Inside Zimbabwe: Nine Nights, Good Times

by Alan Perlman
on August 10th, 2010
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In November 2008, just after my company had last sent someone to survey Harare, the country of Zimbabwe was a mess. Three of Zimbabwe’s four major hospitals had shut down, 10,000+ people had been infected in a cholera epidemic, and the prices of goods and services were doubling every 1.3 days. My colleague came back with a near-empty survey book and oodles of valueless currency. The annual inflation rate was unofficially calculated at 516-quintillion percent. The central bank, in an effort to keep up with hyperinflation, issued a 100 trillion dollar note.

What! How does that even work?

As you might imagine, it was with great interest that I entered Harare.

Sampling Local Libations and Vampire Hunting

I landed on a Friday afternoon, succumbing to the day in a slovenly laze, retiring earlier than I’d like to admit. The next morning, I hired a taxi driver to take me around to various outlets. While several businesses were still inoperative, there was a healthy amount of commerce. The supermarket shelves were well-stocked, gas stations sold fuel and hotel restaurants, unlike in 2008, served food. I was impressed.

At one point I asked the driver, Etson, what people my age might do for fun. He suggested that we go out that night, and that he’d call me when his shift ended. At 12:15AM, having almost given up on Etson, I received a call.

Etson took me to Tipperary’s, a nightclub in the Avenues district, just outside the city center. Due to a special event that night, entry was $3, and each ticket was good for two beers at the bar. We push our way inside and find the place ‘bumpin like there’s no tomorrow. Dancing in one room, billiards in another, and a back room with an old, dusty bar.

Aside from one guy, sheepishly chatting with a high-stocking and tight-dressed girl in the corner, I’m the only white face in the room. Etson and I sit down and attract a crowd. Someone eventually butts into our discussion, and when I politely tell him that I’m trying to have a beer with my friend, he places a hand on my shoulder, squeezing with his fingers. “We talk. We drink. We learn. We do business. We drink,” he drunkenly murmurs. He asks for a beer, and I decline, Etson nodding his head in approval.

It was getting late, and Etson received a call from the hotel, asking him to return and pick up a client. Apparently he was still on duty. Who knew you could drink on duty as a hotel driver?

On the road home, Etson laughs, “now it’s vampire time. Let’s go look for vampires.” He turns onto Chinamano Road, shadowy figures lurking on the corners, under street signs and draping trees. I’m slow to figure it out. When I do, I ask Etson, curiously of course, how much a “vampire” would cost. $15 short-term and $60 for the whole night. Even if I felt like abandoning my morals, in a country where one in ten adults has HIV, that’s not a purchase I’d be willing to chance on.

Harare Day Tour

Since traveling to Victoria Falls was too expensive and time-consuming to my liking, I spent most of my time exploring Harare’s various sites. I was driven up to Kopje, a large granite hill just south of central Harare, a great place to catch a view of the city.

I also went to the Chiremba Balancing Rocks, a field of precariously balanced rocks, some with art from the Zimbabwe bushmen of the early 20th century.

The Botanic Garden, at sixty eight hectares, has over nine hundred species of shrubs and wild trees from all over the country.

At the Zimbabwe Museum of Human Sciences, I saw stuffed vervet and samango monkeys, a black rhinoceros skeleton, a Vulcanodon dinosaur foot and a replication of an indigenous Shona village. The museum itself was dilapidated, dark and grimy, but from what I was told it was the only museum in the city. Pictures were not allowed, but I snapped this one from the outside.

I could write more, about my adventures on the chicken farm, my conversation with a Mozambique crocodile importer, my round of golf or my run-in with the third wealthiest man in the entire country, Philip Chiyangwa, but it’s getting late, and I just realized I forgot to pick up malaria medicine.

Oops.

Alan Perlman

Alan Perlman travels the world as an international cost-of-living surveyor. When he's not hunting for the price of female undergarments in places like Syria, Rwanda and Turkmenistan, he's hanging out in Boston, MA, staying active, meeting people and brainstorming business models. You can read more about Alan and his plans to conquer life at his blog, The 9 to 5 Alternative.