Learning Shona

We begin our Shona classes this evening after work. We've already picked up some of the language, and our neighbours, co-workers and strangers on the street seem to appreciate us carrying out simple conversations with them. Even our church services are entirely in Shona. Unfortunately, there's at least four different editions of the song book, so it can be difficult for us to locate the right songs in church. As Rochelle mentioned, Shona really is the heart language of the people so we want to learn as much as possible. We need to be more intentional about this, however, and dedicate time each day to studying and practicing the language. I think taking the classes will help us with that. I hope to memorize a few prayers next week so that I can begin to pray publicly in Shona.

We've started a garden in our backyard. We've got four small plots of land where we can grow vegetables year round. We've been preparing the soil this week and will probably plant some seeds and seedlings on the weekend or early next week. It was hard work getting the ground ready so I'm quite proud of my blisters. We're also going to plant some flowers and shrubs in the front of our home. I'll post some pictures when I get a chance.

We're settling in nicely in our new home. We share it with some gigantic wall spiders (they catch bugs so we let them stay rent free), many other smaller spiders and some small lizards (geckos and swifts). No rats so far, but some of our neighbours are having trouble with them. I saw a gigantic one running across my neighbours backyard last week. We've got a small kitchen, living room, bedroom and bathroom. It's quite cozy and there's even a fireplace which we may use if it continues to get colder (the nights can get quite chilly in winter).

Life is very hard here for Zimbabweans. Now that we've been here a couple of weeks people seem to be more honest with us about their lives. I was walking with some youth on Sunday and they wanted to know why we would move to Zimbabwe when so many people are trying to leave. One young man in university said that when he was a kid it cost $20,000 for university tuition. Today it costs many millions. He was holding a banana that he was going to eat for his lunch; three days earlier I had bought two small bananas for $28,000. Wages have increased a bit, but not enough to keep up with increasing prices and an inflation rate nearing 1000 percent. Rising school fees make it incredibly difficult for parents to send their children to school. We'd like to help our neighbours with this, but we're waiting and praying for discernment on whether we should do this and how to go about it. One of our neighbours joked (I think) that she wanted us to adopt two of her kids so that we could pay for their school fees and uniforms.

The power goes out at least five times a week, usually between 4:30-7:30. That includes traffic lights!  It gets dark naturally around 6 pm, so you really can't go anywhere after that unless you have a vehicle. If you get home in time to boil some water before the power goes out, you can cook rice as long as you keep a lid tightly sealed on the pot. That's a little tip we got from Major Dawn Howse and Max Vincent. Most of our neighbours cook outside over a fire on the nights there's no power, so I imagine we will start doing that eventually. I always enjoyed food over a campfire...  

We don't buy much meat as it's expensive but we find it interesting that in Zimbabwe chicken is the luxury item whereas beef (ie steak!!) is cheaper. We have some herbs that I've planted (basil, purple basil, mint, coriander, parsley, rosemary) which make our simple meals (ie tomatoes and onions over rice; avocado sandwiches; scrambled eggs) a little more interesting and tasty.

In my next post I'll tell you about totems... You'll just have to wait and find out!