Dahhrlings, you simply MUST come and visit us!

Having received a couple of comments on the book, I realise that some folk living in the 'First World' think that we Zimbos live a totally backward life, with no refinement whatsoever. While this may be true for most of us, most of the time, (yes, we all wear loincloths in the warmer months - but only from humanely-killed animals) I thought it might be prudent of me to show you just how culturally refined we can be. When we put our minds to it....

So what would constitute the essentials of good taste? Classy décor? Classical music? Mountain-top golf resorts? Fine dining?

Well - believe it or not, we have it all.

Let's start off with tasteful décor. Here is a photo from a wedding we hosted at La Rochelle in August. This is a photo taken inside the tent, and I must hasten to add that I personally did not 'do' the décor for the wedding. But this is how we Zimbos like to tart things up for special occasions...

So classical music? Have we got that in Zimbabwe?

Yes we do.

When I was small, I played the triangle in an orchestra. Well, maybe not an orchestra - more a school music group, anyways. And my daughter is following suit - in fact she may well have overtaken me! This week's prize goes to the first person to correctly identify the instrument she plays...

 

And how many musicians playing music with her on that particular evening? Well - there were more than 4 or 5 folk playing music together. In fact - they didn't quite all fit on the stage...

So what about mountain-top golf resorts? Yep - we got that covered - this is a photo of Troutbeck Inn, up in the Nyanga mountains - with the golf course in the background.

So on to fine dining - and what could be more quintessentially refined than 'English cream teas'? Here I would direct your attention to a tiny little Coffee Shoppe up in the Vumba mountains. Tony's.

The list of teas and coffees alone is maybe 120 items long....

And the homemade lemonade, coffee and cake is not too shabby either!

So, Dahlings, DO come and visit us sometime soon. But brush your hair first, you plebs!

Have a great day!

Free beauty treatment for all lady Blog readers!

Today - a real mix of photos - basically stuff that didn't form part of a story over the last 2 months or so, but all of which are interesting by themselves. Plus today I am trying something new - giving away a free beauty treatment to all Lady readers of 'the most interesting blog - in the whorld!'

First off - the warmer weather is returning to the Imbeza Valley - and the first indication every year that winter (all 3 weeks of it) is truly over is when the 'yesterday-today-and-tomorrow' bushes start flowering. They grow flowers so quickly, and in such profusion, that you can see the difference from day to day. In the foreground - our petunias - just about to end.

Then last month, we had a group of bikers travelling through Zimbabwe from South Africa. They were led by Bertus - and spent most of their time, in fact all of their time, in the pub. Good bunch of blokes - and nice to have some polished chrome in the La Rochelle car park.

Those who have read my book will know that I make reference to the proliferation of satellite televisions - even in the remotest of remote areas. I talk of dishes poking through the thatch of huts - and in case you thought I was stretching things - here is a somewhat rustic cabin at the entrance to Nyanga town - with a dish, and his own jury-rigged electricity supply.

Priorities, people, priorities. The tv system cost more than the house?

Lastly - my give-away.

This is really exciting!!!

In Zimbabwe, we do not have hairdressers and beauty salons as those of you who live overseas would know them. Rather we have Hairsaloons. A hairsaloon is an interesting concept, and one which I have never seen in my travels to England or South Africa. Basically it is a long wooden counter at which copious amounts of beer are consumed every night.

Hence the word 'saloon'.

The objective of the patrons is to drink as much beer as quickly as possible until they reach a stage where they can only be described as 'totally cut' or 'totally chopped' (i.e very drunk) hence the word 'hair'.

Once they reach this stage of inebriation - they are then called 'barbers' - which is short for 'barbarians'. And at this point - the most amazing phenomenon occurs...

At this point, every single woman who walk into the Hairsaloon becomes instantly beautiful in the eyes of all beholders. It is quite incredible!

Beautiful and desirable beyond belief.

So - to my regular lady readers - if you wish to have the free beauty treatment promised at the start of this blog, simply walk into the Hairsaloon at Fairbridge Shopping Centre  in Mutare, Zimbabwe, on any night after 10pm. You will, I promise, be the most beautiful creature on earth.

 

Y'welcome!

Have a great day.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Ideas to reduce school fees. Brilliant!

So - time to get you to the top of Inyangani! And apologies for disappearing again - duty called and much time taken up with books and things. (As my forward on Facebook will attest)

The last blog was with a pile of bones at the top - but what was it really like up there - after a 2 hour scramble to the top? Well - rolling plains on the one side and mountainy bits on the other - but everything all around us was below us.  Here are some of the mountainy bits!

And - almost unbelievably, because this is Africa, indeed Zimbabwe... unbelievably - you can actually see the curve of the earth from the top of Mount Inyangani!

 

 

So - did we make it to the top? Well of course we did. My cousin Alice and I arrived half an hour after everyone else, simply because we were admiring the view on the way up, but we did all get there. Remarkably! The top of the mountain is 8,504 feet high (2,592m) - and that is probably a piddly little hill to some, but high enough for us! Here is our intrepid group at the beacon on the top. The highest point in Zimbabwe!

Take a very close look at this photo - and tell me what you can see? I will tell you that there are 4 of them including ours - and a toilet block. just to the right of centre!

Now - this is exactly the same view, and the photo taken without moving an inch... except this time with full zoom on the camera lens. Yup - the car park, and our car, were visible from almost the top of the mountain - but hopefully this gives an idea of just how high we were!

The children, of course, were far more daring than I, and balanced on the very lip of the vertical precipice, with their toes hanging in space, and nothing but fresh air for thousands of feet below them! I bet they wouldn't allow kids in America or England to do this - but our school fees in Zimbabwe are very high, and we take every opportunity to try and reduce costs...

In this case - it failed, and we all safely made our way down the mountain... on foot.

Next I plan on taking them on a tour of the artillery range during a live-firing session!

Have a great day!

Climbing Inyangani - and death at the top!

The last blog left me starting out on the pathway up Mount Inyangani - the highest point in Zimbabwe. If you didn't read that blog, then close this and just read through quickly, so that you are in the flow....

So the first photo is of the mountain stream which flows down the side of Inyangani. The water was crystal clear, ice-cold, and so, so sweet - especially on the way down. My journey up the mountain took about 2 hours, and the descent about 90 minutes, so it was very welcome indeed when the path ran next to the stream.

The young ones went ahead, and my cousin and I followed at a far more leisurely pace - stopping every twenty metres or so... to admire the view. It wasn't as if we needed to stop, but if you don't take the time to appreciate the scenery, what is the point of climbing any mountain? The road to the car-park is visible below us, and this photo was taken by the children as they bounded out of sight ahead of us!

The views once you almost reach the top are pretty cool. Here is my daughter pointing out that you can actually see the east coast of America from the top of Inyangani! This was at the top of the steep ascent - from there it was a fairly gentle climb to the beacon at the peak.

Gentle climb indeed! Here is one of the arrows which show the way - and they were necessary in places, as the grass and rocks became a bit jumbled. Leading the pack is a friend of my daughter's who was staying with us at the time. I am still halfway back down the mountain at this stage!

 

And what did my daughter find at the top? Well - incredibly, the skeleton of a previous climber - left on a barren rock as a stark warning to any idiot foolhardy enough to climb the mountain...

(My daughter is the one in a cap)

We managed to take a small sample of the bone home, and we sent it for DNA analysis. The results were somewhat confusing, because we had two 'hits' - and two results. I leave it up to you to decide....

According to the DNA lab, either the bones belonged to

a) A Caucasian female aged 32 years, brown hair, green eyes, 37-34-38, mother of three, pierced ears, who did a lot of typing in her lifetime, or..

b) a sheep

You be the judge!

Have a great day!!

This is just the pits!

On one of the days in Nyanga, we went to climb a small hill, and on the way there we stopped at the 'pit structures' - where an electronically-aged sign gives details as to the huts and the use of the pits.

Having seen these structures before, I think that the archaeologists have overlooked (probably intentionally so) the most likely use of the pits - and that is that they are a perfect place to keep your wife when she had to go to the 'naughty girl's corner' and stay there for some time.

Anyway - this is the interpretation they put out for the tourists...

The pit structures are basically holes dug into the ground, and the lined on the sides with stones. The various huts - as per the sign, all had different uses, and are built around the pit.

There is a subterranean path which leads into the pit, and this path passes under one of the huts. the hut has a hole on the floor, down which blocking logs could be pushed or raised, to control the movement of the animals below. Cattle, sheep and acting-the-goats were kept down there...

Here, then, a herd of wildebeest (which the Americans call gnus), in Nyanga. But the interesting thing about this photo is not so much animals or the crystal clear blue Zimbabwean winter sky, but rather the menacing and brooding presence to the left of the picture. Not a goblin, this time, but a mountain...

The peak you can see on the left is in fact Mount Inyangani - the highest point in Zimbabwe lies at the top of it, and minimum climbing time is 90 minutes. This is the start of the path up the mountain - and doesn't it look a gentle climb? Well... don't be fooled! This path merely leads to the base of the ascent, and from there it gets almost vertical in places. I was lured onto the start of the path - and began making my unsuspecting way up the mountain.

So the next blog will have pictures of our climb up Inyangani... and it wasn't easy. In fact, on the way up we found the skeleton of a previous climber - bones bleached in the sun, and left there as testament to the unforgiving nature of the mountain herself. But that will have to wait for another blog.

Have a great day!

Pushed by a goblin!

I am alive! Almost nine days after my last posting, I can report while I very nearly died - life is still in these old bones, and you can all look forward to the most interesting blogs...

In the world.

So what have we been up to while I was busy trying to kill myself? Well, my cousin was here from England, and so we managed to take a couple of days off. We went to Nyanga where we stayed at Connemara (up above Troutbeck), renting a house by the lake. This is the view from the house down to the water...

Now the same view from the house - first thing the very next morning. The frost was around, and the lake was smokin'! Tell me if you can't feel the cold in this photo?

This is a view of the lake to the side of the house - invisible with the mist coming off the water, and you can see the frost on the grass. Interesting little statue of a guardian angel in the pic too...

This is another side view of the frost in the garden, and this was the last picture I took... before I almost killed myself. Literally. If you look at the wooden railing in the foreground, you will see water droplets, - only it is not water (as I has thought) but ice. Solid ice.  I then walked down the steps you can just see leading downwards in the background - not realising that the bottom six steps were also covered in a solid sheet of ice.

And my feet went straight out from underneath me...

To say that I fell hard would be an understatement - my feet slipping away into thin air, and I crashed down onto the stairs, ribbling my way down that last 4 steps to the concrete at the bottom after a one-point landing on my butt while smashing my finger into the bannister. In the process I threw away the camera, and that has now ceased to work - the lens permanently extended, and the screen just a white outline. I can take photos though can't see what I have taken. But will persevere. And I was lucky - I could very easily have killed myself.

I must say that I had been aware that the steps were a little slippery, and thought I was being very careful. But it was almost as if I was pushed hard from behind by a goblin, or something.

(And for those of you who don't live in Africa, and who don't believe in goblins - they are VERY real indeed!)

On an entirely different note, I am happy to tell you all that I have managed, with the help and guidance of my cousin Alice, to re-edit the book completely, and a whole lot of punctuation has been changed. I also have changed the author pic, which many of you pointed out was taken several years ago, and I have replaced it with this up-to-date photo taken today. With my daughter's camera!

Let me know what you think? I think I look very handsome indeed. Thank you.

Have a great day one and all!

Goblins, panties and a whole lot of burrying!

Today we delve into the fascinating world of the media....in Africa.

I am fortunate to live in a town that has a newspaper which manages to print stories not based on any actual occurrences - but almost entirely on their perception of the reading requirements of their devoted fan base...their readers.

Sex, scandal and other salacious gossip feature prominently, quite aside from straight-faced pronouncements on elections and other national events - in which the most incredible whoppers are recounted as fact.

Be that as it may, I have to say that many of their stories are quite remarkable in that while they appear wholly fabricated to a Western mind (such as mine) - when considered in the context of serious news by the African mind (again - such as mine!), these are in fact serious, credible and wholly true, stories.

Confused?

OK - here then are three advertising hoardings placed on the street to entice a hugely gullible public to part with their money. I say this because pretty much the entire story is contained in the headline - with not much further information to be obtained if you actually buy the paper. Most of the readers of this blog are from Europe or North America, so you tell me if you find the following a little beyond belief, and therefore not true. Which of the following stories would you consider 'figments of the editors imagination' - and which are completely false fabrications?

In fact goblins are very much part of life in Zimbabwe, and 95% of the population believes in them. Hence, to a Zimbabwean mind - there is nothing false or extraordinary about this story at all. And where you have goblins - you have must have people dealing in them. So this is a true story as far as we are concerned.

Now then - how about this story - is this true. Or not?

Well - incredibly, this is part of Shona culture. In Zim, we have 2 basically parallel justice systems (not counting the one that ensures some are more equal than others and therefore inviolate where the law is concerned) - and these are the traditional courts, and the formal courts. The latter is where justice as you and I would know it takes place, and the other are the traditional courts, which dispense justice as laid down by custom and culture.

Sooooo - when a woman accuses her husband of infidelity, and takes the matter to arbitration within a village court, it is accepted that the way she indicates that her husband has been unfaithful is for her to remove her undergarments (called 'panties' in this part of the wold) and either throw them at him, or place them on his head.

If he is found guilty, the tribal court may then ask him to leave the village - and may require him to take the panties with him as a badge of dishonour.

So - this is a true, and perfectly reasonable, story.

Lastly - this astonishing (at first) headline.......

So is this true?

Of course - a Western mind will think on seeing this sandwich board, that a fellow from Moz killed his wife - and dug a hole in the sand into which he placed her. But look closely..... he burried her! Ha! BIG difference, wouldn't you say? As it is common practice for men in Zimbabwe to burry their wives when they are dead - this too, is obviously a true story! Some women even like to be burried when they are alive - (though I have heard of one or two instances of women leaving a marriage rather than submit to being burried - but this is not the norm here) so this must, again, be a true story.

In fact - it will positively improve your day if you try to burry the next person you see - even a complete stranger!

Have a great day!