Update 3 - Here I am

Life here is real life.  We don't have the option to numb ourselves to
the highs and the lows such that life appears to be a straight gray
line running somewhere through the middle.  No, here, what appears to
be a small high always feels huge, exhilarating, exciting.  And every
low, well it's a real low.

I have been back in Zimbabwe since Wednesday after a wonderful and
busy trip in Cape Town to see my very special friend get married.  And
Thursday I began all the running around again, for life in a
chaotically dysfunctional society deems this necessary: Food, the
market, government offices, home, the-shop-that-has-milk, back to
town, the intermediary, home, back, home, back, home.  That's the way
it goes.

Yesterday, our Prime Minister and his wife were in a car accident.
Susan Tsvangirai died as a result of her injuries.  The news websites
claim it was not foul play.  And yet, it leaves a lot of us very
suspicious.  Car accidents historically are a preferred way of ZANU to
eliminate opposition.  Opah was telling me this morning that it in
African culture the juju is sometimes meant for a specific person, but
his ancestral spirits have warned him, and so his personhood is too
strong.  As a result, the person who is in his position next, in this
case, his wife in the car beside him, suffers the residual bad juju.

.................................................

I am starting to feel settled back in Bulawayo, such that I am
starting to notice the parts of the house that require maintenance,
something we don't notice when we are back for 2 or 3 weeks of
holiday.  I have just had two of the showers fixed, that had airlocks.
The ceiling in the computer room is falling in slowly because of the
rains.  On Thursday we got rid of all the hornets and wasps nests
around the house... prior to which I had a wee insect farm going.  We
have been clearing up more land to make a bigger vegetable garden in
the back... and outside the one wall, we are going to plant a large
area of sweet potatoes and other root vegetables (Kim, you would be so
proud!).

It was a sight to be seen yesterday as I stood on one side of Opah,
and Wes on the other, our feet balancing on large rocks beside the
wall as 3 heads peeped over to see the neighbour's chicken coop. We
are clearing a space with the idea of building our own so we have a
home supply of eggs (and meat, eeek!) and we will also try to sell
chicks.  So slowly but surely things are happening here.  Wes calls it
my micro NGO.

This weekend, time is scarce as I am doing a short course/workshop.
But as of Monday, the plans begin: Opah and I will head to Lupane, to
St Luke's mission hospital in the hope that Sithandekile is still
alive.  She is a girl I used to write to, she is the daughter of our
late Gladys.  She, like Gladys, is also dying of the dreaded and
unspeakable disease.  She has an 8-year old son, with nowhere to go.
And so another African tragedy is in the making.

On Tuesday, we will need to get the police clearance forms for an
upcoming grocery trip to Botswana... more bureaucracy!  And yet, as
the pieces of paper are stamped, and what we were seeking is sought,
there is no greater feeling of exhilaration, such that all the running
and chasing almost feels worth it.

As usual, here it's the small things.  And so we continue feeling the
aliveness of life.  We marvel and we mourn.  For the past 2 nights, I
have come out of the short course I am doing after midnight.  We exit
the hall of the Hindu Centre and are consumed under the dome of sky
lit up by a million Southern Hemisphere stars, and a blurry moon that
sometimes winks at us from behind a translucent cloud.  And all I can
think is, yes, here I am.