The fifth week of our journey.

On an overloaded with people, goats and cabbages
open-truck we finally reach the outskirts of Zimbabwe.

A cast away, dusty and poor far north of this country.
Ever since the land of the Batonka tribe.

We are staying in a village, in those round huts made of mud and grass.
All around a cracked and dry red soil. Thorny accacy bushes and
majestic baobab trees. In this region there is a drought since
a few long years. A real bad one.

One can hardly see any vegetation in the fields.
The rainy season comes in November.

- This is African life. Very hard. – everyone here is saying.

Even our brightly smiling host Vincent,
and his wife Susan.
In their words one can trace no anger or sorrow.

Just an african way of finding peace of what is inside, outside,
and what lies ahead in the future.

Only the eyes of the witchdoctor are different.
Deeply filled with grief and sadness.
Perhaps he only could see, predict the horror
of the coming rains.

The rains in 2008 too rapid, too heavy will wash away
all the hard planted seeds.

- Big hunger will come. - he said shaking his old, head.

I realised he was right in his predictions a few months later.
The seeds were washed away by the stormy rains.
Changing them into ponds full of water and mud.

- This is Africa. – the Batonka will probably say when I visit them the next time.

- It is a hard life. But we are alive. -
and again the smile and all the calm of this place
and a blind faith in the better day which might
probably come one beautiful day.

Just waiting out there beyond the African horizon.

Photos: AGNIESZKA TERMANOWSKA

The hut of Joshua, a local VIP - soccer star and the son of the chief of the village.

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