As we enjoy what passes for a regular meal at Comfort Catering we inevitably get to share experiences about what matters around here.
The meal consisted of sadza, accompanied for relish, by road runners, green vegetables that looked like choumolier or rape and some tasty soup. To the ‘uninitiated’, a road runner is the indigenous chicken known in Zimbabwe as hard mashona type. Before it becomes a meal, this chicken literally struggles throughout its life. Unlike its broiler counterpart, it has to go around looking for food and in the process run for dear life, which explains why it is very hard to eat at the dining table. I must add that it is a tricky feat to catch for the pot as it is to cook it, which takes a bit of time. I could write at length about this species of food.
Another tiny detail about the meal is the soup or gravy, whatever one may be disposed to call it. The soup had this amazing quality of constantly ‘running’ away from the sadza. Sadza, by the way is the major starch aspect of a traditional meal made from ground corn. We call it phaleche or pap, back home in Botswana. All this said, what my travel buddy Mpho Tlale were having was an incredibly amazing cuisine. Sampled from a menu written in various colours on a tiny chalkboard hanging on one of the walls of the diner, this particular meal was going to be our staple diet for the next four days of our excursion at the Jameson Vic Falls Carnival 2013.
Pic: Mpho Tlale
Even more amazing was the conversation that accompanied this meal, characterised by the usual expert knowledge volunteered by pseudo experts, often by virtue of being more familiar with a place.
In this case the experts were Last (short for Lastworth) and Terrence, local brothers who happened to be revelling at this local restaurant cum bar struggling for attention and patronage in the midst of some fairly upmarket outfits like Mama Africa Eatery and Lola’s, where I am sure the more discerning tourists and diners with better lined pockets would prefer. I am also sure you realise that makes us budget travellers – hard core back packers, to be precise. We eat, sleep and have the greatest fun at the lowest possible cost. For us the adventure is the austerity of our travel that is next to free.
Our budget joint overlooked the Victoria Falls train station a stone’s throw away and some ten minute drive away from the famous Big Tree, which was the main subject of our discussion, courtesy of information, and at times misinformation from our newly found tour guides and somewhat hosts, Last and Terrence who were already treating us to some local brands of pilsner. After the meal they gladly offered to offer us a ride to the big tree and a place where we could behold the magnificent Victoria Falls.
On our way to the big tree we drove past the usual tourist gate to the Falls, taking instead another route to our intended spectacle. Although I had seen one such huge Mowana tree back home at the Lekhubu Island which is nestled in the middle of the vast Makgadikgadi pans, there was this very tiny detail about this particular big tree; a claim made by our friends about it being on one of the Zimbabwean currency.
Now you may find this odd, but here is the deal. The Zimbabwean currency, during my trip to the Vic Falls Carnival, was anything from the Botswana Pula, South African Rand and the US greenback – what in official circles is called multiple-currency. The local Zimbabwean currency is no longer in use. It was abandoned after a period of economic chaos that saw it change faces, form and denominations several times and at one point boasted hundred trillion official bank notes.
This made the mention of the big tree being on the Zimbabwean currency an intriguing tale during a revellers bar talk. I was as keen on checking out the tree in person as I was on validating the currency story. I did do both. The former checked, but the currency bit remains unresolved after further enquiries with my many well informed Zimbo friends and an exhaustive Google search was equally futile. I am still stuck with only the two nice brothers’ testimony.
Pic: Mpho Tlale
Which gets me to my major reason for sharing this part of my Vic Falls Carnival excursion: Once they realised that we were two back packers from across the border, the two brothers extended great and sincere hospitality to us with no ulterior motive.
These guys looked so excited to see these two free-spirited expat girls out to have a good time in Zimbabwe that they literally begged to show us around at no cost to us. It was a very humbling experience I must confess. I saw in these guys, and the rest of the locals we interacted with during our fun-filled stay at Zimbabwe’s tourist town, a sense of pride in being great and caring hosts. And, certainly, it wasn’t about being seen romping around with a couple of expat girls. Okay, maybe not. Rather an extension of courtesy that ‘we pride ourselves not only in the beauty and wonder that we have to offer as a country, but also that we are a wonderful people, nation and one big family that will make you feel very much at home.”
And it did feel so much like home on one too many occasions.
For those coming across this for the first time, the Victoria Falls Carnival is an incredible annual three day festival of music, performance, dance, adventure and fun, that welcomes the new year at the beautiful world famous Victoria Falls. It is the biggest New Year’s party in Africa.
Pic: Mpho Tlale
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