So it's been 3 days, and I am ashamed to say that I have already started taking photos of the crazy things I have seen here so far...
Yesterday I bought a sim card for US$2 (the currency used in Zim now)... 5 years ago a sim card cost ZIM$10,000 the equivalent then of about 100 bucks! Times have changed. The currency has finally been standardised so that people can either use US$ or South African Rand.
Thank god, as a year ago notes started to have 14 zeros on them: that's
100 000 000 000 000!!!! (1 hundred trillion dollars!) If you don't believe me see the photo below!
So anyway, back to the original story... (yep I did a Mel)... I went to buy this sim card, and Econet, the mobile service provider had RUN OUT of sim cards... "Eeeeh we don't hev eny mor!" Apparently they get in a big box of sims every two weeks, and had sold out of them all! Turns out what happens is that the guys who work there sell the sims to all their mates for $1, each of tehm buy 100 cards, and then go onto the side of the street (literally) and sell them on the black market (also quite literally!) for $6 thus marking up the profit at 600%!
The funny thing is it works... as we then went and found a guy on the side of the road and bought a sim card off him for six bucks. So now I have a working phone, which is a plus.
Apart from all that, these guys at Econet have decided in the last month that one Gig of download quota for the so called "broadband" will cost you US$100 !!!!!!! Bastards. And pretty much the whole country has been in outrage at how they have screwed everyone over, and how unreliable they are.
Anyway, onto the billboards.. Zimbabwe has decided that the only form of income coming into the country is via advertising, as there is absolutely no other money coming in, as ther are no more farms or agriculture, and nothing is being exported anymore.
So yes, they have now decided that every 5 meters there needs to be some form of advertisement, including 20 meter long billboards bridging a dual carrigeway main road (see photo!).. The punchline is this: the billboards are all advertising for the Econet Mobile company! l.o.l and I quote "the fastest, most reliable and affordable mobile service!" again with the lol.
But on a positive note, this country is picking up! I bought a very large piece of biltong today, during which kieran and I cringed as the butcher was handling a yummy fillet steak (mum is currently cooking that for dinner mmm), flies were landing all over it and no one was wearing gloves! He then went to grab a slab of biltong with cow blood and god knows what else all over his hands! I had to look away!!! It was totally worth it though, the biltong was tasty as, and I haven't got sick yet...
There are things in the shops now, you can pretty much buy anything you want, but they are expensive as pretty much all of it is imported from South Africa. We have had electricity most of the time we are here, and even when it does go off, we have a generator that switches on straight away, and a large water tank that collects the municipal water when it is actually available. So all in all things have picked up. The town is much dirtier than it used to be, it's not such a pretty sight anymore but the benefits of living here far outweigh the issues:
We have just been invited on a road trip around the country to Victoria Falls, and Nyanga (two opposite sides of the country) both within about 5 hours drive, both of which are absolutely stunning parts of the country, and completely isolated from the crap that Harare contains. It is the bush: pure, simple, beautiful wilderness. Then we are heading north with the family to stay on a houseboat on Lake Kariba, eat large amounts of freshly caught fish, enjoy beautiful sunsets, listen to lions calling 50 metres away from the boat at night and watch herds of elephants come down to drink the the afternoon. I can't wait. This is the reason why this country is still so beautiful, and the reason why everyone who can appreciate the country's positives still return.
On a fun note: today I also visited my old junior school and hugged my headmaster who 10 years ago I was utterly shit-scared of! Everything seemed smaller at the school.. it was wierd! I also caught a gecko... so that I could work out if it was the same as the ones in Brisbane... still havent worked that out but i'm pretty sure it is!
