South Africa

I have to tell you about a trip I went on last week. It was with the weekly hospital trip that goes to town for business. It was in a 15 passenger van, we start the day at 5:30am. Atleast that is the intention, on that day it was well after 6:00 before we got started. The van would not start. Once we finally got going, the van was filled to capacity and more. We were supposed to leave town by 4:00pm, if anyone has ever been to Africa, you will know about 'Africa Time'. In other words, nothing EVER happens on time. I'm sure many of the Zimbabweans that I interact with think I'm rather preoccupied with time. Very few people here wear a watch, so showing up somewhere on time is unheard of. Anyway. Back to the trip. We finally left town at 6:30pm. The ride home was one event after another. I think we had about 19-20 people on the van, one of them had a live chicken. Then we stopped to pick up more people, there were two police officers hitch hiking, and in Zimbabwe you never pass by police officers. One of them had the worst body odour ever, it was absolutely overwheming. Fortunately she only rode about 30 minutes. We went a bit further and we saw a massive bush fire up ahead. The night sky was totally ablaze. No one seemed to be too worried, so we drove straight through it. There was fire on both side of us. It was just one of those days. We drove on, only to hit a small animal of some kind. I didn't even see it, but the driver insisted on going back to look for it in the dark. I asked why, his answer was, "We don't get much meat and that animal would make a good meal". We didn't find it, no meat for supper again. We made it home at 9:30pm.

Yesterday I left Zimbabwe. It was a day of mixed feelings. It's always sad when I leave Zimbabwe, it really does feel like my African Home. I went to a mall today, had a normal lunch with fries and went into stores with goods on the shelves. I have to say I was in a bit of shock. I'm staying with friends here in Johannesburg. I'll probably be here for a week.

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