Adventures of a Wandering Thirtysomething

Any time we travel, we try to spend a little time immersing ourselves in the culture and day-to-day lives of the people of the country we're visiting. Sometimes it's something as small as dining in a neighborhood cafe or ducking into a local bookstore, but it's an opportunity to get a glimpse into reality instead of the fantasy that vacation often paints us into.

For our final day in Hwange, we decide to take a break from animal watching and get a taste of local life in Zimbabwe with a personal tour of the towns of Dete and Manbanje where African Bush Camps has several charitable projects to create jobs and improve the lives of some of the poorest, most disadvantaged people in the country.

As we drove down the dirt roads, we were immediately struck by the rough conditions. Remote clay huts were sprinkled along the road with the only water for drinking, cooking or bathing located in the nearly bone-dry river more than a half mile from town. Even the main road itself was built by the Foundation just a year or so ago, meaning access into the remote area was nearly impossible prior to the road.

We stopped first at the school where we got to meet the teachers and tour the classrooms and the vegetable garden, then watched the locals demonstrate the new brick-making project that is creating jobs and helping to build dorms for the school teachers and will eventually be used to supply bricks to the camps and neighboring towns. Even the town elder, who must give his blessing to anyone coming into town, greeted us with smiles and warm welcomes.


Next, it was on to Dete where we got to check out the bead-making and sewing projects, and meet the women who make the beautiful wares. These gracious women, who have endured the incredible hardship of losing their husbands and contracting HIV - both of which make earning a living very difficult - greeted us with big hugs, smiles and laughter like we were old friends. Then we took a peek into the local clinic, which was a major eye opener with its hot water pot to disinfect the instruments and rustic birthing room where things like epidurals are definitely not happening.

Our final event of the day was to watch the school children compete in their once-per-year sports competitions with 10 of the other area schools. For the first time in my life, my skin color created a spectacle. The hundreds of adults and children nearly simultaneously stopped to stare at us, with the youngest children shyly walking right up to us and staring without saying a word. But we did our best to try to just blend in and cheer for the kids from Manbanje.

As we wrapped up our day, we headed back to Hwange and our luxe digs at Somalisa Camp - a stark contrast compared to some of the sights we had seen that day - to soak in the last bits of sunshine and reflect on our experience.

From our first day arriving at Somalisa Camp and Hwange to our final day of interacting with the locals in the village, this particular stop on the trip was completely magical. It was like the stars aligned just for us. We had the best guide for our style of animal spotting and we were paired with the best group for our game drives, with every single person just as motivated and adventurous as us to go on extra-long drives and endure being a uncomfortable so we could get the best wildlife experiences. By pure luck, every animal we dreamed of seeing we actually got to see. Our guides, our camp hosts, our tent (best view in the camp, I might add) - every detail was utter perfection. And as we departed, I started to cry with joy and gratitude for the incredible experience and with sadness that this particular moment in time was over. I will never forget this place.