Fairytale waterfalls

This will mostly be a photo show with less text, but as these photos are so large I will actually separate it into two blogs posts.

The first thing we did was find our sleeping place at Lorrie's Bed and Breakfast which is a bit out of town, but otherwise just great and run by the amazing Lorrie, who has the best advises, tries always to help and makes you feel really welcome. Of course it didn't hurt that there were four dogs at the B&B ;)

After that we left for the town, got something to drink and immediately walked to the Victoria Falls. They are simply stunning. You stand there and see this water falling down an edge, rushing to the ground and then joining the lake in a great haze. And then multiply that by fifty or so and you have still only a bare glimpse of the magnificence of this wonder of nature. The sound of the falling water, the refreshing haze in the air, the vivid and lush green of the vegetation, the sound of birds, flapping butterflies and shouting monkeys in the air; not to forget the rather frightening distance to the ground of the falls. But the best thing are the waterfalls themselves. Strong, unproportionaly gigantique and just hypnotizing. In the end I was just sitting there following one water stream after the other and experiencing the feeling of flying down. 

We also encountered some baboons on our way, including some little fighters, some snatchers of fruit and the cutest baby monkey you could imagine. As Victoria Falls lie in the heart of several national game parks, it easliy happens that the animals come into town. Apparently it has happened that elephants walk at night on the streets.

Back to the water falls. I just can't describe them, but I can only still mention that the rainbows and the colour hues of the rocks themselves are just so worth a sight.

Here you can see the water moving with the wind.

The most magical place on Earth

In the evening, after taking in so much beauty, we then enjoyed a Sunset Cruise with Pamusha, which means "At home". We were so lucky, because Lorrie decided to book for us a cheaper tour, which ended up on us being the only three people on a smaller boat with a very knowledgable captain on all the wildlife and especially the birdlife for Simon and another helper, who was serving us as much as we can drink. And even though we explicitly booked a no dinner cruise, we were offered free fingerfood, which pretty much was enough to make a good and tasty dinner. And we enjoyed live and traditional music, when we were boarding and leaving. Seriously, I can't think of a way, how this tour could have been better.

We saw several animals, including a wild elephant which had swam to an island in the middle of the river  as their teeth he would find softer food. The benefit of softer stalks is for an elephant enormous: Their teeth will become more quickly worn off, if they eat hard stalks, so they won't last as long. And the life span of an elephant is pretty much determined by the life span of this teeth.  They lose them four to six times in their life and after that no new teeth will grow and the elephant dies painful of starvation. Anyway that meant that we were lucky enough to observe his meal. Personally, I could have watched the elephant eat for ages, the trunk and how it bends and unbends, the large ears,..., but we had to go on to new adventures and new animals, which in this case where a baby crocodile, of which I don't have a picture and some hippos. By the way I should warn you, hippos are very dangerous animals, even though they don't eat meat and look so harmless. However, they are extremely protective of their territory and when they open their mouths that is not to amuse us but a sign of aggression. More information are that hippopotamuses are the second heaviest animal on ground, after the elephant and they usually are found in water because they have very sensitive skin, which they can protect this way from the African sun, apparently they don't get sunburns in water like certain other people. Now back to the concept of a 2 or 3 ton hippo swimming in the river, not very likely. Instead we were explained the hippos cross the river as the only animal species by walking on the ground as they can hold their breath for up to 8 minutes, then they manage to push themselves up to the surface, breathe and dive again. That march would be something to witness.

It just was a lovely sunset with a lovely sunset cruise. Perfect happiness can describe it. 

Imire - Safari!!!!

Tawanda, Jenni, Edwin, me, Spale, Antti, Nyasha and Sara - the gap in the middle is reserved for dear Oili

Africa, the birth continent of the Homo Sapiens, Does not only host some of the most promising eexemplarsof this species, but it also has a lot of other species to offer. And after having been now sometime in Africa I finally went on a Safari last Sunday.
So in the morning we woke up early to get to Imire game park. There were nine of us coming along. Oili, three female  Finnish volunteers, one father and four Dzikwa kids. These were 14 year old Edwin and Tawanda, who are taking Piano lessons with Sara, ten-year old Nyasha and cute seven-year-old Spalencia.

We drove there by car and as Sara and Jenni had taken on the task of bringing the four children from Dzivara Sekwa to the meeting point in Harare, I decided I would enjoy to spend the trip there with three of the children in the boot. One was always allowed to sit in the front. There first Tawanda, Nyasha and Spale slowly started opening up and telling about their favourite animals and their hopes for this day. We read a book by Spale's sponsor on an elephant who thought he was a Buffalo, who actually lives in Imire game park, listened to some music(Tawanda had the song Call me maybe and a video of him playing piano on his phone), did some voice recording on my phone and sang a bit ourselves. In the middle of the route Edwin and Tawanda changed places so that I could also ask Edwin about his dreams: He wants to be an aircraft engineer and a pianist and after this trip an expert on antelopes -> He should design a piano for antelopes ;) 
While we were enjoying the view, Spale fell asleep on top of me, which was good since after that she managed the day bravely and fell asleep only once more.

As we arrived in Imire, the first thing to do was enjoy some tea and then go jump on the trampolin. So much fun! (Even for the volunteers who were running around it in fear that Spalencia would fall onto the metallic bars surrounding the trampolin). Very inspiring is to see, how well they can share the activity without being selfish and especially how caring these two boys were of the younger girls, helping with translation, putting the jacket on, etc. 


So here you can see me running around the trampolin trying to catch her for the possible fall. Well, she did fall but never onto the metall bars, thanks god! 

We drove in an open Safari car, where we had two drivers and a guide + a few Korean, English and Amercian visitors as companions. To be honest I think the reactions of the kids made the trip better for everyone and we were close to charging the other visitors for this extra benefit ;)

Nyasha, Oili, Antti and Spale in the Safari car        Girls writing in their notebooks

At least for me it was more than double as good with the children, who were asking to take pictures with my cameras, looking with big eyes at the animals and asking for spellings of the animals as they all received little notebooks in which they were supposed to write down all the names and information of the animals, so that this trip also had a purpose for them. Edwin's enthusiasm actually went so far as to draw pictures of the animals into his notebook. 


First we encountered some caged animals: There was a pair of hyenas who had received the cage as part of their pension since they were rather too old to care for themselves and so now the community has taken on the task to feed them. The next cage inhabitant was the former Oscar, who know has another name as he was kind enough to kill his wife in a fit of rage. He now has a Shona name describing pretty much that incident. For the children  the lion was rather calm and resting, but as soon as everybody was leaving my father decided to be a bad role model, first put his hand through the fence while Spalenciya was watching and then he somehow woke the lion so much up that that one started pacing around, licking his teeth and even growling at my father. 
                        
                                                                                        Here you see my father flirting with a lion.

Next we encountered a wild zeal(they are not called herd) of zebras. And even though here these ones are sharing their food, these animals tend rather to kick each other including poor pregnant zebra mothers =(

After that we went to visit Tatenda and his friends. Tatenda is a black rhinozerus and also a film star! He has been the main actor in There's a Rhino in my House (http://topdocumentaryfilms.com/rhino-my-house/). Here you can see only part of his horn, because every two years the horns have to be removed in a painful operation, which nowadays are at least done with sedatives, as otherwise the rhinos would become targets of hunters, who want the horn of rhinos as this is considered a medicine in some African and Asian regions or a hunter trophy in the USA or Europe. Please have a look at this link to learn more about this threat to these amazing animals:
www.dailymaverick.co.za/article/2014-10-29-op-ed-are-rhinos-abandoned-by-all-but-shouth-aftrica/#.VFH5A_SUeA1
www.wwf.de/themen-projekte/weitere-artenschutzthemen/wilderei/nashorn-wilderei/
The black rhinos are different from white as they have a square mouth. While they were using these mouths to eat, a family of five warthogs, one mother with her four adorable children, came creeping along to also get their share of food. The family slowly but surely approached the rhinos and in the end they were peacefully eating next to each other. The warthogs also were so attached to us that they decided to follow our car for the next five minutes probably in hope of new food. 

Then we met a lot of different antelopes who are pretty cool as some of them are elegant and rather delicate(Impala), whereas others look sturdy and even weird(Eland) and more aggressive but beautiful sable antelope, who is also the national animal of Zimbabwe.

Sable antelope in all her beauty

http://www.imire.org/2012/12/focus-on-sable-antelope/#.VFaXuPmUclE

The most intricate and stunning part though are always the horns which can be ripped, crescent-shaped or twisted. By the way, the Eland is also the Totem of Tawanda, who is posing here with the Eland. The Totem in Zimbabwe kind of is the allocated animal or body part that one of their ancestors chose and that marks now his clan. Intermarriage or relationships between the same totems are forbidden. As they are in a way relatives, traditional Zimbabweans are also not allowed to eat their totem, so Tawanda will never get to eat Eland antelopes, but that is rather good as it is endangered and only found naturally in Zimbabwe. 

While we were still admiring the Eland a giraffe came visiting from the nearby waterhole and brought her baby along - it was maybe double as tall as me. Have you ever thought about how complicated it is to eat, if you don't have any hands and then add too long legs and a too "short" neck eh voila that's how giraffes eat. A pretty funny sight is to see how they slowly glide into a split and then faster than one blinks they pull their legs together and stand upright. But while the giraffe was an amazing animal with its intricate patterns, its eating style and all its features behind it we were already spotting an elephant group and nothing could tear our attention from them. Especially Nyasha was very excited and had asked all the time, when we were finally going to see the elephants. Well, we weren't disappointed. It was a herd of five including a rather young elephant who was already suffering from an "elephant leg", which seemed to be painful. Poor baby! However, that didn't stop us to admire these magnificent animals. They are absolutely great! Big, rough skinned, grey, gentle and wise eyes and seriously big ears-> bigger than Spale! Also the teeth are elegant and the trunk is an incredible creation of nature. How they find their food with it, and then bend it to put into their mouthes. It is like a far more delicate, but also stronger and more flexible arm of a human, which can also breathe. 

Finally the highlight for the children came: Since Dzikwa has visited Imire with many guests and children over the years a tradition has evolved, which allows the Dzikwa children to ride the elephants! And that was what happened. First Tawanda got onto the back and then Spale bravened by his example followed, but instead of climbing up she was treated more like a doll =D 
Next Nyasha and Edwin had their turn and from my perspective it looked like they had so much fun, besides being incredible excited, a bit afraid and more than proud on their place in the world at that moment. After all the excitement was over, we then continued our safari with longing looks back to the elephants. While calming down the exhilarated children. The next half an hour was rather tiring as the sun came out, until then it had been the perfect cloudy but dry day for pictures and the safari car moved like a ship on the waves. What I am trying to say is that Spale soon fell asleep in my father's arms, while he was telling Nyasha eleph-"Antti" and "Antti"-lope jokes. I just love these moments when there are not so many children and you can give your full attention and listening capacity to one child instead of so many without having a bad conscience. 

Then we finally arrived at the border of a small lake, where the most delicious food was awaiting us. Myself, I was very impressed and reminded of home and my mother due to the two bean salads, but that was nothing compared to the children, who probably received one of the most varied and tastiest meals in their life, so that afterwards in Edwin's opinion the lunch even beat the elephant ride as the highlight of the day. One could see the three older ones rushing down their food, while Spale was slowly but persistantly picking at her food with the unfamiliar fork. In the end, my dad decided to help her and here I was seeing my adorable dad sitting in front of this little girl and cutting her food into biteable sizes ^_^
We even got a cake as dessert, which all of them still somehow managed to wolf down. In the meanwhile our warthog family came by and started to enjoy their meal. And yes they also have had to find a way how to reach their food. 

Sadly after the meal it got time to slowly but surely move back to the entrance. However, we were lucky enough to encounter still quite a few inhabitants of Imire game park, such as more and more antelopes, a few white rhinos, this crocodile, which is NyashaxSpale, when it comes to age (70=10x7) ;)

And our last stop was a buffalo herd, whose matriarch was the elephant Nzou. She had grown up with the buffaloes and believes she is a buffalo herself. So if you ever go to Imire, please don't forget to bring a large enough mirror along XD  

All in all, it was one of the best days in my life and that also mainly because of Tawanda, Edwin, Nyasha and Spalenciya and of course not to forget my dad. I just wish we could go again. 

Life itself = Work, Family and Pleasure

This last week pretty much everyone Finnish or Zimbabwean has fallen ill, with the exception of Seppo and me. Somehow I had the luck to escape this epidemic and have been trying very hard to ruin Dzikwa in the last few days. No, seriously I have been doing only my share as Oili, who lost her voice was still managing to get more than her workload done! And Simon, Sara and Jenni were lying only half the time in bed that they should have been lying there. Dzikwa somehow inspires a great will and feeling of responsibility to get one's work done. 
Anyway I myself was busy with more health cards, since the measuring device kind of adds something to everyone's pulse and so I am having to recheck many again; this means there is still a lot to do. Then I have been conducting Extra Lessons, even though I should mention that somehow half of the scheduled ones fell away, because of obligations of my students at school or bad management, but instead I always suddenly had a replacement lesson, when somebody else really wanted some help in Maths. This week with the Primaries I have been doing fraction stories with a farmer and his eggs, scale drawing including bearings with the Form 2s and perimeter of circular forms with the Form 1s. Moreover, I have a new job sending emails to all the Sponsors including a photo, an infosheet on their living situation and a interview with the kids. Mostly Copy and Paste work, but as it happens in life, children move, change classes and get new siblings, so we realized that the infosheets were not anymore up-to-date, so I have been correcting a lot of them in the last two weeks

On Friday then the great thing happened and my father has come to visit me for a week. It is simply lovely to embrace a beloved person again. 
The Friday was spent with the introduction of Harare and Dzikwa Centre + of course the Shelter to show him how harmless my life has been the last two months - Oh God I have already spent two months here and there are only three weeks to go :'(
He was very impressed with Dzikwa and made quick friends with Esko and Mikko.

Saturday was a great day, not only because of the fact that my isi(in Finnish Daddy) is here, but also because of our program. In the morning, Seppo, Simon and our family representatives in Zim left to join a breakfast with connoisseurs - meaning a group of local experts in Zimbabwean economics including John Robertson, the most famous expert on economy in Zimbabwe and especially it's inflation rate. The next stop was Doon Estate, a great place for expensive trinkets and mementos, besides being the place where Dzikwa started: Seppo here saw a little boy of eight years playing at a venue, where his mother was performing as a traditional dancer. This child could have been in school preparing for his future as a government official in Bulawayo and so Seppo made this come true by paying his school fees and becoming the first sponsor. And that is how Dzikwa began...
In addition, Doon Estate houses a sculpture garden and they have nice household items in African style, such as cups, carpets and photograph holders made of teak wood, which actually earlier was the "iron" on the railroads. Oh and have I mentioned the owl(size of a real one) which my father bought for himself. The fact that owls are signs for bad luck in Zimbabwe does explain, how a general Doon Estate visitor looks like. After that we still had a peak at the golf course, which was very empty except for the watering gardeners. After this I was happy to return to the simplicity of Dzivara Sekwa. There are far too many ways to waste money, which could nourish a family for a whole year.

The afternoon my father then spent exploring the Forestry and watching the training session of the Culture Club, while I was busy with conducting my theater workshop this time on acting animal characters. And then we still both spent a lot of time with the children. Suddenly my father had eight daughters and me seven sisters plus Tinotenda actually wrote a lovely letter to my father :DDD

The letter cover Tinotenda created for my dad

But the highlight of the day was yet to come: My father and me both share the favorite musical and we are serious fans of Les Miserables!!!!
I have read the book, own the CD, have seen the film and this was my second time to see the Musical versus my father's seventh time. So it was an amazing surprise that the amateur theater of Harare, the Rep, was actually performing a production of the best Musical in the world ever.
That's why we all got to enjoy a rather good evening. The first part was for the fact that these were amateurs rather good, but the second part was simply amazing. Éponine, Jean Valjean and Javert excelled in their solos "On my own", "Bring him home" and "Javert's Suicide". Moreover, the Ensembles were great and I still could laugh about Gavroche and the Thénardiers. The music and the story itself touched me deeply and the end was rather tearful on my behalf. Simon supposedly laughed through the whole performance ;)
Just an amazing day altogether, but nothing compared to the next day...

What is common to washing powder, frogs and sun burns?

Yes, it is a Zimbabwean swimming pool:

On Sunday I went swimming - finally some cold during this warm season.  We took two Kombis  to get to the McDonalds Swimming Pool (Yes, that actually is its name, even though there are no McDonalds in Harare, but only one KFC, which was in the newspapers lately titled as a big sign of hope for Zimbabwe). It is actually a really nice place and the pool does look relatively clean. (Minus the toilets which don't have any water). Plus it has a really nice lawn with flowers around it. Yes and now consider the fact that still most Zimbabweans don't know how to swim, since this is too expensive and open waters always bear the danger of hosting some lovely crocodiles. 

Anyway we spent a lovely day there, I finally got to do my favourite sport and the other three volunteers from Finland enjoyed the sun. We were especially lucky, because this swimming pool has the lovely tradition of closing from 1 to 2 o'clock for lunch break and so everybody has to leave, but since Sara and Jenni already had experienced this, we could barter with the manager to stay through the break, if we didn't go swimming. So then we had some quiet before the really loud Zimbabwean youngsters came and started to enjoy their time there. 

At a kiosk we bought our lunch additional to the self-baked banana loaf and the apples we brought along. The kiosk itself was rather funny, since among Chips, Coke and Freeze, kind of like frozen flavoured water, they also sold washing powder and that was that. 

Now I have to still mention the incident, which kind of stopped me from swimming again in the afternoon, because after I had swam a stroke and came up above the water and opened my eyes... there was a dead frog lying on his back less than half a meter in front of my eyes. I admit, I quickly jumped to the side, while I was hearing some Boys laughing very hard - probably it was their prank.

This memory stayed plus a really massive sun burn that had the colour of terracotta according to Seppo and stopped me from sitting on a chair without wincing or sleeping for three nights. But I think the experience was worth it and we might even get a few shoes donated to Dzikwa by an Indian shoemaker, who we met at the swimming pool.

Betsy and Rex - both are sooo adorable

And here is Betty with her best friend Rachel(Radchi), who is riding on her shoulders.

Rain season has started

Time to tell more

Any reason is a good reason to celebrate in Zimbabwe. That's why I got the chance to see a very high-strung event (the annual school prize giving ceremony of DZH2) with red carpets, white tents, beautiful dresses and a feast for the honour guests(somehow I was included in that, even though I was there in khakis and t-shirt, because I had totally forgotten about it). That meant not only that I was totally under-dressed, but also that I was late and missed the first three hours, however I was told that nothing really happened and everybdoy was just settling in. 

When we came, the party was in full swing and the students where receiving prizes followed by loud and energetic cheering by family, students and teachers. Definitely more enthusiastic than the polite clapping you would hear in Germany in the same situation. Some of the parents even came out and started dancing. The reasons for the prizes where rather interesting as besides there being for every subject including such as Fashion and Fabrics in every year a least one student being awarded, there were also best time keeper, head of Sport's teams and Outgoing Junior MP. I guess there were more reasons to praize someone, but somehow I didn't catch them, since there was so much going on. 

After the students the teachers received baskets of fruits as a sign of appreciation. And then finally there was a feast of chicken, rice and vegetables, but as that was my second day without appetite(I was feeling rather ill at that time) I only enjoyed a Lemonade and the Conversation, which was in a whispering tone. Especially surprising if one considers the volume in the previous part of the day.

Anyway most important was that seven of our approximately 30 DZH2 students received altogether 13 prizes. Well done Quindon, Christabel, Tawanda, Gibson, Samantha, Tonderai and Delight :)

Batsiranai

Batsiranai means "helping each other" and it is exactly that: Mothers of children with special needs create beautiful handicrafts ranging from pretty cards, ear rings made of painted bottle tops , little dolls and bigger tapestry cloths and use the funds to provide for their handicapped children and hopefully at some point for all the other children with disabilities in Harare. This work allows them also to work close to home and take care of their needy children while working. They have now a children centre, workshop and shop under one roof in Dzivara Sekwa, where we visited them with the Seinäjoki teachers.
If you want to know more, you can research here: www .batsiranai .com (without spaces) and if you want to purchase anything just let me know. I'd love to bring some of these along for anyone of you. 

                                                                                    The children playing in the yard at Batsiranai

By the way, they aren't the only artistic geniuses in Harare. Brenda, one of the adult Dzikwa children, has been creating these beautiful bracelets and also other beautiful things as ear rings, rings and necklaces out of plant seeds and cloth that is left over from her friend the dress-maker.