Well, here we are, I’m waking up on my first day here in Zimbabwe. So much has happened since I last sat and wrote in the airport as we prepared to leave Chicago. We had a rather quick flight to London (6 hours or so) and arrived into London at about 10 am on the morning of the 9th. As we left the airport in Chicago Rose sent a text message to our friend Mike Potts (the guy who photographed our wedding) letting him know which terminal we were arriving at in Heathrow. So, we buckled down for the flight on Air India.

I’m not quite sure that taking Air India was worth the $100 we saved by using it. The plane looks like it hadn’t been modified since about 1970. I’ll let Rose get into some of the other details of the story, but let’s just say it was interesting.

So we arrived in London, sat on the tarmac for a while before eventually “docking” and getting off the plane. As we were working our way through immigration we encountered a woman that had a friend who was Zimbabwean and had told her abour the Roora process. So as she was processing our paperwork she was asking about what it was going to be like and such. Small world I guess.

So, we met up with Mike Potts and left the airport. I should probably mention at this point that we had somewhere in the neighborhood of 400 lbs of luggage with us. Our of our bags were 70 lbs each, plus we had a carry on suitcase each, as well as my laptop/electronics bag and Rose’s bag, as well as a folding chair that her Dad had asked for as part of the Roora price. Thank God Mike came to meet us, because we would have had a serious time trying to get across London with our 6 suitcases and additional things.

So we hop on the tube to leave Heathrow. Mike stayed near the Angel stop on the Northern Line, so we headed that direction. Before we could get too far, and announcement came over the load speaker letting us know that the train was going to stop at the next stop and everyone had to depart there. I assume that these changes we due to the bombings that had only happened two days before, and that the transit authority was trying to mix things up by making it impossible to forecast the route of the train. So, we lug all the bags off the train and try to navigate to another train to continue on our journey. Turns out our early terminating train wasn’t unique, so we ended up doing the same thing two or three times until we finally got close enough to Mike’s stop that we just headed above ground and caught a cab for the rest of the way.

So it was a great pleasure staying with Mike. We finally got to meet his girlfriend Stephanie, who we had heard so much about. They were most gracious hosts, and helped us get settled in a bit and rest up on the first day in. We slept there the first night, and got up Saturday to spend some time running around London. I had heard that there was a sound system called Solution Sound playing at a festival in Findsbury Park, so Rose, Mike and I headed over there to check it out. Once again in the complications of London travel, we had to catch two different buses to find our way, which I don’t think we could have done without Mike’s mastery of the London transportation jigsaw.

I’ll let Rose cover some of the other details of the journey in London, and move on to Zimbabwe.

So, we got a ride from Tendai and Stan to the Heathrow airport. They hung out with us while we got checked in, and we parted ways. We grabbed a bit to eat in the terminal (BLT sandwiches in the airport cost about six dollars each) before heading to the plane. Once on the plane, we discovered how much nicer British Airways is, despite the fact that their luggage allowance is trivial. The flight to Zimbabwe was smooth. We ended up watching movies most of the time, and I got about 2 hours of sleep along the way.

So we arrived in Harare about 6 am on the morning of the 13th. Soon after we arrived in the airport, we found the emigration line. After we had gone through it, we discovered that I had to go to a different line to get my Visa, while Rose was able to go on to the baggage area. I went over to the Visa line and waited a good half hour for them to process the 10 or so people in front of me. Eventually I paid the $30 visa fee and entered a second line to actually get into the country. From there, I joined Rose in the baggage area and saw the Mushukus all waiting in the lounge above for our arrival.

After we gathered our luggage, we waited in line for customs. Since we only had things like a laptop and camera to declare, we wondered if we should really wait so long to get through. I stepped over and asked a guy who was working there if we should really go that direction since we only had a few personal electronic items to declare. He responded we should. Rose then went over to another guy and talked to him. After a bit of haggling (in Shona of course) she got the answer we were looking for. So, we finally were able to go out to meet the Mushukus. It was so nice to see Rose and her family so happy to see each other. I also finally got to meet the whole crew, her Father Patrick Mushuku (here after referred to as VaMushuku aka Mr. Mushuku) her Mother Lydia Mushuku, here after referred to as MaiRose (the mother of Rose), MaiSha (Lydia’s sister) Rose’s younger sister Tariro, and her next youngest sister Rutendo. We grabbed the bags and headed for the Mushuku’s home…

I’ll leave it there for now…