Yes, can you believe it a Holiday Inn in Bulawayo. Still nicely maintained in spite of the economic turmoil that the country is in. Hopefully, the last election will throw out a very bad (dictator) leader and let the country return to the "Bread Basket of Africa" that it once was. I don't want to get into the politics involved but needless to say the country is desperate straits. As I drove from the airport to town, I passed two other cars. Nobody can drive because there is no petrol to buy even if they could afford it. There is no taxi/mini bus transportation because they can't get the petrol either. There is nothing in the stores to buy if you had the money to buy it. A third of the population has left the country to try and find work so that they can send money home to their families. The life expectancy has dropped from 60 to 35 years of age. But it's not Mugabe's (the dictator) fault. He blames the country's woes on the Americans and the British.
This is a chain of family restaurants out of South Africa, kind of like the Sizzler back home in the U.S. The first day I had lunch and ordered a hamburger, decent by African standards, but I paid a $142,000,000 for it. That's right! I didn't make a mistake with the 0's. It was one hundred and 42 million Zim dollars - which was equivalent to about US$5.00 The second day I ordered a hamburger again but I couldn't get it (at any price) because they had no buns!!
The country is beautiful as is attested to by this picture.
And as you can see from this picture of the main street in downtown Bulawayo, there are hardly any cars.
No comments:
Post a Comment