In the highlands of Zimbabwe lies the largest stone structure in Africa. For many years it was virtually unknown to the outside world. It is known simply as “Great Zimbabwe”, which translates as great house of stone. Until just recently, its origin has been highly contested by colonial settles and western scholars. They would argue in a very racially motivated manner, that no “black” peoples could have had the skill or technological knowledge to build something like Great Zimbabwe. It turns out not only are they wrong about the skin color and heritage of the people who built it, but they also would be shocked to learn that this was just as advanced as any of the western technology at the time.

Around 1200, a great civilization grew out of Zimbabwe and spread all the way to the Swahili coast in Eastern Africa. These people would send the gold, ivory and precious stones found in the Zimbabwe highlands throughout the world, and make the Swahili coast (and in particular an island town known as Kilwa Kisiwani) a trade hub connecting China and India and the Middle East.

Colonial Times:

In the early 1800′s, a man by the name of Cecil Rhodes would obtain mining rights to an area that would affectionately become known as Rhodesia. This would in include “Northern Rhodesia” which is present-day Zambia, and “Southern Rhodesia” which was located in the present day country of Zimbabwe.

The British would exploit the land at first for its mineral resources, and then for it’s farming land. White settlers around this time would claim much of the area’s farming land as their own.

Independence:

In 1965, after over 100 years of colonial rule, the nation of Rhodesia was ready for independence. Guerrilla warfare, civil unrest and sanctions issued by the United Nations all played key roles in shaping the outcome of this struggle.

By 1970, independence had been won from Britain, but there were still various factions of militants in the country, and only South Africa had recognized Rhodesia as an independent nation. In 1978, an agremment was reached with three African leaders, lead by a bishop named Abel Muzorewa. The agreement was that the white population would be left alone to their lands in exchange for the establishment of a biracial democracy. The result of the first election in 1979 concluded with the UANC (United African National Council) carrying the majority of seats in the parliament. On June 1, 1979, Muzorewa became the first prime minister and promptly changed the country’s name to Zimbabwe Rhodesia.

Mugabe:

During the elections in 1980, a charasmatic leader from the newly formed ZANU party won the election in a landslide. His name was Robert Mugabe. During his first few years, he would see opposition from the people in Matebeleland. What happened next was nothing less than mass genocide. Over 20,000 of the opposition were killed by Mugabe’s personal 7th brigade army fromt 1985 – 1988. The result of which was that almost all of those who spoke against Mugabe were now dead. This became known as Gukurahundi, or the “Matabeleand Massacres”.

Subsequent elections in 1990 found that only 54% of the people turned out to vote, and that the elections were far from fair. People were scared to voice an opposition opinion, and voting was manipulated by Mugabe and his controlling party.

An uprising by the war veterans after their benefits were cut would see a march on Mugabe and result in a settlement that would see the veterans get their money but ultimately lead to the collapse of the Zimbabwe dollar. In fact, inflation was so high at one point that the central bank was printing 100 Trillion dollar notes (pictured below).

Land Redistribution:

In 2000, Mugabe began to forcibly redistribute the land from the white Zimbabwe to members of his ruling party. Whites were literally kicked off their land by force, sometimes resulting in death or injury to themselves or their workers. The result however, was that many of the workers were left without jobs, adding to the unemployment rate, which stands today around 80% (one of the highest in the world).

To learn more about Zimbabwe’s more recent history, the documentary below from AlJezeera is a fascinating look into the struggle that continues between racial, political and social factions in Zimbabwe.

The Recipe:

Zimbabwe relies very heavily today on foreign aid for food supply. Much of the country’s farm land has been planted with maize, which is made available for public consumption. But that was not always the case, and the dish we will make today is an example of how brilliant the cuisine of Zimbabwe can truly be. Today we are making Dovi, which is basically a peanut butter curry with chicken. Cornmeal and Water (known as Sadza) is a dietary staple of Zimbabwe, but since we had so much extra rice in our house, today we will be making this with rice, which is also acceptable. (The third option is mashed potatoes).

The Ingredients:

Dovi:

• 600-800g Chicken (Boneless)
• 2 Tbsp Olive Oil
• 2 Green Chillies
• 2 Peri Peri (African Birdseye Chillies/Red Chillies)
• 2 Green Peppers (Capsicum)
• 1 Medium Onion
• 3 Tomatoes
• 2 Carrots
• 4 sprigs of thyme
• 300g spinach (1 large bushel – fresh)
• 1 cup boiling water (250ml)
• 1 chicken stock cube
• 3 Garlic Gloves
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 8 tablespoons smooth peanut butter
• t teaspoon cornstarch

For Rice:

• 2 Cups rice (washed)
• 3 1/4 cups water

Method:

The first step is to chop all of the vegetables. Chop the onion and green pepper to place in one bowl. In a 2nd bowl the garlic, chillies and salt, and in a third bowl, the carrots, tomatoes and thyme. At this time also chop the chicken. Wash and shred the spinach as well, although if you want to be as fresh as possible, this can wait until later once the Dovi is simmering.

Next, wash the rice in cold water and then start the rice cooker or pot of rice so that it times perfectly with your dovi. Funny enough, I forgot all about cooking the rice until the Dovi was completely done so don’t make my mistake

Boil 1 cup of water in a kettle (or just use really hot water from the faucet) and dissolve 1 chicken stock cube into it.

Now its time to get cooking….Heat up the oil in a large saucepan. Fry the onion and green pepper for about 5 minutes or until the onion is clear but not brown. Next, add the garlic, chillies and salt and fry for a couple of minutes more.

Add the chicken stock mixture to the pot and then add the chicken, carrots, tomatoes and thyme. If your frypan is not big enough like mine, you can transfer the veggies over to a large pot before/after you add the remaining vegetables, stock and chicken.

Once everything has been added, place a lid on the pot/pan, and simmer on medium heat for about 10 minutes.

After about 8 minutes, it is time to prepare the peanut butter. Measure 8 tablespoons into a bowl. (A trick that my wife told me was to heat up a spoon under hot water which helps the peanut butter come off the spoon better) Scoop about 10 tablespoons of the broth out of the pot into the bowl with the peanut butter and mix until dissolved through.

Now add the shredded spinach and the peanut butter mixture to your pot and stir through. Allow this to cook for about 5 minutes or until the spinach is nice and soft.

At the very end, combine about 1 tablespoon of cold water with the cornstarch to make a paste. Stir this through your mixture to thicken up the sauce. (This is optional)

By this time your rice should be finished (assuming you put it on at the right time unlike me!). Plate out a bed of rice and then top with the Dovi and enjoy!.

Further Reading:

Victoria Falls:

Zimbabwe is home to one of the 7 natural wonders of the world, the largest waterfall in the world….Victoria Falls. It is the Nation’s number one natural landmark and also it’s top tourist attraction.

Zimbabwe Cricket:

If you are interested in sport…Zimbabwe has a fairly decent cricket team as well!

For more information and up-to-date news about the situation in Zimbabwe, there is a great site you can visit called “The Zimbabwe Situation”.

http://www.zimbabwesituation.com/

Credits:

Credit for this recipe can go to a post on a website called Mzansi Style Cuisine.

Now, I’m planning my weekends and the potential visits from friends and family.

The main attractions are household names and need no introduction:

• Zanzibar: unsurprisingly high on the list. I expect I’ll grab the ferry for a last-minute weekend here and there, perhaps for a purely relaxing weekend to reflect and rest, but also to visit its historic centre, better known as Stone Town, and the Spice Islands.
• Ngorongoro Crater: a UNESCO World Heritage Site, this has been specifically recommended to me by a number of people. It is the largest intact caldera in the world and is the focal point of the wider Ngorongoro Conservation Area along the eastern arm of the Rift Valley.
• The Serengeti: spanning 30,000 km², it hosts the largest terrestrial mammal migration in the world, best known by the 1.2 million wildebeest on the move. Unfortunately I’ll miss that as they’ve generally arrived on the Kenyan border by late July/August.

But what about the rest of the country?

• Mount Meru, Tanzania’s second highest mountain (it doesn’t have the same ring, does it?) has caught my attention. A much shorter and cheaper trek, it offers stunning views of Kili and is an achievement in itself.
• Kilwa Kisiwani, another UNESCO World Heritage Site, showcases the superb history of this coastal area as the centre of a vast trading network linking the old Shona kingdoms with Persia, India, China & Zimbabwe.  Significant sections of the ruins have been restored over the years and are easily accessible with Swahili and English language signs.
• Pemba, an island merely 50km north of Zanzibar, apparently has the authenticity that the lower island has lost with the influx of tourism.  It is a ‘backwater’, largely undiscovered area, but it has the beautiful untouched beaches and great diving and snorkelling opportunities, adding to the appeal.

The list can go on and on from there, but hopefully I’ll get to do all of the above and then some – so stay tuned!

Le premier, dégusté à Kilwa Kisiwani, est constitué de chapati et de chai au gingembre & cardamome. Le chapati est un pain plat originaire d’Inde qui connaît de nombreuse variantes dans les pays d’Afrique de l’Est tels que la Tanzanie mais aussi le Kenya et l’Ouganda.

Comme en Inde, le Chai est un thé noir parfumé aux épices.

Here are two traditional Tanzanian breakfasts.

The first one, eaten at Kilwa Kisiwani, is made of chapati and chai with ginger & cardamom. Chapati is a flat bread from India which is also prepared in other countries including in the East of Africa : in Tanzania but also in Kenya and Uganda.

Like in India, the chai is made of black tea and flavored with spices.

© Mélanie

Le second petit-déjeuner est plus frugal, il a permis de faire passer les 4 heures de retard du vol de sa consommatrice, à Mtwara, 10° Sud.

Il s’agit d’uji, un porridge épais sucré a base de farine de haricot et de millet, dégusté en compagnie de Steeve, un britannique kiswahiliphone.

De même que le Chapati, l’uji connaît de nombreuses variantes à travers l’Afrique de l’Est : la farine le composant peut être de maïs ou de sorgho.

The second breakfast is more frugal, it allowed its consumer to wait for 4 hours because the plane was late, at Mtwara, 10° South.

It is uji, a thick and sweet porridge made of bean and millet flours. It was eaten in the company of Steave, a Kiswahili speaker British guy.

Like chapati, uji has a lot of variants across Eastern Africa : it can be made also from corn and sorghum flours.

© Mélanie

© Mélanie

In my daily virtual-aerial tour over the globe, I got to the one of the oldest cities in its eastern side of Tanzania, i.e. Kilwa Kisiwani. These photos are not exactly from the island as you can imagine the reason, I moved a bit toward west (near coastal city of Kilwa Masoko) in the search for more graphically attractive location. These shapes are interesting examples fractals in nature.
View Larger Map

These are images taken mostly by Dr. Heinz Ruther of the University of Cape Town’s Department of Geomatics currently available here. If you prefer the Flickr slideshow, click here. These images document cultural heritage sites throughout Africa, including Lalibela in Ethiopia, Kilwa Kisiwani in Tanzania, Great Zimbabwe in (not surprisingly) Zimbabwe, Elmina Castle in Ghana, and Timbuktu and Djenne in Mali. Beautiful images and places  that I surely hope to visit at some point in my life. All have rich histories. For more background information on each site, just click on the links above.

My personal favorite is Lalibela, a series of churches carved downwards into the stone so the roofs of the churches are barely visible on the horizon (or not at all visible). What is less known about Ethiopia is its importance for religious settlements and older sects of established religions. For example, there is a traditional Ethiopian Jewish sect known as Beta Israel, many of which have emigrated to Israel in recent years. Also, the rather significant Ethiopian Orthodox Church is a vibrant entity of 40 million (and one of the few pre-colonial Christian churches in Africa).

It is with this Christian aspect that the churches of Lalibela come into play. From David Phillipson’s introductory essay on the significance of Lalibela, I take the following text:

The small town of Lalibela, high in the mountains of northern Ethiopia, is one of the most important pilgrimage places of the Ethiopian Orthodox Church. It boasts no fewer than 11 of the exceptional rock-hewn churches that are the most remarkable monuments to have survived from medieval Ethiopia. The place takes its present name from the pious King Lalibela, who reigned around A.D. 1200, and to whom creation of all the churches is traditionally attributed. Recent research, however, suggests that the churches were created over a much longer period, and that they demonstrate strong continuity between the civilisations of ancient Aksum and medieval Ethiopia.

There are numerous rock-hewn churches in Ethiopia, notably in the northern highlands, and the tradition has continued into recent times. The Lalibela examples are exceptional, both because of the sophistication of their design and craftsmanship, and because the proximity of several examples permits the establishment of a sequence. They are carved inside and out from soft volcanic rock and their architecture is extremely diverse: some stand as isolated blocks in deep pits, while others have been cut into the face of a cliff.

The huge task represented by the cutting of these churches and their associated trenches, passages, and tunnels during the reign of a single king is explained by the church as the work of angels who worked so fast that all the churches are said to have been completed within King Lalibela’s quarter-century rule. New research offers a different explanation and it can now be argued that the oldest of the rock-hewn features at Lalibela may date to the seventh or eighth centuries—about 500 years earlier than the traditional dating. These first monuments were not originally churches, although they were subsequently extended in a different architectural style and converted to ecclesiastical use. Later, perhaps around the 10th or 11th century, the finest and most sophisticated churches were added, carved as three- or five-aisle basilicas and retaining many architectural features that may be traced back to ancient Aksum, which had flourished some 400–800 years previously.

The last phase of Lalibela’s development that may be dated to the reign of the king whose name the place now bears. The church complex was extended and elaborated during King Lalibela’s quarter-century rule. Several of the features attributed to this last phase bear names such as the Tomb of Adam or the Church of Golgotha, which mirror those of places visited by pilgrims to Jerusalem and its environs. This naming has extended to natural features: the seasonal river that flows though the site is known as Yordanos (Jordan) and a nearby hill is called Debra Zeit (Mount of Olives). It seems that it was King Lalibela who gave the place its present complexity and form in an effort to make it a substitute for Jerusalem as a place of pilgrimage. It may be significant that, early in King Lalibela’s reign, the Muslim Salah-ad-Din (Saladin) had captured Jerusalem, and for this reason Ethiopians may have felt disinclined to make the traditional pilgrimage to the Palestinian Holy Land.

Today, a cloth-draped feature in the Church of Golgotha is pointed out as the Tomb of King Lalibela. It is not known whether this attribution is original or whether pilgrimage to this tomb was a later development. Be that as it may, Lalibela remains to this day a major Ethiopian pilgrimage centre, and an increasingly popular tourist destination.

If you love history, how much better does it get than that? Pilgrimages, rock-hewn churches, Saladin, the Holy Land, and King Lalibela. It makes for a great story and even greater history. And lets not forget that as any Ethiopian Orthodox Christian will tell you, the Ark of the Covenant is contained in the church below in Ethiopia. Click on the image to go to the Wikipedia article.

The Chapel of the Tablet at the Church of Our Lady Mary of Zion in Axum allegedly houses the original Ark of the Covenant.

These are images taken mostly by Dr. Heinz Ruther of the University of Cape Town’s Department of Geomatics currently available here. If you prefer the Flickr slideshow, click here. These images document cultural heritage sites throughout Africa, including Lalibela in Ethiopia, Kilwa Kisiwani in Tanzania, Great Zimbabwe in (not surprisingly) Zimbabwe, Elmina Castle in Ghana, and Timbuktu and Djenne in Mali. Beautiful images and places  that I surely hope to visit at some point in my life. All have rich histories. For more background information on each site, just click on the links above.

My personal favorite is Lalibela, a series of churches carved downwards into the stone so the roofs of the churches are barely visible on the horizon (or not at all visible). What is less known about Ethiopia is its importance for religious settlements and older sects of established religions. For example, there is a traditional Ethiopian Jewish sect known as Beta Israel, many of which have emigrated to Israel in recent years. Also, the rather significant Ethiopian Orthodox Church is a vibrant entity of 40 million (and one of the few pre-colonial Christian churches in Africa).

It is with this Christian aspect that the churches of Lalibela come into play. From David Phillipson’s introductory essay on the significance of Lalibela, I take the following text:

The small town of Lalibela, high in the mountains of northern Ethiopia, is one of the most important pilgrimage places of the Ethiopian Orthodox Church. It boasts no fewer than 11 of the exceptional rock-hewn churches that are the most remarkable monuments to have survived from medieval Ethiopia. The place takes its present name from the pious King Lalibela, who reigned around A.D. 1200, and to whom creation of all the churches is traditionally attributed. Recent research, however, suggests that the churches were created over a much longer period, and that they demonstrate strong continuity between the civilisations of ancient Aksum and medieval Ethiopia.

There are numerous rock-hewn churches in Ethiopia, notably in the northern highlands, and the tradition has continued into recent times. The Lalibela examples are exceptional, both because of the sophistication of their design and craftsmanship, and because the proximity of several examples permits the establishment of a sequence. They are carved inside and out from soft volcanic rock and their architecture is extremely diverse: some stand as isolated blocks in deep pits, while others have been cut into the face of a cliff.

The huge task represented by the cutting of these churches and their associated trenches, passages, and tunnels during the reign of a single king is explained by the church as the work of angels who worked so fast that all the churches are said to have been completed within King Lalibela’s quarter-century rule. New research offers a different explanation and it can now be argued that the oldest of the rock-hewn features at Lalibela may date to the seventh or eighth centuries—about 500 years earlier than the traditional dating. These first monuments were not originally churches, although they were subsequently extended in a different architectural style and converted to ecclesiastical use. Later, perhaps around the 10th or 11th century, the finest and most sophisticated churches were added, carved as three- or five-aisle basilicas and retaining many architectural features that may be traced back to ancient Aksum, which had flourished some 400–800 years previously.

The last phase of Lalibela’s development that may be dated to the reign of the king whose name the place now bears. The church complex was extended and elaborated during King Lalibela’s quarter-century rule. Several of the features attributed to this last phase bear names such as the Tomb of Adam or the Church of Golgotha, which mirror those of places visited by pilgrims to Jerusalem and its environs. This naming has extended to natural features: the seasonal river that flows though the site is known as Yordanos (Jordan) and a nearby hill is called Debra Zeit (Mount of Olives). It seems that it was King Lalibela who gave the place its present complexity and form in an effort to make it a substitute for Jerusalem as a place of pilgrimage. It may be significant that, early in King Lalibela’s reign, the Muslim Salah-ad-Din (Saladin) had captured Jerusalem, and for this reason Ethiopians may have felt disinclined to make the traditional pilgrimage to the Palestinian Holy Land.

Today, a cloth-draped feature in the Church of Golgotha is pointed out as the Tomb of King Lalibela. It is not known whether this attribution is original or whether pilgrimage to this tomb was a later development. Be that as it may, Lalibela remains to this day a major Ethiopian pilgrimage centre, and an increasingly popular tourist destination.

If you love history, how much better does it get than that? Pilgrimages, rock-hewn churches, Saladin, the Holy Land, and King Lalibela. It makes for a great story and even greater history. And lets not forget that as any Ethiopian Orthodox Christian will tell you, the Ark of the Covenant is contained in the church below in Ethiopia. Click on the image to go to the Wikipedia article.

The Chapel of the Tablet at the Church of Our Lady Mary of Zion in Axum allegedly houses the original Ark of the Covenant.