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.

I went to Harare this week to collect a package from home from a fantastic woman named Kirstin who was visiting from the States working with Operation of Hope, an amazing organization that does facial reconstruction for victims of war, fire and birth deformaties. I drove a friend back to his villiage, which I was told was just past Nyanga Town. Well, we zoomed past Nyanga and kept going, we soon hit a dirt road and then we were driving in the mountains. I politely asked how far were we going and was given the answer “only 60km”. On a dirt road this turned into 2 hours. We then left the road for another 10km trek through the bush, and I mean the bush. We were driving through tall grass swerving around trees and bushes. We arrived at a group of huts or round mud houses with thatched roofs. It was hard not to ask what his address was but I didn’t think he’d get the joke. Anyways after unloading his bags I asked him to drive me back to the dirt road since I had no idea how to get back and my driving skills are not bush-proof. I was so proud of my car, it handled it like a true F150! By this time it was starting to get dark and I was wanting to get home. I plugged along swerving to miss pot holes and giant rocks coming out of the road. About an hour into the drive my headlights decided they had had enough and shut off. I spent a few minutes trying to get them to work and found it a useless event. I thought, well this is a good time to call my roommate to drive in front of me and guide me home, but being in a truly rural area there of course was no signal. I turned on my hazard lights and got out my flashlight that I keep in my car for such emergencies and held it out of the window lighting up the road. After about another 30 minutes luck struck and I got a signal, so I called my roommate to guide me home. I told her I would keep driving and meet her. BAD IDEA!!! I hit a rock or a boulder or something because next thing I knew my left front tire was swerving. I stopped, checked out my tire and it was turned sideways and I couldn’t get it to go straight. Luckily for me it was a matter of minutes before my roommate showed up to rescue me. We left the car there and the next morning we towed it (ourselves) to a garage where it was fixed in only a few hours. I go to Zambia next week to look at a project where they are making an all natural roofing tile AND another project where they show communities how to build solar panels and batteries to create electricity for their homes and commercial buildings.

Sorry it’s been a while but unfortunately ZESA has been a struggle. Most of our power comes from 3 turbines in Karbia. Kariba is a damn that borders Zambia and Zimbabwe. ZESA has decided to do some maintenance on all 3 turbines at the same time, which they say will take a month or 2. I would have thought that they would just do one at a time so that there would be power but I guess not. The project is moving along, the final architectural plans are going to be looked at early next week. A school in one of the surrounding areas is doing them and I will be checking them. The old building has 2 walls that need to come down so the extension will go there. The city council put rocks (property pegs) where they are allowing us to build, however we have to go another 3m in from that as our setback. Luckily the biggest space is along the 2 walls we are taking down so the extension will go there. I wanted to see what the slope and elevations were like so I could plan for drainage as well they elevations have to be shown on the plans, I asked for the original building plans but there were none, all that was there was a rough map with the city lots and a few contour lines (lines that show the earth’s curve above sea level). Luckily there was enough I could calculate the elevations of the lot, but I don’t know where on the lot the old building is or where our property pegs are. So I asked if they had a surveyor who could map them for us and they said they didn’t but they had the equipment. I thought about it and said that I could do it (I took surveying in university in -40° weather and snow). The man at the desk seemed thrilled that I could do it and asked if I could do some other lots as well. So things are coming together. Materials from the area are being collected and taken to site over the next few weeks, we are hoping to use Solar electricity and a water tank so we don’t have to rely on ZESA and the municipal water.

Things have been moving along, slowly but I have come to expect that in Zimbabwe but it’s still hard for me as I am a planner and want to be effective and efficient but I am learning. First off, I’ve been busy on site, planning the building and finding the most effective and environmental way to build. I went to the site today to find out that City Council has now put in pegs of where they want the property lines to be, SO I had to do new measurements and have to adjust the plans. I went to Harare this past weekend and one of my objectives was to visit an NGO called Turn on the Tap, which helps communities with clean water using natural filtration. I was also able to get international police clearance so I can take my car across borders, which means I am able to visit 2 other projects using similar technology in South Africa and Zambia. I also was able to have a little fun and went and saw a live production of Agatha Christies “Mousetrap”. I was really impressed, it was well done and lots of fun. I learned lots of facts about this play including: it’s the longest running play of all time 58 years), it was a birthday present from Agatha to her grandson (lucky guy never had to get a job), as long as the play runs there isn’t allowed to be a film adaptation (it may be a while), the rule of the play is that you are not allowed to tell anyone who the murderer is after you have seen the play (that just makes sense). I also went to the monthly AIDS clinic in one of the high-density areas and I was asked to take pictures of which I took 130 of them. Power and water have been particularly poor the last week, however I did have some today, which meant I was able to do laundry, shower AND cook. The best news I have is I was able to talk to my mum, dad, Meghann and Richard on video skype for the first time since I have been back. We talked for an hour and a half. I was getting ready for bed and they were just getting up. It was nice to see their faces and not worry about the satellite time delay or the cost of calling. I went to the Bronte Hotel where there is a Wi-Fi hot spot.

Happy Easter to all! I hope it was a relaxing, peaceful time for everyone. I had a different kind of Easter this year. I went mountain climbing on Saturday. I climbed Mount Nyangani, which is the tallest mountain in Southern Africa. It’s peak is just over 8500 feet. The drive to the base is about 30 minutes out of Nyanga. The climb was hard, there isn’t a real path, there are white arrows painted on rocks that mark the route but you are climbing up the rocks. The view made it all worth it, you could see the whole valley and it was amazing. It took 4.5 hours return trip and I have now had my exercise to last me a year. If that wasn’t enough, Sunday afternoon we did another hike called World’s View. It’s at a resort known as Troutbeck. The drive to the base is about 15 minutes. The hike took about 1.5 hours return. There was no path and no arrows. In some ways it was harder than Nyangani but less steep. This view shows you a different look at the valley. It was really interesting because there was a patch of rain in the middle of the valley. All around was clear but this one square of cloud and rain, it was really weird and interesting. We were able to watch the sunset. This also made it a nice day because early that morning we had watched the sunrise from a farm on a rock. So I spent my Easter Sunday watching the day start and end. It’s unbelievable to imagine the natural beauty that happens everyday that we all take for granted. It would be nice to be able to do this everyday but reality sets in and I’ll just have to settle for once in a while. I have been busy putting together the building sheets, calculations and gathering the requirements needed by council to build the library. We are using a drafting teacher from one of the local high schools to design the project, which I will approve, oversea and make changes. So I have been busy learning the local building codes and bylaws so I can combine the plans with environmental standards to make this project as environmentally friendly as possible. Zimbabwe doesn’t have any real or strict environmental standards, which is unfortunate but good for me since this gives me a wide range to do what I can. I visited the site on Thursday as was able to start visualizing in my head what this will all look like. I have yet to be able to go inside the current library on the property to see what kind of shape it’s in and find a way to keep it on the site and what kind of use it has in the bigger scheme of the project.

This past week has been a busy one. I came back from Penhalonga on Tuesday and started a conference on Wednesday. The conference was put on by an organization called Foundations for Farming. You must be thinking, Meredith didn’t go to Zimbabwe to be a farmer and you’re right, I didn’t I don’t have the gift of gardening and it’s not an interest for me. This conference was how to feed Zimbabwe. A country with 32% of the world’s resources and contributes 1.3%. It was more how to motivate and change the minds on how they farm. This technique for farming goes back to the basics before tractors and fertilizer and pesticides. It goes back to nature. In the bush trees, berries, fungus grow without man made inventions and in a country that can’t afford to buy, fix or maintain these inventions going back to basics seems like the right thing to do. The buildings I will be constructing will be all natural and follow an environmental approach it seemed smart to find out away to motivate the country to adopt this process. To help the country use it’s own resources and instead of destroying the land, help rebuild it. The conference was good and now the key is to see if it catches and do people motivate others and follow through. Saturday in the wee hours of the morning, I packed up my car and drove to Nyanga where I am now living. I spent the day unpacking and settling into my new home. Nyanga is a rural community that is surrounded by mountains and green space unlike Harare that is surrounded by buildings and people. As I drove into town I saw a herd of Zebra and Wildebeests. It was quite surreal since in Canada we see these animals in a zoo, not in the wild. I had to stop on the highway to let monkeys cross, not the moose or bear we see at home. So now the real work begins, I’ll be spending the next few weeks in the “lab” testing different mixtures for brick to see what the best compound is. So wish me luck.

I went to a dinner on Tuesday night, which was the most interesting dinner I’ve had since I’ve been here (and I’m not talking about the food). I was invited to a dinner with an MP, the Bishop, a Dr. of Theology and a parish priest. All well respected members of the community and all worried about the same thing, the state of the Anglican Church here in Zimbabwe. The MP was invited to ask for advice as well as what became a bit of a grilling about his party and what is happening in government. I still don’t understand why I was at this dinner but it was a real eye opener and an inside to what government here is really like. The MP was asked if there was a way he could help the Anglican Church move past all the political problems that prevents them from using their church properties. This past Sunday, all churches were instructed to go back to their buildings, the courts had passed a ruling that stated that CPCA (Central Province of Central Africa) had the rights to all the buildings and property and that Konoga had to go. Sunday arrived and people went to church, what they found was police barricades and strict orders not to enter. Some churches obeyed and went elsewhere to say mass, some had had enough and tried to storm the block. There was tear gas and arrests made including the Dean and his assistant. These unfortunate people were sent to prison. Some were released later that day, some not until Tuesday afternoon. All were released because there was no evidence of wrongdoing. The MP was upset by this news and made an appointment with for the Bishop to meet with the Prime Minter, Morgan. I learned that Zimbabwe has the highest enfant mortality rate, the lowest life expectancy in the world. That last year 17, 000 women died in childbirth, that people are literally dying of stress. For instance, an active member of the MTC party lives on a farm with his wife it was burned to the ground. They were literally left with nothing and no money, family took them in and their children supported. The wife died a few months later from the stress and upset of loosing her home and her lively hood. Her husband is still an activist for the party and says, “What have I left to loose, if I stop now, they win”. Questions were asked about the up coming election, the sanction lifting, the new () act, and the healing and reconciliation team. All in all it was an interesting evening. At the end the Bishop asked me if I would be interested helping him build a church for the Anglican Theological College. He started to build while he was the principal but it’s just a round cement foundation. They want it to be built like a stadium so that many people could fit in a small space I told him, we work on it.

I went into Mutare (the closest to Penhalonga) on Tuesday before I came back to Harare. The sister’s had taken me to met with the bishop but he had been called to Harare. Instead I met 5 priests from the area. One priest remembered me from a brief meeting in Bonda with Doug and wanted to know if the project was up and running, hearing this another priest who in now in charge of Bonda asked if there was a possibility of helping him renovate an abandoned building into a primary school library for the Bonda Elementary School and help him find a way to fill it with books. Literacy in the rural areas is very poor due to lack of resources, funds and remoteness. He would like to correct this problem and encourage reading. In some schools you must be in Grade 5 to be allowed in the library and take out books. The thought behind this is that at by grade 5 you know how to care and handle books correctly. This means that if children don’t read or have books at home they don’t practice what they learn in school.