“Oh look, what a beautiful lizard“, says Brian.
“Oh look, what a big fat crocodile”, says I.
Just like me, Brian, a Canadian world traveler, is staying in Victoria Falls, Zimbabwe, for some weeks.
Used to cantankerous bears, this Rocky-Mountain-Man doesn’t mind a few buffalos and elephants. Thus, he walks down to the mighty Zambezi river almost every afternoon. This time I asked to tag along. Four eyes see more than two. And in this instance, mine spotted the huge croc which Brian overlooked. It was sunning itself on the flat rocks by the shore from where we had intended to look out for elephants, crossing from the Zambian side.
An angry croc is a sight to behold. It hurls itself in the water, turns around and hisses at us. Then disappears upstream.
When the rocks are vacated, we take over, admiring the rainbows in the spray above the nearby drop-off of the falls. Not just any falls but THE Victoria Falls, Mosi-oa-Tunya – the smoke that thunders – as local languages say. We fill our eyes our ears and souls.
Dusk comes fast in Africa and fades into night even faster. Being a pedestrian in the bush down by the river gets too dangerous at this time. The river front belongs to the wildlife now.
So, we move on to the close-by Victoria Falls Hotel – fife star, built in 1904.
From the garden we watch the full moon rise over the border bridge across the gorge, lighting up the spray of the falls. No photograph can ever capture the magic. It just gets etched into the retina and into the heart.
After so much natural splendor, we take ourselves on an in-official self-guided tour of the hotel. I had always wanted to check out the restrooms. No disappointment. You could move in and live there without ever knowing you are staying in a certain facility.
We take a stroll through various antique-filled sitting rooms, marvel at oil paintings and taxidermy which is probably as old as the hotel. Next time I will bring my swimwear and see if I can make it into the pool.
After the croc, the next day brings the “hippo mission”. J-man, a local friend, calls and asks if I want to go out to the villages to see his suppliers. He buys crafts wholesale and sells them in tourist markets. J-man wants me to choose wooden hippos for him with my “white eyes”, since most of his customers are white, and we have such peculiar taste.
And could I be ready by ten.
At 10 minutes to ten, my cellphone rings again. J-man is on the way to our meeting point. Could I start walking there as well? Sometimes my African friends take me by surprise.
By way of roadside lifts, we travel 15 km toward the south. The driver charges one dollar per head. We are dropped near a sandy bush track and walk through the blazing sun to villages of adobe huts, maize fields, clucking chickens and sleeping dogs. Many of the huts are adorned by beautiful geometric designs on their outer walls. The parched yards are spotless. In some bomas people only carve giraffes, others do lions and still others hippos.
J-man knows which size of animal goes well with tourists, but for facial expression and animal body language he wants my input. I try and choose some quaint-faced creatures and deals are done. When we have filled two back-packs with lead heavy hippos and some maize fresh from the field, we hike out to the road again.
A tall African guy, mid-thirties and with dreads, plus a white woman, old enough to be his favorite auntie – we attract a few stares and, I am sure, inspire some assumptions of a certain kind.
Buying carvings in the bush and re-selling them to tourists is not a get-rich-quick-scheme. But J-man – like so many Zimbabweans – has a plan. Every week a certain amount goes into his bank account. Every now and then, he takes some money out, rides the train to Bulawayo, buys two bikes, transports them up to Victoria Falls and trades them for yet more carved goods in the bush which then find their way into the luggage of international visitors ….
The carvers out in the villages have a hard time getting around and not enough cash in hand. So, they give the traders orders for what to bring in exchange for their pieces.
On the way back to town, we get lucky and find a lift which takes us right to the middle of the Mkhosana township, south of central Victoria Falls, where J-man lives in the house he and his three siblings have inherited from their mum. One of his sisters stays there with her husband and three kids. And two of the rooms are rented out. The narrow compound with its three mango trees is guarded by Spot, a lovely yellow dog who has a reputation for chewing up trespassers. However, with her and me it is love at first sight.
The hippos go to J-man’s room. Bed, wardrobe, armchair, Bob Marley posters, TV, stereo, microwave, two plate cooker, storing space for wooden animals. By Zimbabwean standards, J-man is doing well. He goes out for a minute to get me some lemonade from the tuck shop next door.
And comes back giggling. His sister and the neighbors have already started to speculate about the date for our wedding.
We will have to disappoint them. J-man has a business plan and pursues it with a vengeance. He likes his life in Zimbabwe and is far from trying to flirt his way out of the country and into a future in some European place.
One day he wants to have a wife and two kids. No more. His application for a housing stand is pending, he has got a transport license and the exam for a tourist-guide license is coming up. There has to be a second job for times when things at the curio market are slow.
So here I am, sitting in a crowded house in a township in southern Africa with a guy who has a mindset like the members of my own industrious southern German tribe. Maybe the world is truly a village.
Contributed by Usch Pilz, a freelance literary translator and travel writer, based in Germany. Contact: [email protected]