life, the universe, and donna

Zimbabwe Travelogue Index

September 19th – Red Cross

We finally were able to go to the red cross to help feed the orphans. We hadn’t been able to prior to this for a few reasons: First, they ran out of mealie meal (cornmeal) and couldn’t make the sadza they feed to the orphans. To counter this, each of the volunteers threw in $2 (total: $12) to buy about 150kg of mealie meal.

Then there was a sewage problem — a pipe burst, and it wasn’t even remotely hygienic or safe to have the kids come. Ugh.

We went out bright & early to chop some firewood for the red cross. Without firewood, they can’t cook the sadza for the kids. So, off we went while Bethany & Nathan went to track down containers of water for them (they were without water until about 1pm that day.)

This was probably one of the most depressing afternoons I’ve had in a while. The children are absolutely lovely. And happy. And sad. And skinny. And scared. And shy. And absolutely sweet. There was the little tiny girl there with her sister, probably about a year old who cried when I tried to help her sister wash her hands, all the while staring at me with huge eyes. The little boy with the characteristic AIDS lesions on his face. The boy who was so skinny, I was shocked he could even bear his own weight. The series of boys and girls with scabs on their heads instead of hair. The torn dresses, the ratty school uniforms, the shoes that were about 4 sizes too big for the wearer. I was in charge of washing hands, both before and after eating — sadza is a messy food. I tried to chat with a few of them, but for the most part, their english isn’t that great, and most were too shy to do more than stare at me with big doe eyes. A few were willing to talk to me, and tell me their names. My favorite was one adorable boy, who walked right up to me and asked what my name was in perfect english, but such a thick accent I could barely understand him. He told me his name was Godfrey and he was 12 years old. He barely looked 7.

These kids make me want to cry more than anything else. They’re beautiful.

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Evening – Ivory Lodge

Warning: The following contains debauchery. Alcohol. A $25 each drink bill — by FAR the most I spent on alcohol in my entire trip. Combined. Vomit (not mine, thank goodness). And a lot of other stuff that I didn’t even post. (There are a few of you who wanted the uncensored version — you’ll have to email me for that.) Anyway, if any of that sounds good to you… read on!

Wednesday night was Bethany’s last night at Miombo, and our last night before heading up to Victoria Falls. Tara, Bethany & I would have four days to muck about and be silly tourists, and Nathan was starting his first actual days off in about seven months. And hey, Craig was in town. That’s a good enough reason to go out right there. To celebrate all of the above, we did a trip to Ivory Lodge. We like Ivory Lodge.

We didn’t actually have the go ahead from the people at Ivory Lodge ahead of time (if they’ve got a lot of “real” guests, we can’t go), so we started out at Hwange Safari Lodge. A couple of drinks there, and we got our call from Kelly at Ivory Lodge, and off we went.

The trouble here is that I really only intended on having “a couple of drinks” to begin with. I’m a bloody cheap date, and don’t really drink a lot… so I tend NOT to drink a lot. So it was against my better judgement when, after a couple of gin and tonics… and the two rum & cokes from Saf lodge… Nathan started calling for a deck of cards so we could play a drinking game.

Wanna know the last time I played a drinking game? When I was about Nathan’s age — and for good reason, they’re brutal. We played Kings, the concept being… each card has a different “activity” assigned to it. “Fours for Whores” — all the women have to drink. Likewise, “Six for Dicks”, all the guys drink. Get a 2, and nominate two people to drink. Nine for Rhymes, say a word — everyone has to come up with a word that rhymes with it, until someone can’t rhyme it, and they drink (I had two of these… and I’m such a bitch. My words were “orange” and “purple”, two words I know full well don’t have anything that rhymes with them…)

It continues on, and hell, I don’t remember most of the numbers. Instead of taking sips from our glass… we were doing shooters. First some sort of orange stuff, then black current, ending with some sour apple… About 3/4 of the way through the game, I was down for the count, head on the table, and started skipping my turns. Craig ended up taking a couple of shots on my behalf. Phew. I had a nearly untouched gin & tonic, too. Yeah, we’ll just be skipping that. And shortly after I went down, Nathan started vomiting. Serves him right, the poncing nitwit for suggesting the damn game to begin with. Craig had my camera at that point, which works out in my favor: I now have some absolutely delightful blackmail-worthy photos of Nathan. I was nice enough to leave those offline, but I’ll be mailing him a copy. Muahaha.

I found a couch and went virtually comatose for an hour. Eventually, Kelly (one of the Ivory Lodge owners who’d been drinking with us), Tara & Craig came to start bugging me. Oh goodie. They harassed me, and strangely enough, I harassed right back. Then I got up. And all was well, I was still drunk off my tree, but I could move! It’s a miracle!

And I kept going until about 4 in the morning. I was pretty impressed with myself. I didn’t drink anything more, but I was up and moving around and being a generally quite cheerful drunk. Not bad for someone who’d been virtually comatose…

I think Craig was particularly impressed with my resurrection. I may have been moving around, but I was thirsty as hell, and of course I wasn’t going to get the water without a fight. Craig decided that I could have water, but he’d have to serve it to me… which he did, from about two feet over my head. Great. So now I’ve had a LITTLE water, and I’m also soaking wet.

We made it back to Miombo, where the fun continued on… I eventually fell asleep around 4am, made it back to my room around 7am, and our ride to Victoria Falls for our four day mini-break was due to arrive around 8. Gah. But that’s another post…

Overall, it was an odd day — the morning & afternoon was one of the most depressing that I had on my trip, but the evening was probably the most fun. It certainly helped me recover from the Terrible, Terrible depression of the morning, anyway.