Good karma

Today we went to Zimbabwe. When you read this, it is not going to be today, because here in Zim the Mozambican cellphone operators does not work and therefore we don't have any internet at the moment. But still, imagine it was today (Note: I know today = yesterday). We went here to meet some people at an NGO who works with hydro power stations in both Zim and Moz because they said it would be good for us to see what differences there are between the countries. Zim is supposed to be much better. On hydropower that is. The rest we don't know but so far we've had quite an interesting first impression.

We decided to go here knowing basically nothing more than that we should meet a man called Reginald tomorrow (tomorrow = Wednesday). And that we should call him today. When we got back to Chimoio yesterday we found out that our interpreter friend at Pink Papaya and three other German girls was also going to Zim this morning. Because today the big international art's festival starts in Harare. When would be a better day to go than today? Only problem with this was that the number of vacant rooms in the capital went down pretty fast. We tried calling a few places last night but with no answers. Our best result was getting the number to a private guesthouse for people working at the one of the companies that have hydro power projects. We decided that we should call them as soon as we got to the Zim side of the border. Right, off we went having a nice and smooth ride in the minibus. First to the border, then walking over the same, taking care of the procedure getting a visa and all. Then - Voila, Zimbabwe! Get on a new minibus where Kajsa had to sit between two seats for about four hours, getting her as shaped in many different ways and one of the German girls got squeezed in beside a fat Zim lady. We ate grilled corn and sesame cookies and had a good time.

Well and behold we arrived in Harare at about three o'clock in the afternoon. Now mission "Getting accommodation" started. We quickly realized we weren't very well prepared. We didn't have a guide book, and we realized our Moz SIM card didn't work. Luckily we had our traveling companions. We borrowed one of the girls phones and tried the guesthouse number. No luck. Wrong person to talk to and we got a new number. No one picked up. New plan: Try to find the address and go there and talk to them. Time to find an internet café to get the address. And a SIM card so we could call later when the girls had left. They were waiting on a friend to pick them up and we had no idea where the nearest internet café was. Did I forget to tell that this was May 1st, public holiday? Then, one of the girls says the friend who is picking them up works at the same company as is the owner of the guesthouse. Maybe he knows where it is. Would we like to wait and ask? Yes, of course! This man turns out to be our lucky strike. He knows where it is. And he offers to drive us there in his van. Once again we cram seven people into a car, this time with Kajsa laying like a diva on a bed of backpacks in the luggage compartment.

When we arrive at the guesthouse a woman comes out. Our saving angle knows her like he has been here many times before. He asks us if we talked to anyone here before we came. Did we make any bookings? Eh, no. Well... did we? He asks the woman who it is who is in charge of bookings now and then calls her saying "Hey, I picked up these (hesitation when he looks like he just realized he doesn't know more than a few sentences about who we really are) Swedish girls a moment ago. They would like to stay at the guesthouse." A few more glimpses at us (who are silently cheering him on) asking for who we really are and then it is settled. We can stay at the guesthouse and our friends disappear in the car. Success! The woman who had opened for us was a little grumpy at first, saying that it was a public holiday and all and that they didn't work, but helped us get a room at this funny place. I've never stayed at a company place like this before, but it felt a bit like being in someone villa when the owner is not at home. Especially since we are not working at the company. Well well. After this all we had left was to discover Harare city.

We took a chapa in to town (here they are called commuters, but it is the same kind of minibuses as in Moz) and took a first look around. The impression was a bit diverted. There seems to be really good things about Zim and some really bad. People are more pushy and don't leave you alone if you are not interested, but at the same time some are just very friendly. Some were just drunk (maybe because of the public holiday) and some really took their time trying to help us. We found funny fatty unhealthy fast food for dinner and then tried to find our way back home. It proved to be easier said than done. Since we don't have a guide book we don't have a map. And without a map it is hard to know where you are in a 2 million city. We now know for example that the place has at least three bus stations. And we've now tried all of them. To get back to the guesthouse we had a long discussion with the guys in the chapa negotiating the price because they had to go another route to stop at our place. All because the man in the chapa into town had said the wrong name of the chapa we should get on the way back. The price negotiation started at the double price of our journey into town ($2.80) and got up to $10 for a while, then they told us a taxi would cost around $6 and nothing made much sense. We said we could get out finding another chapa and then I think we settled at the double price and a facebook friendship. A good deal we thought and off we went to return to our newly found home.

It is surprising how well everything's gone so far even though our planning (sometimes) is of the worst kind. We have been discussing this a few times. The worst thing that has happened us so far was one day when we had trouble getting out money and it was a public holiday (these days always seem to get in our way) and we were about to exchange money and had to hurry and Kajsa's money hadn't reached her account so we had to try all our credit cards. But it all turned out well. That and the day when we got rice instead of maize flour from the market. No big hustle. And we do like to thank our good luck so far to our karma and kind approach to life. With a smile and positive feeling most things go our way.

Tomorrow we set off to discover more of Harare, and to find out who this man Reginald is and how he can help us.