240 hours in Zimbabwe || Christmas in Africa - [Part 1]

On  the afternoon of the 19th of December 2013 I flew from Amsterdam to Zimbabwe for an amazing 10 days visiting my family, friends and country. There was so much I wanted to do and had to do in only 240 hours. It was intense. It was amazing and I absolutely loved it!

I arrived on Friday the 20th at around 2pm. The flight was long because I had two lay-overs in Cairo, Egypt and in Johannesburg, South Africa.When I arrived, it was so wonderfully warm! I felt so lucky to have some extra days of summer in DECEMBER! That weekend I spent it mostly with my family and catching up with friends from highschool and friends from church.

During the Christmas week, my family and I were going to be travelling a lot to see new places and visit our  extended family all over Zimbabwe. So on Christmas Eve's eve we did the present opening. Santa came early ;) !

Our first trip was to the villages in Masvingo. We were going to have a huge family reunion with the relatives from my mum's side and see  my amazing Mbuya (Thats 'Grandma' in Shona. Shona is one of the three official languages spoken in Zimbabwe.)

That morning we woke up early. Packed our things and we were off!

My sister was ready to go!

On our way to Masvingo we drove through smaller towns and cities.

After 6 hours of driving and a couple of stops along the way, we finally arrived at my Grandma's place in the villages! The rest of the family was already there. There was so much hugging, laughing and joy!We all stayed up so late into the night talking, laughing and eating. It was great.

We all went to sleep late, but the next morning was Christmas so everyone still got up early.

 To finish off Christmas day, we decided to got to the river with my sister and cousins. On our way there, we stopped by my grandma's shop. Her shop is the local village grocery store.

There was this gorgeous model just hanging out in the store ;) . (haha the "model" is my sister).

Right opposite the store there is the local pub. About 200 meters away was a church. In most villages or small towns there is always a grocery store, a pub and a church. It's funny to see that.

After our short visit to the store, we continued on our way to the riverside.

We stayed until sunset and took loads of pictures with my cousins and sister. It was so fun! As you can see a lot of my pictures ended in mid laughter or accidental snaps. haha!

That evening we had a huge Christmas dinner and early the next morning we were said our goodbyes and traveled back to Harare (the capital city of Zimbabwe).

We arrived late afternoon and all we wanted to do was rest. Mostly because we knew that the very next day we were travelling again. This time we would be going to the villages in Nyanga to visit my other Mbuya from my Dad's side of the family.

This not even halfway through the week so there's still more to come. See the rest of my 10 days in Zimbabwe here. I visit the beautiful Nyanga villages for the day (Part 2). Then over the weekend we go to the Lion and Cheetah park (Part 3)!

Thanks for reading!

Xx

Rati :)