17th October – Zimbabwe & MALARIA

We crossed the border a Mutare, the only problem is that the officials were adamant that they needed the exact address of where were going to stay. This with the help of some local self employed “Agents” and a few dollars was sorted out within about 15 minutes. They even forgot to charge us for carbon tax, even though we asked a couple of times if that was all we had to do, they were more interested in making sure that each department we went to had stamped our gate pass. Just saved $25. Then we went and met Mike and Elsie Jahme who had put us up in Kariba for a few nights when the trailer shock mountings were being replaced. They are absolutely fantastic people who reminded us of the early Rhodesians’. They met us in town where we dropped our Prado and trailer off at Elsie’s moms house and they took us for a braai at their friends place. Was awesome meeting so many wholesome souls. It made us really miss our family. We followed them for about 20K’s to their Tea/Avocado plantations where they showed us around before we wnet inside to our bedroom.

It was then that I got ill. Had to keep running to the loo and got very, very cold. I said I probably felt bad because the fish sandwich that I had for lunch was off. Anyway I went to soak in a very hot bath for about a hour then went to bed. I had a bad night with a sweating fever and vomiting my heart out. The next morning they told me what I didn’t want to know, - that I had Malaria. The made me take Coartem – which we had in our Medical kit, and made me stay in bed for a few days as I slowly recovered. They could not have done more for me. That, on top of the constant threat that they would be evicted from their farm any day and were constantly fighting their case in courts. They were classified as criminals as they were illegally occupying their own farm. Sounds insane. But the truth is that privately owned white farmers were still being evicted on a daily bases. They were now the only white farmers left in their area. This was terrifying for even us, whilst we were there and could feel the tension surrounding them. These are “salt of the earth people” and should not have to live like this. We plan to leave on Friday morning towards Beit Bridge. We still do not know how to thank Mike and Elsie as I can imagine what could have happened to me if we had been in a campsite whilst I contacted Malaria, with no doctor or hospital for more than a 100 k’s.

In the pics you'll see the one view looking from my bedroom window over one of their dam's. Also see the pic of Mikes new BMW 1200 Bike - yes he's also a "Biker"