Shona Sculpture

The Shona people are known for their sculptures. I've had several opportunities to see this on this trip.
First, in the Atlanta airport there was an exhibit of Zimbabwean sculptures which was really cool. I took some pictures.

Then, when I got here, it turns out I'm living in a former sculpture gallery. The sculpture selling business still operates out back and there are sculptures all over the house and grounds, including some artistically innovative ones, apparently.

And there's a outdoor sculpture market not too far away that I've gotten some things from. They even did a sculpture of a crow for me that I'll have to take a picture of and post for you sometime.

A Stupid Joke I Thought of Last Night

--What do you call a herd of cows at the top of a tower?
--High steaks.

Sorry, I know that was totally irrelevant. I just had to tell somebody that.

Soccer

I went to a soccer game on Sunday. Some observations:

• Caps United vs. Eastern Lions. Caps United should not be confused with Caps FC. Caps is some company that used to sponsor Caps United but later sold them. Then they bought another team which is Caps FC. There's some sort of lawsuit about it and it's all really crazy. It reminds me of how the Anaheim Angels are (were?) really the Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim because of some contract clause.
• I went to the game with two of my housemates, our neighbor's 12-year-old son Wilbur, our friend Timba, and his 8-year-old son Christian. Timba is a big Caps fan, so he was all decked out in green, the team's color, with giant green sunglasses. Christian had a flag and a scarf. Memorabilia for the team does not seem to be very available, so a lot of people had any old green thing they could find, including Philadelphia Eagles and Oakland A's jerseys. Eastern Lions wore blue.
• African crows, with their white jackets, flew overhead, waiting for the leftovers.
• Eastern Lions scored very early on, followed by a quick score by Caps, who kicked it into the goalpost and then into the goal. The only other goal came about halfway through the second half, when Caps powered it in from far away. So Caps won, 2-1.
• The Caps team chairman invited us to sit in the VIP seating at the beginning of the second half because he was worried that hooligans from the other team would harass us. I don't think he needed to worry about that; Eastern Lions are from the Eastern part of the country, so not very many of them showed up. The rivalry was pretty good-natured, anyway. Regardless, we enjoyed VIP seating. They had cushions on the concrete benches. The VVIPs had cushioned chairs (yep, just regular chairs, not even a recliner or anything).
• Differences and similarities from American sporting events: This was, of course, a much more low budget affair. The Caps players had uniforms that looked a couple of seasons old. The score on the scoreboard was changed by some guy on a ladder with numbers on cards. They had only two old balls that didn't match. When the ball went out of bounds, the players had to run after it themselves. The players were a lot more polite than you sometimes see in other places. They all shook hands before and after the match, and I saw one guy help somebody from the other team up from the ground. Also, there didn't seem to be as much flopping or arguing with the referee, although there were a few yellow cards.
• I saw Energy, the goalie for Caps. He didn't play much this game, though.
• People threw their litter on the ground without a second thought. I'm not sure they even had trashcans. Immediately after the match ended, hungry children who had been selling things during the game grabbed the leftover food from the ground and started eating it. That made me sad.
• After the game, huge streams of people walked home. The traffic was chaos, with everybody weaving in and out of the people. The rule in Zimbabwe is to keep moving until the other guy lets you in. It was fun, though, with everybody cheering whenever they saw someone wearing their team's colors.

You'll live to regret naming your child "Warning"

People in Zimbabwe have great names. My sister is looking for baby names, maybe I'll suggest these to her:

Lookout
Energy (A star soccer player)
Charity (For a girl)
Lovemore (This is the most common one I've heard)
Happy
Takesure
Shakeman

I really like the vaguely Puritan flavor of those names. It reminds me a little of the people in Venezuela who would name their children after signs they saw in English. For example, I was at a parade once in Caracas and the woman behind me called her child something. I turned around and asked her and, yes, his name was Danger. That kid will grow up to be a spy or a hitman or something like that, I'll bet.
I'll let you know when I hear some more good names.

Church

I went to church today. The building I went to is the stake center for the Harare Zimbabwe Stake. I think the ward was the Highfields Ward. It's about one-third white and two-thirds black, reflecting that the area within in the ward boundaries is somewhat of a richer area.
I was really impressed with the meetings; the talks (on the gathering of Israel, not an easy subject!)were well-researched with some good insights and the lessons (on the Atonement in Sunday School and on preparedness in EQ) were spiritual and elicited participation. Nobody brings their books to priesthood meeting here either, though. That is universal.
The temporal welfare programs of the Church are being heavily emphasized here because of the economic problems and shortages that a lot of people face. The bishop announced that there will be a lesson toward the end of the month on food storage. I wonder how that works in a Zimbabwean context.
It felt like sort of a Zion society in embryo, with people from different races and classes getting together to talk about the gospel and how to live better lives. Going to church always feels like going home, no matter what country you're in.

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.