The Trip, Part Two: Slumdog Trillionaire?

Note: As a lover of history, getting the chance to see Great Zimbabwe was amazing.  However, given the current unstable political situation in Zimbabwe, traveling there requires careful planning and extreme caution.  Looking back on it, I regret that I made the trip in the manner that I did, and in all likelihood, it would have been best not to have visited interior Zimbabwe at all at the current time.

On Sunday, February 8th, we crossed into Zimbabwe.

I can’t lie: I was pretty nervous. Our guide book and several conversations had helped to reassure me. Lonely Planet, for example, said that Johannesburg was much more dangerous than Zimbabwe. One line especially stood out: the people of Zimbabwe love tourists because, frankly, they need you. Our hostel owner in Zambia, after setting us up with a means to get across the country, solemnly assured us as we left that “Zim really is a beautiful country despite it all.” She wasn’t wrong. Still, though, the State Department’s warning on traveling there was still hovering over me as I dragged my stuffed backpack across the bridge connecting the two nations and stepped into the Zimbabwean passport checkpoint.

Zimbabwe has one of the most tragic stories of modern times. Robert Mugabe, a brutal dictator who has controlled the country since its relatively late date of independence in the 1980s, has completely ruined the country’s economy and political system. In the 1990s, he confiscated land from white owners and redistributed it to political allies who knew little of agriculture. This plunged the country into an economic tailspin that has resulted in one of world history’s worst cases of hyperinflation. Inflation there is difficult to fathom: recently the official estimate was 231 million percent annual inflation, meaning something costing $1 Jan 1 would cost $231 million by year’s end. And that was only the official rate: likely, the real figure is much higher. Just at the end of last year, the government began issuing 100 trillion dollar notes, worth about $1 USD.

Just before we arrived, the government chopped off 12 zeros from the currency, meaning a 100 trillion note could be exchanged for 100 Zim dollars. More significantly, the government last week caved in and finally began allowing foreign currencies to be used, mainly American dollars. Because of this decision, we found ourselves in a difficult position. We didn’t really expect to need lots of US currency on the trip, but among the four of us, we had just enough to get by. But there are no functional ATMS, exchange bureaus, or places that accept any credit cards in Zimbabwe. So our USD stash was literally our lifeline.

One of our most sought after souvenirs on the trip was the rare 100 trillion note. In Zambia, street vendors try to foist them on tourists as they know full well what people like us are after. But we hoped to find the notes in a more authentic manner within the country, so we waited. Of course, due to the government’s legalization of US dollars, Zim dollars are nowhere to be found. So on our return to Zambia, we proudly embraced the tourists’ tradition of paying way too much for something completely worthless.

It isn’t without a little guilt that I write about my enjoyment finding the trillion dollar notes. After all, hyperinflation is one of the saddest scourges that can afflict a nation. And the damage has surely been done in Zimbabwe. 90% of the population is unemployed. One in four people in the country–that’s one in four– have fled as refugees, most to South Africa, where they camp in Johannesburg waiting for nonexistent jobs as they become targets of xenophobic torture.

The political situation is just as dire. Last year, Robert Mugabe actually lost a presidential election. Think of that– the courage it took for people to show up at the polls and vote against a man who has tortured, murdered, and imprisoned his enemies for essentially his entire time in office. Mugabe and his party responded by unleashing a reign of terror that ultimately forced the victor, Morgan Tsvangirai, to give up his rightful claim on the presidency.

Last week, however, an amazing event took place. Tsvangirai was inaugurated as prime minister, a new position created to launch a unity government. We briefly considered trying to make it to his inauguration in Harare on Wednesday but wisely decided against it: political gatherings in Zimbabwe have the tendency to turn sour. Still, the country seemed to be in a hopeful mood. Now, there is little chance for this deal to work out. Just a day into the new government, Mugabe’s thugs in the police department had one of Tsvangirai’s closest advisers arrested.

It was in this context that we arrived. In Victoria Falls, the town on the Zimbabwean side of the border, we found a driver named Moyo. He lived around the falls driving tourists around. His family– a wife and two sons– lived back in Bulawayo. It had been more than a month since he had seen them. Because he was making a good bit of money from our trip, though, he would be able to return home to see them, if only briefly.

Moyo’s extended family has mostly fled the country– brothers, sisters, cousins.

Moyo was an amazing person and became the lens through which we got to know Zimbabwe. I wasn’t sure about bringing up the topic of Mugabe, but Moyo did not hesitate to raise the subject. As a member of the Ndebele tribe, a group comprised of stalwart supporters of the opposition to Mugabe and often a target of state-sponsored violence, Moyo spoke with an absolute hatred for the Mugabe regime. Speaking negatively about Mugabe had become an art practiced with perfection across the country, according to Moyo. “You know who you can and cannot talk to,” he said.

Moyo shared much of his country’s excitement for the inauguration of Tsvangirai. He even went so far as to compare it to the recent swearing in of President Obama, which he watched on a small television set with a large group of friends. As a brief aside, it has been fascinating to observe, just in our short two weeks here, the widespread impact of President Obama’s election. Wearing my Obama campaign shirts drew comments from cab drivers, grocery store clerks, and hotel staff. It even let me avoid a cumbersome search of my bag at a roadside security checkpoint in Botswana. But back to Zimbabwe– Moyo was realistic enough to see that Tsvangirai’s taking a place at the table did not quite equal the magnitude of the American counterpart. He did express a hope that someday Zimbabwe could have an “Obama moment.”

The first leg of our drive took us from Victoria Falls to the city of Bulawayo, Zimbabwe’s second largest city, in about six hours. Along the road, we passed vestiges of the country’s now defunct industrial capacity– shut down factories, chemical plants, and electrical stations. Interspersed with these oases of past productivity were traditional Tonga villages, groups of grass huts fewer than 100 yards from the highway. Bulawayo itself was a pretty depressing sight. Formerly a city of over 800,000, the city seemed nearly deserted. The streets were littered with garbage, and all of the traffic lights were broken. As night fell, the city was almost pitch black.

And we still had four hours of driving to get us east to Great Zimbabwe. And talk about eerie. We passed maybe three cars in those four hours. …And then we got a flat tire. In the middle of nowhere. Luckily, Moyo was well equipped to fix the flat. Still, at that moment, it suddenly hit me: I am in an old minibus in the middle of Zimbabwe at 12 am on the side of the road. What am I doing? Moyo was even nervous: the road had many potholes that were impossible to see at night. And we had only one spare tire.

Around 1 am, we rolled into the town of Masvingo on the spare. We hoped to check into an inexpensive hotel, and soon Moyo found one. Unfortunately, the hotel wanted to charge us $50 per person for a night. Under normal circumstances, we would have capitulated, but we weren’t about to burn our stash of American dollars on a hotel where we’d be sleeping for only four hours. And despite not having a single other car in its lot and no rooms rented, the hotel would not negotiate on the price. So while the Flamboyant Inn (that was actually the name) perfected its profitmaking strategy, we journeyed to a dark corner of the deserted town to check into what is perhaps the most disgusting place I ever shut my eyes: the Paw Paw Lodge. But for just $5 per night, we couldn’t complain. Well, we did– the giant spiders crawling on the walls and the stained sheets were pretty horrifying. But it’s a story, right?

The next morning, we finally made it to Great Zimbabwe, by far the highlight of my trip. This site is one of the world’s most significant and well preserved of any ruins in the world. Around 1200 AD, a highly complex society set up its capital in this beautiful hill country of Zimbabwe. The society primarily focused upon cattle raising, but due to ivory and gold in the area, it grew rich setting up linkages to the Indian Ocean trading network, extending from the African coast to India to China. In fact, Chinese beads among other items have been discovered here in the heart of Africa.

The complex consists of two major areas: the hill enclosure and the walled enclosure. On the top of the hill was built the king’s palace. The walled enclosure–the iconic image of the site– served as the head wife’s palace. She had many duties, but sleeping with the king was not one of them. Instead, his hundreds of other wives served that purpose.

I’ll point out more of the details of the site along with my pictures. But as a history buff, it was one of the most incredible sites I’ve ever visited. After all, it is the largest and most complex group of ruins in Africa other than–of course– the Egyptian pyramids.

Miriam, our tour guide, was a unique experience by herself. Wearing shoes that my friend Kate assured me were some of the most uncomfortable possible, Miriam was able to bound up the ancient staircases to the top of the hill complex. She also had a bit of an attitude, laughing off what must have seemed to her to be silly questions. She had good reason: Miriam was a graduate of a four-year undergraduate program in tourism and had only taken the tour guide job as a temporary position before moving onto better opportunities. That was in 2004, and she’s still giving tours. But her knowledge of the site could not be topped, and we truly were fortunate to meet her.

If Victoria Falls seemed deserted, the solitude afforded to us as we explored one of world history’s most important sites was simply astounding. Not a single other tour overlapped with ours during the three hours we were there.

And that feeling essentially sums up my take on Zimbabwe. It is such a beautiful country. The rolling, vibrant green hills were gorgeous, especially paired with a clear, starry sky on a night drive. But no one is seeing this place, enjoying this nation. I am so glad that I was able to have this experience. It was more than worth any exaggerated risks, and I will never be able to read of the country’s troubles again without thinking of its beauty and the untapped potential in those hills and within the proud, but exasperated Zimbabwean people

Moyo drove us back west and left us at the Botswana border. We were sad to leave him, and I wished that there was more I could do for him and his family. I wish Moyo the very best and will never forget him.