digital

quality..

My Dad is a dirty Zimbabwean, so is always moving about from job to job (he's in oil and gas) as he can't stay most places permanently. He invites me over when he starts on new jobs. Only place I declined going to was Kazakhstan (this was in 2000, pre borat. Wish I'd gone now). He wants me to visit him in New Zealand now, its tempting like, but I'm actually getting home sick (don't laugh)

you ever been??? lived in harare for 16 months, on 4th street... right across the road from the cricket ground.

I lived in Mount Pleasant in Harare when i was six, my Dads got a house there. I remember the cricket club, I ate fire flys (which are edible but only the bodies, I ate the whole fucking thing) when I was there, got sick as fuck and hallucinated for a couple of days. I also lived in Chegutu, 100km outside Harare for a year when I was twelve

i was there when i was 17 - 18.... lived by the cricket ground, also lived in borrowdale, and a couple of good mates of mine went to school at prince edward. never ate fire flys like... but have some decent memories of the place... left just before mugabe went completely insane.. used to be a really nice place to live.

Dad wants to retire there, but he reckons it'll never be right in his lifetime. Inflation is 100,000%, and they've recently ran out of ink so they can't print hardly any banknotes anymore, hence why they've recently introduced the million dollar bank note (I remember when the exchange rate was 4 Zimbabwean dollars to the pound). Sugar is so short in supply that street vendors actually sell sugar by the tablespoon full. He went for a holiday couple of years back though, and said it was still amazing if you have American dollars - if you're Zimbabwean and have foreign currency you live like a king cos you get hotels etc at local rates, not tourist rates!

aye.. my dads the same... he always wanted to retire there.. he's a proffesional ex pat.. haha.. and he's always said zim is the most beautiful country he's ever been too, but now he's planning on retireing just across the border in zambia... livingston to be precise.. have been a couple of times, and up to lusaka, and its pretty nice and the kwacha isn't doing so bad.. and its real close to vic falls and kariba.. so hopefully he'll retire soon so i'll have a nice little holiday spot..

and still have a couple of mates out in chinhoi, the zimbabwe doller is a joke like, when i was there it was like 10 zim to 1 us... it was stronger than the rand. hahahaha.

its a shame how badly its fucked up now coz of that lunatic, can't belive that thing about the sugar, i know bread and millie meal and petrol were short... but for a country that used to be one of the largest exporters of sugar cane in the world.... just shows you how bad things are.

Only went to Zambia to see Vic falls from the other side. Few of my Dad's mates have gone up there with their businesses. One of them is making spare parts from scratch for cars (mainly Mercs) and transports them to Zimbabwe. He's making shitloads. A few have gone to farm in Mozambique, rest have come over here or to the UK. All my best mates from school in Zimbabwe (and South Africa for that matter) are either in London, here, or New Zealand. Hope it sorts itself out soon as I'd like to take the lass on holiday there.

aye i've been really wanting to take the wife there, some of my dad's mates run a camp on the zambezi called ciawa (think thats how its spelt) but its awsome like... but really like to take my son too, you know just driving along and the wildlife you see like just at the side of the road.. its gotta be seen to be belived..!! Apart from the few that are left, a lot of the friends i made there done pretty much the same as yours, moved to the UK, south africa, malawi... sounds like your dad's mate has the right idea... all we need to do is open up a bakery and an oil refinery just over the border and we'd be laughin.

infact sod that.. coz by the sounds of it we'd make more money selling sugar.... woo hoo.. legal white powder.