It’s been over a year since I last shared a post. Mainly because there is almost too much to share sometimes, but also because I actually had a daily journal for my days out in the bush which maybe meant that I didn't feel the need to share..some days I noted in my journal three words, what I made for dinner or whether it rained or not, but others were more exciting.
Like the time a leopard killed a little bush buck right outside our house, or when we attended a rhino monitoring course in Matopos, or when we organised for the scouts to escort 17 women on a run through the bush, when we got vaccinated before anyone else I knew, when we realised those vaccines had expired, when we cycled 60 km through the wild Hwange park and I got at least 10 blisters on my fingers, when we tried our first home grown lettuce, when we kicked off the annual Smile and See programme in the communities, when I attended a cultural show in a village and feasted on food I’d never even seen before, when we discovered the biggest scorpion chilling in our bedroom, we a small group of village children doing a sewing internship in town managed to make their very own clothes, when we went swimming in Mvuradona and hiking in Nyanga, when we had the elephants chomping right outside our front door, when we had lions in our garden trying to get at the “pretend rhino” cattle the scouts were guarding, when we slept around the bush fire, when my dad was able to be within 5 metres of a wild elephant for the first time, when we had our first overseas friends visit, when we brought home a tiny white kitten, which we then named "Kiwa" meaning “white” in the local language. A couple of weeks ago little Kiwa kiwi cat died when our home burned down and took everything we had and everything we spent the last 2 and a half years working towards. This little cat was a lot to me. She was a very big part of what made the Zimbabwean bush feel like home...even more so than a house full of stuff. In September 2019 we packed a 20 ft container with fridges, freezers, food, cupboards, tools... and all our belongings, including Dan's motorbike. We bought a truck and sent everything to Zimbabwe. Covid hit, as did 50% salaries and other events and we thought we'd made a big mistake investing so much time, money and energy into moving to the bush and working on different projects. But then, after moving the container contents three times and after a year of living out of back packs and trialling different lodges, tents and rooms, in November 2020 we finally finished building our little home, unpacked all our things and started settling in, something we'd been looking forward to for so long. A few months later in March 2021, we randomly got a tiny white cat, "Kiwa", that ended up taking a lot of space in our hearts and home.
When two weeks ago that little house in the bush burned down, with our cat inside, I can't help but feel very tired. Zimbabawe isn't my home - even though I've made friends and even family here, a lot of it is unknown and challenging for me and out in the bush, it can be very lonely. Making it my home was really important and in just a few minutes, that all went up in smoke. Life isn't about stuff. It's about feelings, relationships, memories..so love what you can and use what you have...or pass it on to people in Ukraine, people who’ve lost homes in floods, people everywhere. We’re all vulnerable and some people aren’t as lucky as Dan and I are with the support and love we’ve felt. I'm so grateful for it all, and for my parents being there, even though they never even got to see our home. Zimbabwe is filled with stories of hardship and people who have lost everything; it's all too common. Many people have had the strength to keep going and stay "loyal" to their home, to this country. It's admirable really.
Sunrise over our vegetable garden, swimming the Zambezi with my parents (and the hippos), Kiwa, buffalo, the day we brought Kiwa home, our house, Kiwa and Kiwa's Tree.