Sunday, April 6, 2014

VILLAGES AROUND VICTORIA FALLS

Our accommodation is at Victoria Falls Safari Club, where we have a very comfortable suite with a view over the Zimbabwe & Victoria Falls National Park.  A well-deserved long sleep prepared us for today.
The guide arrived at 10.00 am to take us by small bus on a very informative and interesting tour.  First we went into the township to visit the local food market.  Surprisingly the majority of the produce comes from far afield and is onsold by the locals.  It seems that Mugabe repossessed the white farmers' land and placed blacks there to farm.  They were unable to farm, so ate the animals in order to survive.  In the meantime the white farmers crossed the border into Zambia, and are now successful agriculturists selling their produce to Zimbabwe!!
The next stop was a house in which 6 families live.  The house has been enlarged so that when the parents grow old they can rent space to provide income.
The tour included a visit to a school, but being Sunday there was no school today.
A Beer Hall was very entertaining.  They sell "Scuds" which are in the shape of scud missiles, filled with the makings for beer, shaken violently, and then poured into a communal small bucket which the young men share. (See photo below with red bucket)
Then out into the real countryside to a tiny village, where people live quite comfortably if they have a cow, a donkey, and a cart. Their needs are small.  The village "chief" and their circular houses are shown in photos below.  He gave us a diatribe of their way of life, their beliefs, their "medicine", and the importance of accepting God's work in the relationship between man and nature.  His English was excellent, although he had never been to school.  Incidentally, even the children speak some English so we can communicate relatively easily.
We arrived back to our hotel just in time to watch the daily "vulture feeding" and take in the array of animals by the waterhole whilst we ate lunch. (See photos below)









1 comment:

  1. Animals in the wild! Love it, wish I was with you guys

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