For a political junkie, Victoria Falls is not the place to go to get a reading on the situation in Zimbabwe. As a single female traveller, it's the only place I felt comfortable travelling in Zim by myself.
With just over three weeks left in Africa, I decided that my chances of travelling throughout Zim were limited, so I booked a ticket and a hostel in Victoria Falls, flying out on Friday morning.
Flying into the area, I was struck by the colour below (the photo above is not mine, and was likely taken in the winter). From the air, Northern Zimbabwe appears to be covered in moss during the rainy season. The whole area is a green-yellow colour I have never seen before. From the Zambezi River, both on a cruise Friday night and white water rafting Saturday, I saw that Zimbabwe, after more than a month of rain, is noticeably lush. The scenery is beautiful.
At some point, property along this patch of the Zambezi (both in Zim and neighbouring Zambia) must have been valuable. Houses on properties with a view of the river were massive. Many of them looked like a home one would find in the rich Northern suburbs of Johannesburg. But they are now run-down. The paint is old, shingles are missing, broken windows have not been repaired. Zimbabwe is in shambles and whatever worth these properties once had has vanished.
The town of Victoria Falls, Zimbabwe tries to make money by charging in American Dollars. It is expensive to be in Vic Falls. Seeing the prices on the internet before my departure, I imagined the town to have a tourist infrastructure. There isn't. There is one strip mall in the centre of town, with a shoe store (Bata in fact), a clothing store, a Wimpy burger restaurant, a petrol station, and a Spar grocery store. Down the main street from this mall is the post office and a bank. There are a few adventure companies on a side street. A tourist strip has several curio shops and Mamma Africa's (an African restaurant for tourists). But the town lacks the cute tourist touches I had hoped for.
I quickly realized I was definitely on an African vacation. In the residential area of town, I saw baboons walking through the streets. Buffalo walk freely through town. The bugs in my bathroom and bedroom were HUGE. The bathroom itself was a semi-outdoor affair with only a half wall and a thatch roof. At the Victoria Falls International Airport, the electricity flicked off and on. There is no place to draw international currency. Credit cards are not accepted anywhere in Vic Falls.
The town is safe enough to walk in. It was so nice to walk everywhere I went. My hostel was in the residential area, so it was a 20 minute walk to town, and 30 minutes to the Falls. Every time I left the hostel and started walking, one of the locals would walk with me. They asked me about Canada, if I liked their town. They were very concerned by my bright red/purple legs after I earned a nasty sunburn during the white water raft. Everyone wanted a pen pal. One boy (whose name was Lester and appeared to be in his late teens) asked me why white women liked black men with dread-locks. I didn't know how to answer the question, so I said it was because of Lenny Kravitz.
I took a cab home from dinner on Friday night. My cab driver spoke high English, and I would imagine he has a better education than I do. When we drove by the petrol station, I asked him how much gas was selling for at present. He said that they haven't had petrol in Vic Falls for a long time (the petrol shortages in the country have been happening since 2002). He buys his gas on the black market: either from people who have driven to Botswana and smuggled it back, or by driving to Botswana himself. It's about 150km there and back to buy petrol. Because of the distance, and because the government charges a fee for Zimbabweans to drive back into Zim, driving a car is expensive in Zim.
I asked this cab driver about Robert Mugabe, the president of Zimbabwe. I knew it was dangerous to discuss Mugabe in a negative light in Zimbabwe, so I didn't ask the questions I really wanted to. Instead, I asked if Mugabe was married. The cab driver smiled and said that Mugabe's first wife had died and he married a much younger woman. "MUCH younger," he repeated with a chuckle.
After white water rafting, I went for a beer with one of the guides: Dubs. We were at Mamma Africa's, where the beer was too expensive but the atmosphere was great. Feeling a bit more brave than the previous night, I asked Dubs what he thought of the MDC (the Movement for Democratic Change, the only notable opposition to the president's ZANU-PF party]. Dubs said that he thought Tsvangari (the leader of MDC) was a cheater and that the country would never vote him into power. "He is not an alternative, because we can not trust him."
I asked what made Tsvangari a cheater. Apparently, the last time Tsvangari crossed the border from Vic Falls into Zambia, he used fake identification. I asked if this could be the result of the treason charges against him (attempting to imply that Mugabe has created a situation in which Tsvangari cannot move freely). Dubs said he had never heard of any treason charges. I pressed him again. "The trial. When Tsvangari was accused of plotting to assassinate Mugabe?" Nope, nothing. Dubs had never heard of this. I don't know if he believed me that it had happened.
"Why are you interested in Zim politics," he asked me. "There are no politics here. Our neighbours have politics, they have war. Here, we have none of that."
I asked if the petrol crisis could not be considered politics. He mumbled his accord, but I could see the conversation was over.
I can't decide what has been covered up in the media (the state has tight control on the national media). Many people that I spoke to, when they heard that I lived in South Africa, they were appalled. "But there is so much crime! Why would you want to live there?" It seems like in Vic Falls, far away from Operation Murambatsvina
(Operation "Clear the Filth") in Harare, the people seem content with the status quo. They seem to think that Mugabe is alright and that their country is doing well in light of the situations north of them.
Then again, they could just have been afraid to say what they really thought of Mugabe.
Standing in front of the incomprehensible beauty and power of
Victoria Falls on Sunday, I could also imagine that nothing seems significant to locals in light of this abundant creation. With the falls ahead of me and strip of rain forest behind me, I was powerless to do anything but weep. The mist rising off the falls danced in circles and shimmered. It was magic. It collected above and fell back down to earth in big drops of rain. Soaking wet and crying, I walked the length of these falls, breaking through the rain forest every now and again to get another look at the roaring wonder. The entire length of the falls is 1600m. They go on forever and are difficult to understand. In the middle of Southern Africa, how can this just exist? The Victoria Falls are so expansive; being unable to put them into a single view of one's camera makes them difficult to accept.
The falls stretch from Zimbabwe and into Zambia. They flow through a gorge (190m from top to the water) and the Zambezi continues along with Zambia on the left and Zimbabwe on the right. David Livingtonse was the first European to discover the falls in 1855.
