Harare Interlude 1: Treetops

So last week, I made a decision, and booked a flight back to Zim. It was time - and I'm celebrating by launching a set of blog posts that I'm affectionately entitling "The Harare Interludes".

You see - I realise that it's quite a personal thing - but one of the most awesome things about Joburg is the immediate proximity of home (or, more accurately, my home home). A couple of clicks on the internet, a short car ride to the Rosebank Gautrain station, and I'm approximately two cappuccinos and an in-flight bar service away from Harare. 

It really is awesome.

So let me go on a bit about my birthplace. I love being back - but I really love being back in January. The rainy season has lasted long enough to turn everything a startling shade of lime green. The road curbs are now luxuriantly over-abundant with wide-leafed weeds. And the 4 o'clock storms wash the skies a vibrant cornflower. And, oh my, the smell. 

When I go running, there is msasa woodsmoke and rain-soaked loam overlaying the warmth of freshly-cut grass, steaming damply in the mid-afternoon sunlight. And as you move, the air is gently peppered with the scent of flowers blooming in the sprawling colonial gardens just on the other side of hedges and brick.

I really can go on about it. A lot.

But to get back to my story: I got back, I called my friend Zerene, she called our friend Julia, and all three of us went to the Mekka cocktail lounge for drinks.

Enough said.

Then the next day, we went to Treetops in the afternoon for waffles. The parking looks a lot like this:

Parking

Having parked, I spent some time taking a lot of photographs that looked like the one above. I then found the two girls, and ordered a waffle, extra crispy. My mother has since told me that the chef there is French. But let me tell you three things:

1. Zimbabweans, contrary to popular Italian belief, actually make the best ice-cream;
2. That waffle may have been the crowning waffle moment of my life; and
3. That waffle was definitely a crowing moment for Zerene; who claimed full credit for the waffle, the setting, and the cloud formations that followed.

The waffle

Having had the waffle, spent some time gazing into the trees, and listened to Zed and Jules talk about Zerene's new manfriend (I was playing on my phone, taking more photographs) - we decided to walk down through the putt-putt course to the river area.

I found a trampoline and bounded onto it.

Instant. Crippling. Headache. 

"Age, it seems, has finally caught up with me". And just like that, the Frodo dream ended and I was being referred to as Bilbo. 

The trampoline

As we walked back to the car, I snapped my new most favourite photograph:

And that, dear readers, should tell you why every Zimbabwean wants to come back.

Home. 

It's like a childhood dream of white-barked trees and putt-putt courses and waffles and trampolines.