Balancing Rocks, Sadza, and Inns

I’ve been in Zim for 4 days now and it is certainly not how I expected it to be, but also nothing that I am not prepared for. Before arriving to the airport, I filled out a few immigration forms on the plane. There is something really satisfying about completing the customs form, but the Zimbabwe identity form is a bit of a pain. How am I supposed to put my height down in centimeters when I cannot remember if the inch to centimeter conversion is 2.54 cm or 2.51 cm per inch? And of course, my phone is dead so I couldn’t look it up. Regardless, I left it blank and hope that the Zimbabwean officials don’t drive to Ruwa with a measuring tape (well, it’s a little past Ruwa on the way to Goromonzi and Marondera).

 

In line at immigration, I waited with my backpack, camera case, and violin for about one hour. Plastered on every wall were ads for fast food chicken: Nando’s, KFC, and Chicken Inn. The line was backed up for people who needed visas on entry, including a British girl who splits her time between the UK and Zimbabwe. She was not much taller than me, but if height were a predictor of personality, she would be an extreme outlier. After insulting the long wait several times, she finally found a white couple in a different line (the one for Diplomats), ran up to them and I think convinced them to tell the officials that she was part of their group. It seemed to work, as I saw her run off with her newly minted passport to pick up her luggage and then what I imagined was a nice Mercedes to drive off to her place in Harare. After picking up my bags from baggage claim, a nice lady came up to me and asked how I was doing and I respond with, “Fine, how are you?”

 

“Could I check inside your bags?” she inquired.

 

“Yes, sure,” I responded hesitantly but not hesitantly enough to sound worried as if I were hiding something in my bag.

 

“Do you have any food in your bags?” she asked. Yes, of course I brought food, why would I come to a foreign country without microwaveable Mac and Cheese and cereal bars?

 

“No food,” I responded.

 

“Ok, can I check this bag?” she asked while pointing to my blue bag which happened to be the only bag without food. She opened the bag and quickly looked at inside before wishing me safe travels. I met James outside where he greeted me with a handshake and helped load the bag into a small Nissan which he could barely fit in because he is nearly 7 feet tall … I think.

 

They drive on the left side here, like Bermuda, and I constantly am confused with how turning works. Even though I have an international driving permit (which I got at a AAA in Riverside a few weeks ago, next to a SuperCuts where I got my haircut), I am not sure if I’d feel comfortable driving here. It’s not as chaotic as India, not as traffic-y as entering Chicago through 290, but quite disorienting. 

 

I arrived on campus a little past 2pm on Sunday. It’s a gated school with a lot of trees, plants, and flowers. The school right now is at a temporary location while the new campus is being built a few kilometers east of here. Zimbabwe is known for balancing rock formations, which I believe were made by humans, but allegedly are naturally geological and have been eroded for centuries. My conspiracy is that either a group of people went around Zimbabwe with a really strong crane – or something of the equivalent that could lift heavy objects before the time of electronic cranes, I’m guessing when technology was not a thing in really early human civilization … whenever that was – or that all the rocks are hollow. There are some balancing rocks at the new campus, and when they were blasting (which I have now learned is using dynamite to blow up land), the rocks didn’t move … which I guess might disprove my hollow rock theory. There is also a balancing rock on the temporary campus called The Rock (also known as Rock Studio because the Media Club used to film in front of it). It’s next to the dining hall (which is also used as a classroom), as well as the faculty office (where I have just gotten my desk), and 3 other classrooms. The space used to be a lodge for visitors, but the school re-purposed it to be a school, so residences are directly across from the school. There are around two dozen rooms for the faculty, teaching assistants, and students. The rooms are separated in pairs – I’m in room 6, and 3 junior faculty share room 5 right next to me with a very thin wall in between our rooms. Every room has its own bathroom, but there is no mirror in the bathroom nor anywhere else in the room. I’ve slowly forgotten what I look like but then remind myself that I have a phone camera. 

 

Campus is really gorgeous and vibrant. There is an archery field, a volleyball court, and really nice sitting spaces to read outside (even though it is winter, the temperature is around 20C, but gets quite chilly at night). The students are so energetic, incredibly intelligent and motivated, and are always laughing – though I can’t tell if it’s because I look confused all the time or if it’s because they are genuinely happy. I’m struggling to communicate with a lot of the students and a few of the faculty members: I would describe the English to be a soft mumble that is often quite fast, so my response is usually: “Sorry, could you repeat that?” There are a few folks from the U.S, so it is at least nice to have them to speak to. I’ve really enjoyed getting to talk to the Humanities instructor and TA, neither whom are from the U.S., but both seem like they may have watched a few TikTok videos and are on the same wavelength as I.

 

At dinner on Sunday, I was greeted with a warm applause that eventually turned into shouting and using dinnerware to clap, as if I was Beyoncé or the Queen of England, though likely not the latter because Zim is a former British colony, as evidenced through the huge Christian practicing population and several breaks during the day for tea time (which I am a huge fan of, because the tea is prepared exactly how I like: with milk and a lot of sugar). I introduced myself to the students and sat down at a table to eat Sadza and some vegetables. At the table, I realize that I do not know how to speak to high schoolers, though I think I’ll attribute that to my jet lag. What more can you talk about to a high schooler than: What is your name? Do you like school? What do you do apart from class? Where are you from?

 

“I’m from the DRC, Mr. Neil” responded a student, but it took me about 2 minutes to realize he said DRC and didn’t just mumble a bunch of random letters.

 

“Oh, so you’re not from Zim? What brought you here?” I asked.

 

“War.”

 

“Oh,” I said mid chew. After dinner, everyone goes to the back of the building to clean dishes. It’s quite coordinated: 2 washing stations, each one with 2 buckets (a cleaning bucket and a rinsing bucket), then a clothing line with rags to dry the dishes. 

 

I headed back to my room and immediately crashed, but couldn’t go to sleep for 30 minutes because I was convinced I saw a bug on the ceiling and investigated the situation by squinting my eyes at different apertures and shining my flashlight at different angles. After realizing that the bug was in fact not moving, but that I was extremely tired, I went to sleep and found out in the morning that it was a piece of dust.

 

My sleep schedule is a little odd – it neither follows Chicago time, nor does it follow Zim time. I’ve been going to sleep around 5-7pm and waking up around 1-2am. Last night, though, I successfully went to sleep at 8pm and woke up around 5am. But I woke up to no water from the shower or sink.

 

I attended a first aid workshop for teachers on Tuesday in Harare. It was hosted in what I think is Harare’s medical district – the exact specifics of where I was is still unclear to me. Getting to Harare is a little over an hour drive, so I have quickly learned that waking up at 6am is going to be a norm (though most students seem to wake up at 4am or 5am to study – Prep – before class). James and I entered the gate and outside the building were several chair-desks, those chairs that have a mini desk attached to them, not large enough to hold your laptop but not too small to just be an armrest. We were about 5 minutes late which made me very anxious, but I didn’t realize that Zimbabwe is on POC time, so we were in fact a little early. The workshop was aimed at preparing students in the first aid club for competitions. We went over some content and scenarios that students may be given and what they are expected to know – which I must say is quite intense and truly felt like things I just learned at the end of uni. We also covered issues that teachers faced with first aid at their school and spent about an hour hearing very sad stories about accidents, mental health issues, and deaths among their students. Zimbabwean teachers who teach first aid are extremely resilient, according to my findings from my small cohort size and likely extremely biased sampling. They are expected to teach their classes, lead first aid club, but are often also the ones who end up tending to any illness at the school, physical, mental, social, etc. They teach, counsel, and often parent students, even though they may not have the bandwidth to do it all. I had nothing to share or add, though the teachers seemed to appreciate my insight and perspective (I even connected with some of them on WhatsApp to work on first aid in the future). At lunch, they served chicken, which I think was from Chicken Inn. There is a large Inn franchise here that has the whole nation in a chokehold: Pizza Inn, Fish Inn, Creamy Inn (ice cream), Bakers Inn and a non-PC Asian place called Bamboo Inn (though it is unclear if Bamboo Inn is part of the franchise). 

 

I think I don’t fully seem like a gringo, and in fact several of the Zimbabweans were shocked to hear that I have only been here for less than a week. It becomes obvious when I don’t speak or understand Shona, the major language spoken in Zim (the other one is Ndebele, which has a complex history with the Shona tribe). Shona is a really beautiful language, it sounds like singing, and I hear it especially well when one of the teaching assistants who lives in room 5 prays in the morning and night in Shona. It gets confusing when people speak Shona-English, a combination of mumbling, random words I understand in English, and their native language – I usually just smile with my eyes.

 

Over the past few days, the school lost Wi-Fi (starting Monday afternoon through today), lost power a few times, and ran out of water in the residences on Tuesday morning and still hasn’t had it restored. I’ve learned that life does move a little slower but have been enjoying distancing myself from technology, playing with the school dog (Bhonzelda), talking to faculty, and reading the one David Sedaris book that I packed – Let’s Explore Diabetes with Owls. I don’t think I feel settled in quite yet but am starting to get a better sense of the community and think I will really enjoy it here. Hopefully I do get Wi-Fi soon to post this.

Sedaris behind the archery field

Very typical nature photo of somewhere in Zim

The Rock (Studio)

Me at the first aid workshop