Zimbabwe is another place of interest to me. I went to
school with a boy in kindergarten and after kindergarten his family moved to
Zimbabwe. They originally moved to do missionary work. They grew up in the city
of Mutare. Every few years
they would come back for a few months to visit family and their boys would
attend school with us during the time they visited. They did this up until I was in high school.
It has been many years since I have seen him, but I can
recall a few things from stories I had with him.
One thing that I remember was his mom coming to our school
and bringing us a treat….of fried termites. We were told that the kids there
really like them as a snack! She brought them for us to try… though I am not
sure many of us actually did.
Another memory I have is that after what we consider
elementary he went off to an all-boys boarding school (which was actually
considered college there not high school). He used to tease us because what we
were learning it math he had learned years before. His math skills were always
way more advanced than ours. (I see through Facebook, as we are still common
friends on there that he went to Harvard and became a software engineer, so
maybe it was just him that was advanced… J)
Mutare is the third largest city in Zimbabwe, with an urban
population of around 188,243 and rural population of around 260,567.
I found some facts about Zimbabwe on the CIA
website.
Population: 13,771,721
Eethnic groups: African
98% (Shona 82%, Ndebele 14%, other 2%), mixed and Asian 1%, white less than 1%
Religions: syncretic (part Christian, part indigenous
beliefs) 50%, Christian 25%, indigenous beliefs 24%, Muslim and other 1%
Languages: English (official), Shona, Sindebele (the
language of the Ndebele, sometimes called Ndebele), numerous but minor tribal
dialects.
Literacy: definition:
age 15 and over can read and write English
total population: 83.6%
Victoria Falls on the Zambezi River.
Zimbabwe flag
Photos of the city of Mutare.
