Embroidery Tourism

As our bellicose leaders continue Ato lead their hubristic and greedy lives, we live ours.

- Hazel Blomkamp

We watch them bloviate on the television news most evenings and whereas we might have panicked in years gone by, we've got used to it. We've acquired generators, solar panels and battery-operated everything. We've now fitted reserve water tanks and gas stoves, so life goes on as normal. A different normal but we still live much as we always have done. If we are to be honest, though, we all think of the future and one of the statements that one hears all too often is along the lines of 'we're becoming like Zimbabwe'. No we're not and even if we were, we would be fine. We would still manage to find a way to get what we need and, in the context of this article, we would still be able to get thread, fabric, beads or whatever else we want, to continue to do our needle work. By hook or by crook, yes, but we would. I know this thing and I can say it because I was there a few months ago.

I was invited up to Harare by the Needlecraft Guild of Zimbabwe to judge their bi-annual competition and to teach a workshop or two. Preparing for the trip, by which I mean getting the boxes of kits and teaching material up to Harare, was more effort than usual because of the lack of courier representation there – and the cost – but as is the way in these circumstances, there was someone driving to Beit Bridge, and another person with a post box in Mussina who gave that person the post box key ... Or did I send it to a Pretoria hotel where someone down from Zimbabwe with an empty car boot was spending the week? Can't remember but it was something like that. With a bit of planning we worked it out and soon I found myself sitting in international departures at Durban airport waiting to board my flight.