Adventures of Dean and Sophie

That, dear readers, finally brings us up to the present moment, which sees Sophie and I lying in a small campsite in a corner of Jo’Berg airport that was quiet at 12pm the night before but is now quite a major thouroughfare. We have spent the night here, waiting since our Harare flight yesterday for our unconnectable Buenos Aires flight. I have spent most of the time finally writing up the previous posts. Apart from a couple more adventures that we managed to fit in, and Sophie will be writing up, I am finally current with the blog! I’ll be doing my best to keep it that way.

As I sit here watching passersby glancing at our little camp in surprise, disapproval or surprised disapproval, I am wondering what Buenos Aires will bring. We haven’t yet managed to arrange a place to stay, with more important tasks like uploading photos having taken internet priority so far and we haven’t any contacts there either. I am really hoping that they are into the whole “wireless for everyone” thing, unlike Africa which is still getting over the novelty of having internet at all and thinks it can charge ridiculous amounts for it.

Oooh, look at that! We should be checking in. It’s amazing how complacent one can become about check in times after killing time for twenty hours…

Hey all,

I was hoping to have more time to write up our adventures, but what with trying to learn Spanish in two weeks, as well as cramming as much as we can into the last few days, we find ourselves leaving tomorrow for South America! I have barely gotten up to the end of 2009 such have been the adventures in Zimbabwe, but hopefully will be able to get a bit more done in the endless hours of airport waiting that we have ahead of us.

Wish us luck in Buenos Aires! Buenos dias muchachos!

The next day – after dropping annie off at the airport for her 30 hour flight home to brisbane! We took Dean’s gardener Robson out to his village with a huge pile of building scraps. Dean’s family had given these to Robson after renovating their front deck. The drive out took about an hour and a half arrving – unfortunatley for us – at the hottest part of the day… As we arrived we were greeted by the whole family led by the running smiling kids and followed by a very happy (clapping) ‘gogo’ Robson’s Mum. GoGo is shona for Grandmother – this gogo is in her late 80’s with only two teeth and not a word of english. In shona when you are greeted or thanked they take their two hands and clap in front of thier chest once or twice, in our case I think she was very grateful as she was clapping, dancing on the spot and nodding vigerosly everytime she saw us! The kids in Robsons village we’re a delight, they love to have their photograph taken and then view it on the screen. At one stage I showed them how to take a photo and gave it to them to take thier own photos, they came up with some georgous picutres which I later printed out for them.

After unloading the truck we were thanked with freshly picked corn (mealies), tomatoes, mangoes and the real treat of prickly pear (so yummy!) and some native berries that suck all of the juice from your mouth! The plot of land that Robon has is small but as the family has grown the communal land that they own is now considerably large and plesantly shady. Covered by Mango trees, mulberry trees, and the native berry fruit tree (I can’t remeber what it is called…). There are fields full of maize and tomatoes, an area for cattle and even a family cementry. All of Robson’s siblings, bar one, have died in the last few years from different illnesses that are sadly far too common in africa; aids and aids related illness, malaria, and poor health.

One of the things that strikes me the most about the people in zimbabwe is the zimbabwean nature… they are unlike any other afican I have met. They are humble, kind and generous and they always have a smile and a wave for you. Considering the poverty that they have suffered, especially in the last 10 years or so, the crime rate is no where near as bad as you would expect, they seem to have a deep understanding of what is happening around them and despite their suffering they have a hope and grace about them that brings a stillness to the mind. In the rural areas they are a very neat and organised people. This you first notice as you drive along the roads and peer out at the people selling their wares. The maize is always stacked into a pattern or sculpture, the tomates are piled neatly into little piramid shapes and the bowls of fruit are always neatly and artistically arranged. But it is only until you visit their villages that you really start to notice how much pride and care they take of their few belongings. The sand on which you walk on around their cicular huts is swept into patterns, the kitchen hut (generally placed in the middle of the village) has polished concrete, cleanly swept and wiped, and both hand made and new pots, positively shining, are neatly stacked against the wall. The fire place in the middle of the kitchen you can hardly tell ever held fire except for the tell tale smoke discolouration that lines the underneath of the thatch roof.

I wish that all the bad people could be sifted out they way that they sift the husks off of the wheat, those with no dignity or respect, being whisked away by the breeze. I wonder then what zimbabwe could become. Both whites and blacks in zimbabwe are amoung some of the nicest people I have ever met. I honestly hope that one day it becomes what it is meant to be…

Marondera Rural

Chitungiza is located on the outskirts of harare and up until recently has been violently subject to the ZANU-PF manipulations, resulting in many people having to flee thier homes. *Matthew, for those who don’t know, is a musican who performs with a band. In 2007 they were banned from zimbabwe as thier music was too political. In this same year a group with the lead singer sporting long dreadlocks stepped  over the political line – the government ordered all dreaklocks to be banned. If you we’re seen with them they would take you and cut them off. In these years Matthews family was threatened multiple times by government officals and we’re eventually forced to flee to South Africa. Matthew through his connections with his band went to Europe where Dale and I worked (to no avail) to get him refugee status there. After a year of much frustation at the system and Matthew living on couches unable to work to support his family – he returned home – here he found his house had been burnt down and his wife and two boys still remained worried and pennyless in South Africa.

Matthew returned at a time when the MDC party had just been allowed into parliament and he was lucky enough to be able to present his case to the rural land committee (just neighbouring chitungueza) they understood his hardships and gave him a new plot of land to build on for $22US a year. When I visited this year his house was almost finished and he has great plans to turn this plot of land into a music school for the kids of Chitungueza. He wants to teach the kids that can’t afford school and school leavers that are unable to find work musical skills. Including him, there are four others who are willing to donate their time to teaching an instrument. Eventually his plans are to build a staged area for the kids to then put on alcohol and drug free family performances and to set up a small recording studio. To keep the project afloat Matthew wants to buy a communter bus to use part time for the music school and most of its time to hire a driver and join the flock of zimbabwean commuter buses. He also plans to have a chicken rearing program on the land for the pupils to partake in, as well as small sections of farm land.

On my return home I plan to write a grant for this project and do as much fundraising as I can. The benefits of this project are far reaching and it is an amazing opportunity for him to make a difference to the lives of many Zimbabwean kids and subsequently thier families.  If you want to help with this project or at anytime donate money or fundraise send me an email and we can make a plan!

*Names have been changed

By Sophie

Chitungueza

Flickr, which I am using to store all the photos for the blog,  informs me that I’ve hit their 200 photo limit. Henceforth, until I upgrade, each photo I add causes an older photo to disappear. That is until I fork out some money to upgrade. Well thats not going to happen, not unless someone informs me that Flikr Pro has a tick box that says “Don’t overcompress my photos into oblivion”.

Picasa here we go.

Shashin Error: unable to retrieve albums.

Shashin Error: unable to retrieve albums.

Hello from Zimbabwe!

It’s Annie here. I realise I said to keep an eye on deanloades.com for the adventures of the group, and also that deanloade.com has been somewhat quiet since I got here. Apologies. We have been (a) very busy, and (b) busy in places that don’t have internet, let alone a powerpoint, so Dean has fallen a bit behind. In an effort to give him a hand, here is an entry from me…its deanloades.com, annie style.

So Africa hey. What can I say? It’s different, and slow moving, and extreme, but very pleasent and totally aweome. Zimbabweans, both black and white, are lovely people and Dean’s family are so hospitable and caring.

I wont go into detail on what, where and how we have been doing things, Dean is onto that. But I shall give you a highlight of today, which just happened not half an hour ago. Infact it’s a good example of how nice Zimbo’s (Zimbabweans) are.

We are currently on a road trip back from Mozambique, where we spent new years on the beautiful beaches there eating copious amounts of sea food, mmmm. We are now heading to Bulawayo. We spent three nights in the Chimanimani Mountains, and have been to the Great Zimbabwe Ruins on the way, but I am sure Dean will have more to say on those subjects, so I’ll leave you in suspence. Anyway, we just stopped for fuel in Msvingo. While we are stopped at the station a lady and her son asks if we would like to buy some mangoes. We say how much, she says one dollar each, we say ok, we’ll have three. Meanwhile her son pops around the other side of the car with his tray, he looked about sevenyears old. We picked some ripe ones out of his tray and pay his mum. He gives us a big happy and embaraseed smile and sophie and I melted. Sohpie asked him his name and he says “my name is Terrance” and looks very embarased. We say thank you Terrance and we were all smiles. A minute later he turns up brandishing another mango and saying “parisa”! The fuel station guy says that means ‘for free’. He gives us one of those simles and soph and I melt again. It was so sweet.

So Soph and I head into the super market, high-fiveing Terrence as we go past, which was aparently very funny according to all the people hanging around. While we’re in there we buy Terrence a chocolate bar and give it to him when we get out. He was so chuffed, we get a low-five this time, then he runs off to show his mum and it falls out of the bottom of the packet and onto the ground, but he doesn’t mind and we all laugh. I think it made both of our days.

Anyway keep an eye out for more stories, and if they don’t get here before I get home you just have to hear them straight from me. I think that’s a better deal anyway cause I’ll do them with all the voices and the actions.

Peace out, Annie.

To all our thousands of loyal readers! I hope you have had an amazing Christmas and New Years!
This is just a quick post to confirm that Andventures of Dean and Sophie has not in fact fallen by the wayside. There are many exciting stories and pictures coming soon. We have been on the road since Christmas and internet is a hard thing to come by in this part of the world.
Please stay tuned

On our way back to Harare, we decided to drop in and see a family friend Cessie Goddard. A grand old lady of Zimbabwe, she is an old friend of both of my grand parents and is also the mother of Jim Goddard, a close business partner of my dads. They live on Pezulu ranch, another one of the very few farms that are still in the hands of their owners. The ranch is another beautiful piece of land with the classic Zimbabwean Msasa bushland and rolling, lichen-covered granite mounds. The centerpiece of the farm is the huge main homestead, a three story turreted castle, built by Jim for him and his family.

Its always very interesting talking to Cessie, and we spend hours hearing stories about my relatives and friends from way back. She is also irresistably hospitable, at its not long before she has convinced us to stay the night. As usual we are extremely well fed as well. I am feeling much better at this stage, well enough to drag Sophie out of bed at first light. We walked up the huge granite dome that sits alongside the castle and reach the top just in time to see the big red sun pop up over the horison. The view in the early morning light is amazing.

Later on we go to the popular watering hole on the farm, Mermaids Pool, where a creek runs down a long, steep, and more or less smooth slope of rock and into a natural pool. Unfortunately there was not a lot of water running but there was just enough for us to have a ball sliding down on a rubber innertube.

After another huge meal we were again ready to go. We set off much later than we should have, and so we found ourselves driving into Harare in the dark. Thios is never a good idea as there are a lot of trucks, many without a full set of lights and hardly any street lights. At one stage we found ourselves driving down the wrong side of a dual carriageway, as the newly built side of the road had split off without so much as an signpost and left us driving into two lanes of oncoming lights. Luckily we were able to hastily cut across the grass onto our side. Nonetheless we eventually arrived safely.

After our short stay in Bulawayo we went to Matopos National Park which is not far away. It is an area filled with spectacular lichen covered granite kopies and wildlife. Its here that Cecil John Rhodes is buried, amongst yellow and orange boulders. That was where we stopped for sundown on our first night, its a beautiful spot to be buried. Under the rocks are hundreds of rainbow coloured lizards which come out when you whistle, so long as you have a few bits of food to throw them. The is also, interestingly, a little shrew who lives alongside the lizards. We remembered him from our previous visit three years ago.

Our visit to Matopos was funny in that fact that, without any conscious reference to our previous visit three years ago, we ended up visiting the exact same places, and they were not the easiest places to get to either. But, despite being entirely unoriginal, they were very beautiful spots.

On the third day I was not feeling too hot so we headed back to Bulawayo and I was sent straight to bed, while the girls went for afternoon tea at the amazing Nesbit castle. It is a crazy old castle, built years ago by a prominent, yet very eccentric Bulawayo resident, and now restored with full medieval furnishing and operating as a very fancy hotel. When they finally got home from their tea and scones, Soph took my temperature and I had a fever. Maria quickly passed the diagnosis of probably malaria. Being something that is best treated ASAP, we picked up a treatment from the pharmacy first thing in the morning and set off back to Harare.

We spent a couple of nights in Bulawayo with my dad’s cousin Maria and family. It was so good to be sleeping in an actual bed again! Both nights were very festive, the last one involving a long session of drinking with my cousin John and his girlfriend Jenny which culminated in us sneaking into his old highschool for a midnight swim. Yes very mature I know.

We also had a wonderful long lunch with my aunt June and family.

During one of the days we visited the Art Gallery, which always has a lot of interesting stuff. They also have several small studios on site that they rent out to local artists, so we were able to go and meet some of the artists. Annie and Soph were very quick to make friends with some of them, with Annie keen to try and help them out by getting some of their work over to Australia. I think chatting to Annie they were a bit disheartened to learn that its just as hard to make a living from selling art in Australia as it is in Zim.