Time to Renew our Visas

I have a confession to make … it is hard to admit, but I think I am becoming more and more zimbabean each day I am here … the true test was when we went over to Botswana last week. On the way over we had to queue for at least an hour to get through the Botswana immigration, then on the way back we had to queue in the Zimbabwean immigration for more than 2 hours … all this was done without complaining and just standing patiently … You see, queuing is the national past time for the average Zimbabwean. Zimbabweans have to queue for money at the ATM, queue for bread, queue for mealie, queue for cheap petrol (when it is available) and when there is no queue people just queue for the sake of queuing. Now for people who know me well, I was never one to queue patiently, I didn’t care much for queues and definitely didn’t like just standing around … times are a changin’. Jodi on the other hand has not quite adapted to the Zimbabwean culture … “little miss impatient” is most likened to an over fizzed over shaken coke bottle … you don’t really know what is going to happen until the lid is taken off and then out comes a HUGE explosion … Jodi had to have a little “time out” when queuing at the Zimbabwean border (and that’s all that needs to be said).

The reason for our trip over to Botswana was for a little bit of RNR, to purchase some products for our new house (things are getting VERY VERY expensive here in Zim) and most importantly to renew our visas for another 3 months. All of the above was done with success. I have to admit, in the 3 months we have been in Zim I had almost forgotten what a “real” shop looks like, having fully stocked shelves with a wide variety of brands to choose from …WOW. I think one of the highlights was seeing packets of Tim Tams on the shop shelves, but the price was astronomical … $10 AUD wowza.