Argh!

It's been such a frustrating week with plans, everything. Things fell apart here in Zimbabwe. And to think that last week went so well.

Nicole and I did end up going up to Mupfure (north of Harare, about a 2 hour drive) to see a research site supervised by one of the researchers at Blair Research Institute. We rented a car from someone at Blair, a Toyota Corolla that had seen better days, and took off driving on the left-hand side (the driver sat on the right, of course). It was so good to break free of the big city. We stopped in the small town of Bindura to look around and then continued north. At one point the landscape looked exactly like western Massachusetts near Amherst. It was maize fields, in front of green belts of diciduous trees, in front of tree-covered "mountains", like the Holyoke range. Pretty and relaxing.

We turned down a long road to the research lab where all the kids waved and shouted. finally reached a secondary school with some houses around and a large soccer field. Eppy, the woman who cooks for the research team, greeted us and assured us we were in the right place. We walked up to the lab, a short distance from the building where the kitchen and sleeping rooms are, and found a large group of people waiting in front and the research staff busily doing things. The people waiting were participants in the study research who were waiting for one of their appointments as part of the trial. Some of the team we knew from meeting them at Blair. But there was a Danish doctor and two nurses who we'd never met. Because they were in the middle of examinations we waited around the lab for a time that they could talk to us, and suddenly Per (the Danish doc) runs out of the building and invites us to follow him while he takes a quick lunch break and can then talk to us about what's going on, and what we wanted to do there.

Noboby from Blair had told them we were coming to the site (lack of communication, a common occurance here we now realize) and he did want to help us. While Per inhaled his sadza and chicken we explained what we were doing in Zimbabwe, about our documentary, and why we'd come to see his research site. He in turn told us about the research trial he is running here, which is testing the effect of bilharzia (the major forms of human bilharzia / schistosomiasis are caused by five species of water-borne flatworm, or blood flukes) on the onset of AIDS in HIV positive people. He feels that if you treat bilharzia, which many people have, it will prolong the lives of HIV positive people. he's quite a character, Per. 6 foot 6 inches tall, blonde hair, fair skin and very chatty = he really stands out. he's a general practitioner and came to Zimbabwe almost two years ago for his wife's job (she's a doctor also, working with the CDC) and then started this trial. He was very interested in helping us with his project and invited us back to the lab to observe and photograph and ask questions. They all were, however, very busy. So we decided the best thing would be to drive back to Harare with Per (who had to go back to drop off blood samples at the hospital), and ride back with him in the morning so that we could talk and ask him questions in the car, how very nice.

We baraged him with questions and found out what a knowledgeable and interesting guy he is. He's been the main organizer of a doctor exchange throughout countries in Europe and in September is going to give a presentation at an AIDS conference in London. And he was an exchange student in high school to a small town in Maine. (guess where Anna and Elizabeth...yes, of course, Damariscotta. Is there anywhere else in Maine?? He remembers so well the church you were married in, Anna. what!?)

We hung out and photographed the staff, the participants, the location. On a break I went to watch a soccer game happening on the soccer field where ALL of the secondary school students were (in their uniforms). Oh, the interested stares I got, one lone white girl sitting there with a camera, watching. I started kicking a ball around with this group of girls who bravely approached me and oh! the giggles when I would kick the ball to them or say their name!

We stayed the night there with the team. Had roasted maize that was cooked over the fire (just like cornuts without all the stuff all over them). Ate more good sadza and slept in Per's SUV rather than take a bed from one of the researchers. Per was fine with it, but strange looks we got from the African team members, "you're gonna sleep WHERE??"

We came back to Harare that afternoon and spent the weekend here eager to go out into the field more the coming week. Everything was so set up until the agreement we had to rent a car fell through and we were stuck late in the afternoon when all the rental car companies were closing. When we did get to call the next morning, the cost was prohibitively expensive. Then one of the mosquito researchers we were going to visit in the central part of Zimbabwe didn't get the money from the Ministry of Health that he was promised and then his trip got cancelled at least for the time we would be here. While waiting for these cancellations to happen we wasted time we could have used to go to Victoria Falls - which is a real dissapointment. I only wanted to do one touristy thing here and that was to see the falls - but it's 10 hours by bus and flights cost 300 US$!!

We're trying to make productive use of the time. Yesterday we were downtown when we ran into our friends Frederick and Gift who were just coming out of a print shop after laminating the deeds to their new farms! They'd just picked up the deeds after applying for them in march of 2001 as part of the land resettlement process. Totally coincidentally their plots are right next to eachother! Wow, and one is about 40 hectacres in size, the other 50. They're located about a half-hour out of Harare. We celebrated with them that night and I found out that Frederick was a soldier in the Liberation Army and Air Force during the 70s. AND he was at that famous Bob Marley concert for Zimbabwe Independence Day, May of 1980. He said it was quite a time. (Dad, remember the video clip from that at the EMP exhibit?)


Friday we visited the traditional medicine part of Hbare Market in Harare. Many, many stalls packed together with all kinds of plants, and animal skins hanging from the rafters and bottles and jars filled with powders and roots belonging to a healer waiting to help you with any ailment. We talked to a lot of healers about what they use, what people come to them for, what they've healed.

Then we got another cab out to the Granville Cemetary which is a new cemetary, opened about 1999 I think, and now it's nearly full. The government wants to now make every plot a double plot and bury two coffins on top of each other. The place is unreal. Mound after mound and, tragically, many of the monuments are for very young people, under 40. The cab driver who took us there said his daughter is buried there. we spent a long time there - I was really overwhelmed, but couldn't make myself leave. Nevett, our cab driver, asked us halfway home why we were so unusually quiet.















Yesterday we went to see a famous traditional healer, Francis Gowdo, who claims to have a cure for AIDS and has traveled all over the world promoting this medicine. We met him in the village he lives in, a cluster of round houses with thatched roofs about 40km out of Harare. Two of those houses are devoted to his healing practice - places where spiritual rituals happen.

Today is, of course, the World Cup final so you know where we'll be for the afternoon. go Brazil!

Tomorrow we leave to go back to Kenya. These three weeks have gone very quickly. I can't wait to get back and see people in Nairobi though. And we've been out of the U.S. for 5 weeks, it seems like 5 months!

- Marta

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