We are woken by the sound of pails crashing together and shouting between two people. The cleaner has arrived and is greeting the night guard. It is 5 am. I am not sure whose room is she is going to clean at this hour, but she certainly makes her presence known.
After finishing our shopping, we head or the border at about 2pm. 'I am so looking forward to getting home,' sighs Sian. 'I don't want to see another shop.' 'And you want to live in the UK?' I laugh. 'Do you know how big some of the shopping centres are there?' Sian, who has been desperate for us to leave the country for months, actually admits that Zimbabwe is a nice place to go back to. Choice is great, but sometimes choice is overwhelming.
At the border, the queue is horrendous. This is mainly because there is only one person stamping passports. The rest, I assume, are on lunch. When a lady jumps the queue, I gently tap on her shoulder and motion her to the back of the line. She mutters something and stays put. The two women who let her in start laughing. Queue jumping is something quite common in Zimbabwe. Usually the excuse is: 'I was here and then I had to go and do something and now I have come back.' If I were to try this, there would be much clicking of tongues and comments about white people thinking they can do whatever they want.
The Zimbabwe side of the border is chaos. I cannot understand why a more efficient system cannot be put in place. Does it not make sense to move from counter one to counter two, to counter three and so on? Here, you start at counter one, go to counter six, go back to counter 4 and then stand in the middle of the floor, clueless as to what to do next.
We have to have our car searched. Luckily, no one looks under the front seat. Then it's off, back to Bulawayo, back to no fuel and no cash and a system that doesn't work, but at least there is peace and quiet.
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