Untukmu Para Pengunjung

The other day we were coming back from Guruve via public transit. Combis don't tend to travel unless they are jam-packed, because fuel is too valuable. So, we were hanging around Mvurwi (a town) trying to find people to travel back to Harare with us. John and I were in the front bench of the combi. A couple of guys came to the door, saw us and said (in Shona) "no way! We're not sitting beside those white people!" and refused to get in unless others would trade places with them. I was offended, and thought "how racist!" I was telling the story later to some friends, and they explained "they were probably afraid that you would speak to them in English; that they wouldn't understand, and then everyone in the combi would laugh at them."

The other other day we were in one of our first ever Harare traffic jams on the way to work (maybe because so many people are importing fuel for private use now, more people are on the roads). Our driver decided to drive straight into oncoming traffic. To us, this sort of felt like taking our life into our hands (driving in Zimbabwe has really improved my prayer life!) but to the others in our combi it was like, "now we're in America!" (because we were driving on the right) "aren't you happy?" Well, we did get to work quicker than others...