Dry beauty

My Scholarship entry - A 'place' I have visited

Zimbabwe | Saturday, June 29, 2013 | 5 photos

Zvishavane a small mining town, in Zimbabwe is the place that I visited. Platinum, gold, beryl, chromite iron ore and diamond are mined in the area. I visited that area as part of a group of a volunteer group – African Exodus. The mission was to refurbish the school Vugwi primary school, located in the rural area of the town. It is a subsistence farming rural area, due to no rainfall for about 2 years the people in the area are poverty striken and some had begun engaging the illegal activity of gold panning. For three weeks, with a grueling programme we refurbished the school, painted the wall; put in new floors replaced or put new windows. As strenuous as the tasks were I would take a few minutes to take pictures, most of these pictures were taken on Saturday – our day off to rest. One Saturday we visited the river – to a specific place where there was a waterfall, on arrival – the river was so dry there was no waterfall! As sad a s that fact was the scene was very beautiful, the exposed rocky river bed explicitly told the story of the river, how the water carved paths, how the waterfall had crashed down…sad and beautiful.
I tried to explain the scenes and convey the feelings they invoked – but I could not…truly - a picture is worth a thousand words.