mangled leg, again the echoes of things that happened to me were so strong (I mangled my left leg too, although I was hospitalised properly for a week with a broken rib, punctured lung & concussion after falling from a motorcyle).

Our children are such a mix of us though. In some ways he's much more like Chris, in others very like me. I hope he's able to make many of the good decisions that I was mercifully able to, and not end up with the trainwreck of a life that might also have been mine. He is his own man though, and I'm glad for that.

A little magnificence

I've found taking pictures of naked trees round here much more rewarding than when they are covered in leaves. There's a marvellous structure that's hidden by summer clothing.

Hello Mr. Hedgehog.

This morning in men's study group we were talking about opening up the armour that keeps our tender selves protected and allow others in, even though we will get hurt. The comment was made about how some of us know that there's someone waiting to stick a barb into us if we do, but I had much more the picture of 2 hedgehogs trying to embrace. Neither hedgehog feels like he's spiny and both know they are soft on the inside, yet when they get close to each other they both feel spiked (I know this is anatomically incorrect, but go with the idea, OK).

So it seems with church life. 

And married life.

And family life.

In fact, put any 2 humans together in relationship and at some stage they'll start driving spikes into each other.

Just a couple more pictures.

Trying to find the glow in wood.

*edit*
The above image looks lovely on my screen at home: subtle, rich, warm and detailed. However on my (Dell IPS) work monitor it looks dark, dull and uninspiring. The image below of the catch for a farm gate looks similarly uninspiring on this monitor, but not so muchthe others in that set. I've re-worked the image to suit that monitor, and would be interested to hear which, if either, people preferred. That would also give me information about how my images are appearing on other people's screens.

Thanks

Image version 2

A change is as good as.....

doing something different.

Geek post alert.

I've just switch operating system/desktops again, this time migrating to openSUSE 12.3 running KDE 4.10, which I briefly reviewed a few weeks ago.

The last time I selected openSUSE as my main OS was 3 years ago IIRC with 11x, but back then it was a bit unstable, inclined to slow down at odd times and badly lagging behind in application updates as the developer played it safe. However with 12.3 the developer really pulled out the stops, bringing a quicker and cleaner DE with subtle but pleasing theming and very up to date apps. It seems to be well supported by software developers too, and Raw Therapee* that I mentioned in an earlier post already has a bleeding edge version in the repos that looks very slick indeed.

This time it was mostly software that made me switch, but not alone.

I really like Pear Linux. Except it was still too Maclike. And even though it was all fine, familiar etc, and some VERY attractive design work had been done, software versions were still >12 months out of date, audio codecs didn't work and half the non-free bits & pieces that make software nice to use (like non-free fonts for browsers and office apps) were missing/not working from the non-free sources.

So after a couple of goes at fixing things without success, having switched between hard drives in the boot sequence so I could use openSUSE to edit images properly, I decided not to switch back and just simply imported all my data into the openSUSE home folder.

Now I have sharper graphics again under KDE instead of Ubuntu/Gnome and a nice slick interface. I never thought it would happen, but I'm missing the dock to launch applications and 'mission control' from the top left of my screen (although I don't need it since KDE has a taskbar at the bottom) and (so far) everything is working well. I've no idea whether I'll stick with this OS, although if I'm going to be doing much photo editing in the future then that will be a major factor in not choosing a Ubuntu-based distro. That said, this is still somewhat slower than pear during some operations, but for the moment it's nice to be back again.

I wonder what Ubuntu studio is like these days? ;-)


*available for the Mac, but only under OSX10.6 or earlier. Yes, I tried. No, it doesn't work on 10.8, which seems to be a theme with some other image editors too, judging by comments in the app store.

Incorrigable!

Yes, probably, but it's so much fun. As an added bonus it is unlikely I'll ever be made into a cardboard box.

More spring pics.

I'm gradually learning and adapting, plus have started using Raw Therapee to manipulate the .raf files from the Fuji. Raw Therapee has much more subtle tonal controls, plus a better de-speckle, while DigiKam is better at gross tonal changes and sharpening.

The Fuji sensor seems good at more subtle colours than the Samsung, though not without considerable help, but the Samsung is very much cleaner, even though it's an 8+ year old design. Noise doesn't show up at these sizes, but even at 100ASA it leaps off the page when pixel peeping.

But the good thing about the Fuji is that it makes me want to take pictures again, even with the hit & miss results it produces.