A little housekeeping here. There are several things that have been floating around in my mind that I want to write about and haven't. So without any rhyme or reason, here they are.

"Clean as Dirt."
They clean the dirt here. We first saw this in Lesotho and it's common practice here in Zimbabwe too. In places with no grass and only dirt lawns, it seems common to sweep the dirt each morning. I'm not sure why. Sometimes it's workers looking for something to keep busy, but even some homeowners do it on their own.

A broom-like device is used to sweep the dirt. Only it has no handle, so they must crouch down and use the bound up thatch just a foot or so from the ground. This leaves the fine soil with the corduroy look of a freshly groomed ski run. It's nice getting "first tracks" on the dirt in the morning.

"Apocalypse Now Dinner Party"
Did you see the re-release DVD of Apocalypse Now called Redux? There was a scene in it that was cut from the original where Martin Sheen has dinner with a bizarre French family that's oblivious to the end of the colonial days. It seems no one told them to go back to France. That's what we found in Masvingo.

Roy the hostel owner invited us to dinner with some friends of his, who turned out to be leftovers from the Rhodesia days. They simply forgot to go home when the Empire went out of business. The 60-year-old guy stationed himself commandingly behind the small living room bar while his wife oversaw the maids in the kitchen.

He told us of his adventures on vacation in America several years ago. It involved Amtrak, a millionaire, a private train car and a prostitute. His wife filled in gaps in the story by yelling from the kitchen.

I can say with certainty that this guy definitely doesn't care much for Mugabe and has some issue with blacks in general. "What a miserable excuse for a race," was one of his more memorable pronouncements. But it was interesting to listen to as he represents a part of Zimbabwean society that's brought the country to the situation it's in today.

It also makes me realize how we tend to impose American racial sensibilities on all racial situations. While the aforementioned statement is inexcusable in any context, I don't think I know enough about race in Africa to even understand his attitude.

In his lighter moments, he also regaled us with his bathroom habits. Turns out he washes his hands *before* not after unzipping.

"Music of Mutare"
At dinner in Mutare, remote Zimbabwe, Alan Jackson's immortal Little Bitty blared from the stereo. There truly is no escaping bad American pop culture.

"Money Changes Things"
I've decided the exchange rate for the Zimbabwe dollar is random. There's no reason, no way of predicting whether it's going up or down. Thus far we've gotten rates as low as 2,800 to the US dollar and as high as 4,000.

500 Zimbabwe Dollars, about 10 US Cents

Since it's illegal to change money for anything better than the absurd official rate of 840-something, you have to go to the black market. This doesn't occur in a dark alley as you might imagine. It's usually a white business owner who makes some money changing dollars. Sometimes it's a friend of a friend down the street. Sometimes it's a hotel manager. Today it was "Toots" at the Mutare florist.

Toots (Swear t'God... we were told to go to the florist and ask for Toots) was offering a rate of 3,500. Much better than the paint store owner or the butcher, who were both offering 3,000. But Toots was a little worried she didn't have the $250,000 in $500 bills she'd need to change our 70 US dollars. She'd just changed $100 US for a nice American guy from South Dakota driving a Land Rover. This is the strange kinda situation Mugabe's leadership creates in Zimbabwe.

"Feast or Famine?"
Traveling in a famine-stricken country is a very strange thing. You have to be careful how loudly you say things like "I'm hungry," "Let's go eat," or "I'm so full." It's not that people are about to drop dead of hunger, at least not the ones we saw. But they're not getting enough to eat either.

Calling it a famine is probably not quite accurate... at least not by the commonly understanding of the word. But the average person definitely cannot afford to eat properly. I heard a guy on the street the other day say something to another about "maybe you'll be able to eat tomorrow." I suppose since it was said in english, it might have been for my benefit, but it doesn't make it any less heartbreaking.

But in the middle of all this, the supermarkets are well-stocked (except for bread and flour) and crowded. Restaurants are humming and, by our standards, cheap. There's feasting in the middle of the famine. I suppose this is due to political mis-management.

Wondering where all the starving people are, we asked an aid worker at a hostel in Bulawayo. "They all died," she said.

How strange to walk out of a grocery store trying to hide your purchases for shame of eating while others starve... and fear you might be mugged for your food.