Wednesday, September 24, 2014

Zimbabwe


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.

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