So after the week I had of trying to accomplish things and getting no where and after deleting our blogs off the webiste (at least, so I thought), I decided that there was no point in trying to rush the processes of Africa.  I've learned this in the past, but was reminded of it this week.  What do I mean by that?  Well, Africa has a way of doing things that is backwards, inefficient, doesn't make sense and takes a long time.  BUT, the system does somehow work and eventually things will happen and get done in their own time.  There is no point of rushing the process because if you do, you'll only get frustrated.  So I resigned to give up my "American-ness", the part of me that tries to accomplish things efficiently, timely and properly, and decided just to be Zimbabwean and wait! 
    Well, today was such a surprising day filled with accomplishments!  We've ha ... Read More »

    So, Mat and I have "hired" a friend to help keep up the website.  But due to just the complications of logistics (she has slow/unreliable dial up; we have broadband, but she doesn't have a car to come over to our house to use it during the day; I was picking her up at her house to conduct interviews with students at the college and taking her back home; she has a slow and ancient computer to work with, etc) it has been challenging for her to keep up with the website.  Her and her husband came over Wednesday night for her to try to do some updates on the website, but our broadband was deadly slow.  She ended up not being able to accomplish anything!
   So Thursday morning, I attempted to quickly type up a blog and post it.  However, when I first went to post the blog, I lost the entire blog as the website had timed out.  Ahh!  45 minutes wasted.  Then I quickly tried t ... Read More »

I am constantly amazed at just how long it takes to live life here--just the basics of one's daily life take so long here.

Let's talk about electricity, shall we?  Saturday night, there was a dip in our power and the lights began to flicker.  Due to that split second of a flicker, one of the electrical phases on the house went out, meaning that all the electrical plugs on the first floor don't work.  Fortunately, the outlets to the refridgerator, deep freezer, washer and dryer to work, but the electric oven is not working.  What does this mean for us practically?  No vacumming the floors, no charging computers, phones downstairs, no lamps working downstairs.  Gotta move all of our small electrical appliances into the laundry room so we can make toast, coffee, microwave food and print documents.  I have been wanting to make rusks (South African version of biscottis) for a long time and have finally gathered all t ... Read More »

So the main purpose of our shopping trip to South Africa was for me to get paint to fix up the house we've moved in to. My friend, Sue, and I traveled together to split the costs of tolls, fuel, accommodation, etc, making the trip a bit more affordable. We decided to take my smaller vehicle to save on fuel costs as the bigger one chugs fuel and often overheats on long trips. However, we did not account for the fact that I'd be bringing back about 100L of paint plus all the weight of the groceries. Once we packed up the car with all of our stuff, we were sitting VE ... Read More »

    Just got back from a quick shopping trip to Louis Trichardt with a friend...had an interesting experience at the ATM...couldn't get my card to work and turned back to tell my friend to tell her it wasn't working. The guy behind us came and took my card telling me I just need to wipe it off...so he pressed some buttons on the machine to distract me and then took my card and swiped it with a little device he had in his hand hidden underneath his wallet which he was holding. Then he wiped the card on his pants and gave it back to me, making it look as if I just needed ... Read More »

     We have a new gardener, Casper, the brother of our old gardener, who came directly out of the African bush and into our garden. Naison, a WONDERFUL gardener, decided that he wanted to move on with his life and get into buying and selling, but he felt bad leaving us in a new house with no gardener. So he said that he would bring his brother onto the property and train him how to run the gardens. Naison went to his home village, couldn't find the brother he had in mind, so grabbed his younger brother, Casper, and said, “Pack your stuff, you're coming with m ... Read More »

    Moving into a new place means there are usually things to fix: we had a leaking deck roof and the maid's roof was leaking, light fixtures or switches weren't working, our phone lines in the house weren't working for over a week, etc. However, this past week we've started to experience water problems at the house. We are entering into “the dry season” in Zimbabwe as the rainy season (Dec-March) has ended. Usually there are a certain amount of water cuts that take place when water is short in the country. However, this week we experienced low water pressure like we' ... Read More »

   We've been debating on whether or not to sell our 1996 Honda CRV and to get another vehicle. The CRV always has something going wrong and our mechanic says that it is at the point where you are going to continually be putting in maintenance work. Currently the head gasket needs changed as the vehicle keeps overheating on long shopping trips across the border and just yesterday we heard a new rattling sound—great! We got to import the vehicle duty free when we first came into the country...however now duty is 65% on luxury vehicles. This means that we purchased the vehicle f ... Read More »