During the autumn term of 2018 I attended a course in Literary travels through Africa at a Folkhögskola. Besides literature from Mozambique, Botswana, Angola and South Africa, we studied literature from Zimbabwe. And Zimbabwe was the country where we travelled to meet authors and publishers of the books we read. One can say that the trip was organizationally quite relaxed and we were not always sure about how, where and when, but we had a fantastic program which we somehow followed and enjoyed immensely.
Fifteen students and two teachers left Sweden from different airports on 29 October. Here are the expectant literary travelers waiting for a connection to Harare at Joma Kenyatta airport in Nairobi.
Arrived in Harare and bundled into two taxis for our fist sight of Harare. Funny how taxi drivers find the most trafficked roads!
Here Susan and Angelica är posing outside our B&B in Avondale, Harare. the B&B is called "Its a Small World". Its a Small World is quite a simple, but an interesting, or shall I say, challenging place. Avondale appears to have been a very wealthy suburb of Harare. Still big mansions behind high walls, but looking a bit sad.
It was wonderful to have Angelica and Susan on the trip. We have known each other for many years and Susan is the one who encouraged us to study with Folkhögskola. Throughout the trip we three shared rooms and had a lot of support in each other. Even though we mixed individually with the others and made good friends, it was good to always have each other to go back to.
And here we are, the triplets, as we became known!
Our first evening in Harare, no food at the B&B, where to get food, what to eat, who knows, we can take a 10 minute walk down to a shopping centre, but its getting dark, better to stick together. So we found a supermarket and NANDOS! South Africas best chicken takeaway, Nandos. Here we are munching in our Nandos. Our youngest companion, who is vegetarian had a vegetarian Nandos and said that it was one of the best vegetarian hamburgers she had eaten. Even Susan agreed. Ah, NANDOS is best!
Heroes Acre, the first stop on the first full day. We have two guides from Kufunda Learning Village, where one of our teachers has close contacts, having lived there for 3 months. The guides, Alan and Irvine (who the Swedes kept calling Ivan) guided us. After a quick visit to a museum with horrific details of the atrocities which took place during the Rhodesian war, we decided to walk up to the Heroes Acre. Turned out to be real heroes, walking up a hill at midday in + 30 degrees, on our first day in Africa, we were like that song, "Mad dogs and Englishmen go out in the midday sun!"
After that sweaty walk (thank goodness they had bottles of water for us) we are shown Heroes acre, an enormous monument in memory of the heroes of the Rhodesian war. All the important comrades are buried here. The monument was built by the North Koreans, which is very obvious, it is very ugly. And strange that North Korea should build a very un African monument to the freedom fighters, the comrades. Something seems wrong. I'm not sure how deep this "comrade" is actually in the heart of the people. Anyway, thats just my impression of a monument that could have honoured the freedom fighters in a much more dignified, culturally accurate way.
Much better are the photos of the view of Harare from here,
Trying to find some shade. If I remember correctly, when the British first came here, the city, which they named Fort Salisbury, more to the right of this photo.
A visit to the Museum with enormous stone sculptures of the different Zimbabwean animals on parade, and below, still there, a memorial to honour Queen Victoria. This is a country of contrasts.
In Harare we had the pleasure to meet an author, Blessing Musariri. We had read one of her short stories in the book Moving on. Her story," These feet are made for walking". The story highlights loyalty to tradition och folklore being challenged by practical needs. The story is written in an easy, swinging way and most pleasurable to read.
We also met a poet and author, Togara Muzhanenamo, in his lovely home in one of Harares better suburbs. His wife, a document filmer was also present. She, by the way said that she had never visited the Heroes Acres and predicted that it would not be there in 10 years time. Interesting after the rather soppy visit to Heroes Acre. Togara read some of his poetry, but that which impressed me most was his short story we read in Moving On. A truly beautiful story and when he told us that the original text was a poem, I can understand why the story is so beautiful to read.
