Even though my excursion into the bush was more excitement than I had planned, I was really honored because in true rural, “old school” tradition, his family killed a goat in my honor. I wanted to stay but it was getting dark and because there was no signal and I hadn’t told anyone I was going into the bush, I wasn’t able to stay for dinner or the night. Instead I was given a trunk load of fruit and vegetables including; pumpkin, watermelon and fresh homegrown peanuts. I felt really bad about not staying and especially bad for the goat who had to die for someone who couldn’t eat it but it was nice just the same.

I met with a teacher from a school in Rusape, which is about an hour from Nyanga. This teacher, along with some of his colleagues is manually drawing some of the architectural plans for the project. The purpose of the meeting was to see how he was coming along, what changes he needed to make and for me to get copies so I can survey the site and design the foundation, footings and drainage.

Next week I head of to Zambia to look at the Pestazzoli tile project. This project uses a simple machine to manually make roofing tile. This follow along the lines of the brick machine it uses natural products that when mixed together is pressed in a machine to make the tile. The other project I am looking at is from Solar Aid. They teach communities how to build solar panel electricity. They give them the materials and the education to make their own solar electricity and putting this technology in schools, clinics and community centres. Like Zimbabwe, Zambia’s electricity is not reliable and so powering community amenities like schools and clinics seems like a reasonable thing to do.

On my way to Zambia, I’m making a stop in Harare to look at some natural filtration water tanks. These tanks have been put into high-density communities in Harare where water cuts are frequent or they just don’t have water. Each tank supports a cluster of families. The plan is to harvest the rainwater (Nyanga gets a lot of rain), filter the water and use it for the library.

The last 2 days at our house we haven’t had ANY water. Usually we can get by on what we have stored but this week we’ve had a team of 5 from Oasis helping out my roommate and so the water has been stretched. This also means the toilets haven’t been flushed and we haven’t been able to shower. It really struck me on day 2 how much I take water for granted. In Canada, we just turn on the tap and there it is, we want hot water and we turn on the tap, we want hot water and we boil the kettle, we want to do laundry we turn on the machine. We don’t plan our day around when water AND power will be on at the same time to do laundry or worry that our clothes will come out more dirty than we started with because the water is brown, or putting our family on water restriction because we aren’t sure how long the water has to last.

I came to Harare on Saturday for a few different reasons and on my way back I blew a tire on the side of the road! So I changed the tire (myself!) and saw that it wasn’t just a puncture but I had really busted the tire, I was driving on the rim. Don’t ask me how I did this but it had to do with the temperature of the road and the melting of the rubber. So I spent the first day in town going to a few car places and getting things fixed. I first wanted to get the headlights fixed. I went to a place I had used before and the owner was impressed that I wanted to see what was wrong and was it something I could’ve done and I stuck around while it was being fixed. Needless to say the fuse panel is plastic and the conductors are metal and so the plastic had melted! I then went to get a new spare tire and to have the other 4 checked. The tire guy asked me what I was doing when the tire blew and were there any casualties. He was surprised that no one was hurt. The big reason was for HIFA. HIFA stands for Harare International Festival of Arts.

HIFA 2010 will be the eleventh Festival. Since its inception in 1999, the Festival has received recognition for its support of arts and culture in Zimbabwe and is seen as a major contributor to development in this area. HIFA is now the largest cultural event in Zimbabwe and among the eight major festivals in Africa. HIFA has gained local and international media praise on many fronts, for example, Robert Grieg writing in the South Africa Sunday Independent -“The Harare International Festival of the Arts is probably the best organised festival in the sub-continent and one of the most manageably diverse.” More importantly in the current socio-economic situation HIFA has come to be seen as an important symbol of something positive about Zimbabwe.

Even in the worst conditions in Zimbabwe (inflation, farm take-over’s, etc.), HIFA has survived. It doesn’t matter what your politically views are, religious views or colour, HIFA is for everyone and everyone attends and not just one show but the WHOLE week. I didn’t truly understand what HIFA meant until I went to a show and see how Harare shuts down for a week and everyone goes. I saw 2 shows; the first was from the British Embassy an a cappella group called The Magnets. The stage was a park and it was PACKED! It was really well done. Sunday I went to the closing ceremonies where a famous Malawian singer who’s the most accomplished Albino in Africa rocked out. He opened the first HIFA in 1999, it was like listening to an African ACDC, and it was great.