The travel bug has bitten again and this time it was itching so badly I went all the way to Africa - for the second time now. Jokes aside, this time I was invited by my former flatmate Shingi who is from Zimbabwe herself and went to visit her extended family there. She had told me a lot about how amazing it is in Zim and I remember her cooking all kinds of weird dishes while we lived together at University (pig's trotters, anyone? Tripe? Okra stew?). So it was a no-brainer when she suddenly forwarded me her flight itinerary in February inviting me to come over to Zim and South Africa with her and do a bit of travelling. Best decision I ever took!
I have to admit that I was a little nervous once I booked my flights. What had I gotten myself into, travelling to a country that I knew hardly anything about?! And the little I had heard on the news was not exactly encouraging. Checking the website of the German ministry of foreign affairs didn't help either, Zimbabwe sounded like two steps away from the entrance to hell - HIV, malaria, typhoid, collapsed currency, poverty, crime.... and the visit to the vaccination centre at the hospital didn't help either. To make a long story short, I was pretty much convinced I would die on this trip or at least get mugged, have a car accident and to be airlifted back to Belgium.
Once I had landed in Harare and arrived at Shingi's parents' house I realized pretty quickly how distorted my image had been. People live their normal lives, go about their business, have fun and seem incredibly relaxed about everything on top of that! That made me realize once and for all how biased and one-sided all the reporting is and how little we actually know about anything outside the range of our Western "civilisation". I had an amazing time and if you care to ask, I didn't even have as much as a traveller's tummy.
I would love to write more about my travels in Zimbabwe which included mainly Harare and surroundings as well as Victoria Falls but this would go beyond this blog post. Instead, enjoy some pictures which say more than words anyways:
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