Untukmu Para Pengunjung

From humble beginning being printed and handed out at Melbourne Music Stores, this e-Mag has gone onto have over 200,000 downloads of the latest edition. Hands down the best read of the year. Check it out here.

Yesterday I finished up the two day workshop on mainstreaming gender into the church. There was this one really interesting discussion/debate on whether pastors need to review the wedding vows - particularly the part about "in sickness and in health." It would seem that in Zimbabwe this verse is interpreted as "a woman must stick by her husband and obey all of his wishes including unprotected sex and reproducing children even if he is ill; and even if he is HIV+ and exercising these rights means that the wife will become infected. This isn't exactly the framework I was thinking of on my wedding day... Personally I feel that these conjugal rights are related to lobola. If you buy your wife, you probably feel like you have the right to do whatever you want to her/with her whenever you want, right?

There was also an interesting discussion on paternity leave. One guy spoke up and said, "but if you have 6 wives, you'll be on paternity leave all year, and that will severely affect production and the economy of the nation." True... I guess if you're in that situation, you just really have to get your timing right!

We ate bagels this morning. I baked them two nights ago, and I was surprised at how easy it was to make them. The key is to boil the dough before baking, which gives the bagels a smooth and chewy crust. Yumm… Does anyone know how to make Montreal smoked meat?

My next culinary experiment will be replicating the Big Mac. It’s good to have goals.

We are running out of books!!! I just downloaded four new ones to read on my Palm Pilot, which will hopefully get me through the next few weeks. I downloaded Alice Munro’s The View from Castle Rock, Ernest Hemmingway’s Short Stories and Haruki Murakami’s Kafka on the Shore and Blind Willow, Sleeping Woman. I’m really looking forward to reading Murakami’s stuff. I read one of his short stories from Blind Willow, Sleeping Woman last night and thoroughly enjoyed his writing style.

We’re coming home to Canada at Christmas for a short vacation, so we’ll be stocking up on some more books. I will definitely be picking up MG Vassanji’s The Assassin’s Song and Elizabeth Hay’s Late Nights on Air. Do you have any book recommendations?

Two of my recent favourites: Michael Ondaatje’s Divisadero and Khaled Hosseini’s A Thousand Splendid Suns.

Rochelle’s brother Joel just sent us some movies, so that should slow down my reading rampage. We watched a few episodes of Lost last night (thanks, Joel!) on my laptop while we ate a very Canadian supper: Fried egg on a bagel, corn on the cob, watermelon and strawberries. All of the food was grown locally, except for the flour used to make the bagels. We haven’t spent much time on our garden lately, but we’ve got onions, peppers and carrots growing right now and we’ll plant a new batch of sweet corn this weekend. We also have plenty of lavender growing in the front of our house, so I occasionally cut a few branches and throw them into our morning bath.

I just spent the morning at the Holiday Inn for a meeting with UNICEF. They were gathering churches from the National Faith Based Council to come and talk about gender mainstreaming within the church. Gender is such a fascinating topic anywhere, but in Zimbabwe it always makes an interesting discussion. I was sitting next to a woman who has founded and pastors her own church. The first Sunday she led services her husband was ashamed and left home never to return. There is such a difference between what people say in meetings like this one, and what they say over the lunch table afterwards - or in the combi ride home. (Like, "gender equality is a foreign, white thing. It will never happen in our African culture" or in The Salvation Army they'll say, "oh of course my wife could be a divisional commander, as long as she knows she's the slave at home!") Right. I still can't get over the whole "girls are only valuable because they bring in money at their wedding" thing. At the wedding on Saturday they raised $182 million (we know this, because each relative and friend goes to the front and announces their gift as they present it and then totals are announced). I can't imagine being bought by my husband (although here, everyone can't believe that John got me for free!)

I am SO thankful for a husband who both loves and respects me. Actually, last night I was visiting some friends, and one of them asked me if I had given a magic potion (made mostly of boiled lizards) to John. You see, he was home making bagels (who does that? what a clever guy - they're delicious!) while I was out visiting. Because John likes to be in the kitchen, people assume that I have put a curse on him. And they're serious! I know one thing for sure - I would not have lasted 1 week as a Zimbabwean wife (because of my total lack of skill in almost every home-making activity!) People here generally preach that if you don't go by prescribed, traditional gender roles, you will be unhappy in your marriage, and it will never last. But it works for us! We don't fit the mold at all, but we're happy, and we both feel like we have an amazing marriage.

P.S. We had a buffet lunch after the meeting. I don't know where hotels are getting their food, but it was a feast! At the end, one of the waitresses came up to me and asked if I'd like to settle the bill for everyone. I realized I was the only white person in the crowded restaurant. I guess assumptions are hard to beat in any category!

This one was too strong to be put on to fuelmyblog but I couldn't let it pass, it is hilarious.

(We are also giving away 100 T-shirts and $500 in cash to bloggers in October, not yet a member of my community fuelmyblog? Sign up!)

Why would you highlight in an ad the one reason why people don’t adopt your product?

3G video calling technology has been around for years and there is one main reason why people have not adopted the technology, they do not want other people prying into their private lives 24/7. If I am at the pub with my mates and my girlfriend rings me to see why I am not at home with her for our anniversary, I sure as hell do not want to take the call on video. I am stunned at this advertisement, good luck getting the Christian adoption rate up as well!

There are jacaranda trees all around Harare. They are beautiful trees which make lovely archways and a beautiful purple carpet on the ground. They are similar to lilacs (my mom's favourite), and remind me of Anne of Green Gables. Yesterday I was in the back of a pick-up truck and I asked if the jacarandas were native to Zimbabwe. Then I got an earful! As it turns out, the jacarandas were brought here by the varungu (whites) who thought they looked beautiful, and so they planted them everywhere. They even used to have festivals where they would all dress up in the same colours to match the trees and get their photos taken. But most "real" Zimbabweans are allergic to jacarandas. It makes them cough and sneeze (the people talking coughed here to emphasize the point). The people who were telling me about the jacarandas were angry. So I decided that I should apologize - on behalf of "my" people - the horribly racist whites who obviously wanted to poison the Blacks with their lust for beauty (wait - this is sounding like "The Herald"!) So, I said I was sorry, and this satisfied the people in the back of the truck. I didn't have much to do with this tree decision, but I'm guessing that no one else is lining up to come here about apologize about the jacarandas. (By the way, did you see that descendants of Lothar van Trotha apologized to the Herero people for the 1904 massacres and forced starvation over land ownership in Namibia? Better late than never, I guess...)