Highlights for February

The Moon Over Harare

David took this by attaching the camera to his telescope

The 1st Annual HIS Golf Tournament - The Grand Experiment

About 6 weeks ago, Tendayi, the PTO chair, and I awoke from our dream of the Christmas holiday, and realized we were going to have to do something about the annual "Dinner/Dance" that was scheduled for February 25. Neither of us wanted a repeat of last year. I suggested a golf tournament - I had visions of Caddy Shack ironic prep, G&Ts on the veranda overlooking the green, and happy people. Tendayi was game. She actually knew what we were getting into.

Tendayi, the Brains

Golf tournaments are an institution in Harare. It works something like this: private corporations pay hundreds or thousands of dollars to sponsor a hole. That means they can put up a banner. They usually pay another couple hundred bucks to sponsor a team. Others will sponsor gin tents, lunch, dinner or entertainment. There are "longest drive" and "closest to the pin" awards on multiple holes, and there are different types of competitions. We did a Betterball Stableford. I won't go into all the details. Suffice it to say, I didn't understand the majority of what was talked about in the first few coordination meetings with the Club House. And I was supposed to be the coordinator for the tournament. I should also mention that I've never played golf.

Samsung Sponsor

The first week or so I fought the desire to abandon ship. The treasurer of the PTO (we'll call her Frieda) was made over-all chairperson of the event. Tendayi assured me that I should just treat it as an experiment - it was a first for HIS. We'll just try it out, see how it goes. No pressure. So what if it was 4 times the number of people who came to my wedding, and we had 5 weeks to pull it together. My job was to find golfers. My husband golfs. How hard can it be to find 25 teams of 4?

Picobello and the NGOs - Team A

Picobello and the NGOs - Team B

Frieda ended up not really taking on the role of coordinator for the event. She had to go out of town most of the last two weeks. But Tendayi stepped up to the plate: the food, the drinks, the prizes, the complimentary gift for participating, the rented chairs and tables and linens, the identification of sponsors, the various contracts and agreements - she even found half the teams since they were linked to the sponsoring businesses.

Team Banc ABC

Reception: Get Your HIS Hats Here

Yesterday was the big day. It rained. So my greatest fear was realized. I'd gotten a hundred men and women to sign up to play golf in the rainy season, and it rained! Most people got in 9 holes. It did start off well - people rushing in, excited to get on the green with their team. Parent volunteers and club staff materialized to basically run things. I didn't forget to pick up Miles from school in the middle of it all. And when everyone was suddenly finished with their golf at 3:30 instead of 5:30, we tried to move up the prize giving ceremony. Most people stayed, and non-golfing parents did come for the dinner and party. There was enough food, and it was good. The trumpet player in the band was great. People danced. And then it was over!

Back to Work - the Hectic Life

So I got my first paid job in Zimbabwe - well, first formal contractual work anyway. A 7-day assignment to write a proposal for CARE. I submitted a first draft today, and the work will be all over by the end of this week.

Getting back to work has been on my mind since I stopped working for SC, November 2009. I had decided that I wouldn't start working until after the summer trip home in 2010 - let the family get settled in Zim, find a house, help the kids transition, etc.

Then I got involved in the Parent Teacher Organization which is really just me and this other lady and an enormous agenda. I told myself: this volunteer work was my chance to put into practice what I'd been preaching all those years as a community organizer and aid worker devoted to improving education through increased parental involvement, blah, blah.

Still, I know about myself that I am most content when I am employed. I get a lot of satisfaction from work - the productivity of it, the my-world aspect, the legitimacy, the title-identity, the cash that I earn, the daily creative process, the high heeled outfits, the connection to the "real" world, the travel, the relationships with colleagues, the intellectual growth, the focused attention on projects, the perks...

But I really don't like taking work home or working long hours. So, a certain kind of part-time work - that is just challenging enough to keep me interested but not so challenging that it requires 100% of my attention - is ideal.

That's why writing proposals is not ideal. There are so many reasons why I should write proposals, one of which is that I could always find work. But it is exactly that 110%, keep working in the evening type of work that becomes more pain than pleasure.

Not that I'm complaining! If anything, this crazy, hectic week has convinced me that I really should make more of an effort to find a job. A regular, part-time job. That's extremely flexible. And allows a 2-month holiday in the summer.

Then there's the First Annual Harare International School Golf Tournament, Friday, 25 Feb. Buy your tickets now! Secure your tee-off times!


25 teams of 4. Rolling tee-off times starting at 11:30 a.m. 20+ sponsors - one for every hole, plus gifts and prizes. There's lunch on the green and "gin tents" and an award ceremony and a dinner and a band and dancing.


As usual, I had no idea what I was getting myself into when I suggested we do this. Me and Tendayi, the PTO. (Granted, the chair of the event is really Binta. But she had to go out of town. Twice. Last week and this week.) Luckily Tendayi is one of those extremely productive, well-connected people who makes things happen.


But it's all a grand experiment really. Have a bunch of people invest a lot of money in something and just hope you can pull it off to their satisfaction. It's for a good cause.

Slideshow of January Photos

Some of these you've already seen, but here's the best of January.

My New Nikon D90

Kariba

Newlyweds, Veena & Ken

Ken & Veena, friends of ours here, have moved on to work in South Sudan. To mark an end of that era, in November Olga planned a weekend in Kariba, a lake town about a 5-hour drive north of Harare. I wanted to go, but bringing the kids would have changed the dynamic. No one else from this group of friends has kids. So David, in a gesture of unselfishness that his wife won't soon forget, offered to stay home with the kids and let me go.

It was the first time I've traveled alone (child/husband-free) for fun (as opposed to for work) for eight years or so. The memories of my pre-family, traveling days came rushing back. Granted, my husband is "the boss" of more than half the group that went, and the other half are his golf buddies, so it wasn't exactly far removed from my real life. But there was so much time for myself, so little thinking-for-others. I was free to read, write, do-whatever-the-hell-I-wanted. I found it to be extremely therapeutic. Just two days, mothers and fathers out there, two days: I highly recommend it.

Biggest catch

The best part of Kariba is the fishing. Until that weekend, I had never caught a fish in my life, but tiger fishing is totally addictive. I caught one, a 2.5 pounder, and that was after hours of standing in the pouring rain.

Now, normally, standing in a downpour to fish is not something I would have ever imagined enjoying, but once you've lost a big one that twisted and flipped through the air on your line, fighting for its life as you used all your strength to reel it in, you just can't stop casting again in the hope that you'll get it or it's larger cousin next time. With this type of fishing, you cast out far, then quickly reel it in, so it's also satisfying to be active, casting over and over to get it just right, hearing the line unwind, sailing through the air, then plop in the water.

The hippo and crocodile population on the lake has exploded in recent years due to hunting restrictions and the croc farmers releasing a certain percentage into the lake. These also are some of the most dangerous animals in the country. At one point we had to pass through a narrow set of sand bars that probably had 20 hippos, mostly submerged except for their eyes, ears and backs, just 50 feet away. The crocodiles with gorgeous yellow and black patterns on their tails seem almost harmless on the banks until they pop up on their fat legs and slither speedily towards us, disappearing under the water by our boat. Needless to say, there is no swimming in Lake Kariba, but all the wildlife certainly adds to the overall excitement of a simple fishing trip.

Yes, those are hippos.

...for more from that trip: