This is Gilbert Katsande. Luke met him our first Sunday there at the soccer game. They became friends and Gilbert invited our family out the following Friday evening to his village for dinner. It was one of the highlights of our trip!
Because no one really wears watches over there....and there's really no time schedule to conform to....the people of Zimbabwe didn't really have an accurate concept of time. Gilbert told us it would take about 5 minutes to walk to his village....here we are on the 40 minute walk there!
Passers-by on the road...
Trekking cross country...
It was a beautiful walk though.
Passing cotton fields...
Baobab tree in the distance.
As we arrived at his village, the sun was starting to set.
We had a tour of the "homestead"....this is the cattle pen.
This is Gilbert's house that he shares with his wife and one-year old son, Stephen. He told us that they made the bricks from the mud down at the river.
This is the bathroom. Check out the sunset in the background!
So you walk in, turn the corner for privacy, move this rectangular piece of concrete out of the way, and squat over the hole in the floor.
Their corn storage.
This is the kitchen hut. Pretty cool, huh? I loved how the shelves and benches were made into the walls.
Here is the "stove". A fire in the middle that they cook over. That's our dinner cooking.
The women all sat on mats on the ground....and the men and boys all sat on chairs. We ate around a campfire, under the beautiful stars. It was magnificent! They served us their traditional sadza and green vegetables with peanut oil. We had roasted peanuts for an appetizer and boiled sweet potatoes and pumpkin for dessert. It was quite tasty! We had a wonderful evening celebrating Gilbert's son, Stephen's, first birthday. They had a hand-written program for us complete with introductions, speeches, and prayers. It was a memorable event!
The next morning, Gilbert walked back to Karanda at 10am to "collect us" again for a hike. He said he wanted us to see some of the beautiful countryside before we had to leave on Monday. We hiked for about 3 hours...it was great!
This is at one of the tallest points in the area. Gilbert said if their cattle ever get out, they just hike up to this point and look out until they spot them.
This was a "church" that we came across on our hike. It was really just a bunch of trees leaned together....but it had a roof and benches to sit on. Gilbert said the people from the surrounding villages congregate here to worship. Puts a whole different spin on our million dollar mega-churches, doesn't it?
Our hiking crew.
...so Gilbert showed him how.
Logan and Landon at the top.
We made it back to Karanda! It was a glorious day...
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