Annoying things..

After three weeks, we have noticed many things in the local culture which are very different to compare what we are used to in Finland.  The first thing is time. In Finland we have used to live with clocks and calenders and plan our daily schedule by using them. Now we have understood the meaning of "zimbabwean time" which has nothing to do with finnish time.. For example if we have a meeting with local people at 2 p.m, usually after one hour we are still waiting and after calling them their usual answer is "I'll be there in five minutes" which means that we still have to wait at least half an hour. We have never heard words "Sorry I am late" after that.. This happens everywhere, for example we were visiting in the local clinic and they said that workday starts at 7.30. Of course we were there fifteen minutes earlier, but it was 8.30 when all the nurses were present and ready to listen the morning report. But we just have to deal with the fact that they are always late..

All toilets are not the same level as in Finland

The other issue which is annoying us is the trafic. The roads are in very bad condition because of the rain season but still people are driving like crazy. There are no signs or any marks on the road and you never know in which road you are driving. For tourist it is little bit difficult to drive here especially if you are not used to drive the left-hand traffic. In Zimbabwe the bus service is different than in Finland. Here the so-called buses are called "kombi" which are just ordinary vans owned by self-employed persons and of course they want to get the van as full as possible. The kombies are usually the ones who cause most of the traffic accident in Zimbabwe. So you can imagine that we were a bit scared when we were sitting inside the kombi for the first time.
Because of the bad economic situation you should have the exact change when you go to supermarket because they don't have small changes to give back. So they give you candies and lollipops instead of small changes. But is not any problem for us.. ;)