On Thursday, trying to find a shortcut to the airport, we drove through a village on the outskirts of Harare called Epworth. Some impressions:
Navigating a crazy dirt road with big gullies and ruts in a dinky little sedan with a tendency to bottom out.
Buying eggs (which are hard to find with the price controls) from a man on the side of the road. I think we pretty much gave him his day's income. At 15,000 Zim dollars per egg, we could get a dozen for about $2 American. Not too bad.
Tiny adobe houses, all painted with addresses. That amazed me. I wish they had that much organization in Honduras. Would have saved a lot of time asking for addresses on the mission.
Women making rope with some sort of wooden contraption and stacks of adobe bricks laying out to dry. A bar called Mother's Saloon. Little stores. Open-air barbershops. A junkyard. Local industry.
Making faces at dusty little kids. One kid pretended to speak English by talking in gibberish: "Osha shosha shoo." A couple of kids tried to run after us and tap on the car, but couldn't keep up for too long.
Women carrying little kids in cloth carriers on their backs. Sometimes little kids being carried in the same way by kids that were only slightly larger.
Men in all kinds of clothes: business suits, overalls, t-shirts and jeans. Policemen in blue uniforms on bicycles.
A group of "Apostolics" all in white praying by the side of the road. The men knelt in front, the women in back. I think they're some sort of evangelical or charismatic Christian group.
Tipping rocks: huge boulders precariously balanced on one another. Sort of a metaphor for village life itself.