Have you ever heard about the Jacaranda tree? It’s a tree with purplish flowers and it’s the pride of Harare. The blooming is in spring, a season that starts more or less in September. I can tell you that it is really beautiful.
In August, when we were in Zimbabwe, I could admire only one of these trees and it wasn’t yet completely bloomed and I was really fascinated by it. Thanks to Dominic, a friend of mine who lives there, I can show you these beautiful pictures.
It confines on the south side with South Africa, on the west with Botswana, on the north with Zambia and on the east with Mozambique. The capital is Harare, once known as Salisbury. The second main city is Bulawayo. The lake Kariba and the Victoria Falls, which people frequently call Vic Falls, are some of the greatest natural attractions of Zimbabwe.
Besides teaching and helping the local parish the two Italian sisters, Sr Antonietta and Sr Luisa, help the poor people living in Chegutu. Their intercom bell at their gate continuosly rings as there are people coming to ask for food, for money, for things they need for the school. Tracy, for example, is a 16 year-old girl in an advanced stage of AIDS that often goes to the mission to ask for food and for the money she needs to buy medicines. Sr Luisa goes every Sunday to the villages near Chegutu to offer assistance and prayer to the inhabitants that live in a situation of extreme poverty and need.
Thanks to our arrival, to the 10.000€ we brought and thanks to the fact we were been introduced as a delegation coming from Italy to see the site on which the future school will be built, the town council of Chegutu gave the land to the sisters as a donation rather than to ask them to pay it as they did at the beginning. They indeed realised the importance of our arrival seeing in us a hope for their town.
Chegutu is a town located approximately 107 km south of Harare. "Sisters of Our Lady of Sorrows", 67, Abecorn Street, was our house for the whole month of August. When we arrived people were curious about us. In 2000, in fact, white people have been sent away from the country so that now most of the population is black. We were the only white people together with the two sisters and very few inhabitants. 
Actually we also met a black albino but don't think we can considerate him a white person ;)
The African adventure begun the 9th of August, early in the morning. We arrived at 6 and the sisters were already at the airport, with a very good friend of them, waiting for us. On the way from Harare to Chegutu the impact was really strong. Completely different landscapes, widening horizons, warm colours, people everywhere on the roads ......we were in another world. The first impression was of peace and serenity.
