Part 2: Big Boy Bob's Backyard - Harare, Zimbabwe

I’m walking across the border from Mozambique into Zimbabwe.  It’s hot and the crossing is crowded with huge trucks parked off to the side.  Drivers are dozing in their cabs as they wait to muddle through the interminably slow and bureaucratic process of bribing border control agents to get into the country with their haul.

Fortunately, I have some US dollars tucked away in order to pay for a visa since the country has a dollarized economy.  This was put in place after the now infamous collapse of their economy a few years ago when a 10,000,000 Zimbabwean note (that is not a typo) were virtually worthless.  The move prevented the country from falling off a cliff into an economic abyss, but it also means everything is considerably more expensive compared to neighboring countries that have their own currency.  The old notes are still around, but they are sold to tourists as collector’s items and a reminder of the government’s stunning destruction of the nation’s economy.  Ironically, the notes are worth far more now then they ever were when in circulation.

After passing through the check point I grab the first cold Fanta I find and negotiate passage to Harare in a dalla dalla.  It’s 200 miles and roughly 4 hours away.  I am thankful the vehicle is clean, in good shape, and not overcrowded.  (You learn to appreciate the little things that are normally taken for granted.)

The ride is hot and torturous because the driver has a single music video playing on a loop on the van’s television.  It must have played 50 times in a row on the loudest setting (probably at “number 11”.  If you get that joke without the help of Google, I’ll buy you a Fanta).

We pass ancient homes with roofs of thatched grass and sticks and dirt floors.  Small fires burn in front of most of them as kids run about, stopping briefly to watch the traffic barreling along the road, sometimes waving and sometimes just curiously gazing.

We arrive at the outskirts of Harare.   The driver lets me off near the large bus depot, teeming with cabs, vans, food stalls, and hundreds of people milling about.  I haven’t booked a hotel room and don’t have much of a clue where I’m headed, so I just start aimlessly walking around downtown Harare.  My strategy is to find an internet café so I can look up some potential places to stay, but I can’t find one.

After about an hour of wandering with 60 pounds on my back, I throw in the towel and end up at the Crown Plaza.  I am a hot, sweaty mess when I stumble up to the registration desk exhausted.  When I hear the price per night for a room I decide to look elsewhere.  The staff seems to take pity on me and hail me a cab, informing the driver to take me to a local backpackers (like a hostel) lodge.

The first lodge is full and the second lodge only takes cash.  Since it’s a Saturday and ATMs only work during weekdays (I have no idea why), I decided I can’t burn through all of my US dollars on a hotel room because I can’t last until Monday without any money.  Virtually no one takes credit cards in Zimbabwe, except for the big foreign hotels so I head back to the Crown Plaza.

The women behind reception just laugh and insist they’ll give me a good room.  A few minutes later I am settled in and enjoying the clean bathroom and over zealous air conditioning.  From the 25th floor I can see much of the city and my eyes end up on the large park just next to the hotel.  There’s a large (very large) crowd starting to gather and I watch curiously.

A moment later a piece of paper is slipped under my door that, essentially, reads that the management apologizes for the inconvenience but there is a concert in the park from 9pm until 2am and it could get loud.  Oh, and foreigners shouldn’t go outside in the area of the hotel because large and potentially unruly crowds are unpredictable, i.e. there will be a lot of drunk, rowdy people around so stay in your room.

Being trapped in a decent hotel is not the worst fate I could imagine, until the music starts.  It is so loud the windows of my room on the 25th floor are rattling and it goes on for hours and hours.  Awesome.

The next morning, after having endlessly surfed the hotel’s wifi the night before, I move to another accommodation I found outside of town.  It’s cheap, clean and quiet, and although it’s a solid walk to downtown, there is a very fancy shopping plaza a few minutes away.

I spend the day exploring Harare, which is quiet and uncongested since it’s a Sunday.  Walking around  I see visible signs of past grandeur including a large mosque whose façade is made entirely of tiny turquoise tiles, but it’s falling apart from disrepair.  The city and much of the country is renowned for once having had enviable infrastructure, but  the city is now a shadow of it’s former self.

There is a discernable pallor to the city’s environs and the faces you pass on the street are sullen.  Unlike most other African capitals, Harare is not dotted with construction cranes pulling large, new buildings of glass and steel out from a thatch of the surrounding dilapidations.  The city is crumbling and without anything new preparing to take its place.

More disappointing then the buildings, however, is that of all the places I’ve been thus far, the Zimbabweans’ with whom I interacted were the least friendly people I’ve come across.  Not to say they were mean or impolite, but definitely not warm like so many others I’ve met.

I didn’t plan it at the time, but I later realized I didn’t take a single picture of people, buildings, landscapes or anything because the place was just too depressing.

On Monday I go back into town and explore.  My first stop is an ATM machine, which has an hour-long line that snakes around a city block.  Since it’s a cash economy and the currency is so tightly controlled, accessing a bank is an ordeal.  I get cash and stopping for lunch at a fast food place.  When I go to pay, they tell me they can’t make change for a $50 bill, but there’s a bank upstairs.

I get to the second floor and I am in the middle of a furniture show room, which is also a bank.  The teller I speak to informs me that it costs $2 just to break a fifty into a denomination I can actually use to buy things.  Such a racket, but I have no choice.  The bills I get in exchange are literally disintegrating they are so old and worn.  Again, since it’s a cash economy they are used over and over again and since the bills are never repatriated to the US, they are never turned over and exchanged for new bills.

I will resist the temptation to share a protracted treatise on Zimbabwe’s history and politics, but I will say that the oppressive presence of “Bob” (the not-so-subtle way Zimbabweans dismissively refer to President Robert Mugabe whose been in office for more than 20 years) is ubiquitous.  You don’t see large statues or images of him that was so typical of Soviet-styled totalitarianism or the likes of Saddam Hussein or Kim Jong-Il, and there isn’t a visible presence of military or police on the streets as a deterrent to citizen dissent.  But this is only because none of those things are necessary as Bob has successfully crushed the spirit of average Zimbabweans to the point where they have no fight in them.  They are docile and resigned to live in a country that provides no hope for change until Bob joins Saddam and Jong-Il in whatever place dead dictators find themselves.

After only 2 and half days, I decide I’ve seen enough of Harare, so I buy my bus ticket for Lusaka, Zambia, which is 300 miles and 8 hours away.  I'll go back once Bob is six feet under.  Until then, Bob, you can kiss my a**.

Up Next:  Part 3. - Lusaka, Zambia a.k.a. Little China