Norma Jeanes, Great Zimbabwe

We learnt this morning that last night's rain was the first since the dry season. The campsite owner and his gang of workmen have been hard at work all day, repairing the damage which it did. He told us that it had hardly soaked into the ground at all, but had run off down hill. There are gullies and channels everywhere where the water went. We were dry and secure in our little hut and are thinking about having a couple of night in the tent, then moving back into a hut for Wednesday, the last night here, as more heavy rain is forecast for Thursday when we move on to Bulawayo.
Last night we were talking about our first impressions of Zimbabwe. The long drive in through flat Mopane Scrub was not enhanced by the large number of burnt out vehicles beside the road. We have seen this in other African countries, but there seemed to be quite a lot here. There were also a lot of roadside vendors, mostly selling fruit.
We woke up this morning to  beautiful sunny day. We decided we would be able to put up the tent, but we went to Masvingo first to give the ground a bit longer to dry out. It was a very good experience, we took some money from an ATM and then did some shopping at a Pick n Pay. We bought our vegetables from women in the street. Everyone was very friendly and welcoming. We saw one other white person, apart from that everyone was else was black. We must not generalise and compare with S.A. as the experience was not dissimilar to the shopping trip we made into the Venda community from Kruger's Punda Maria Gate. Ironically those Venda people a an ethnic group, asp live in Southern Zimbabwe, bordering the Limpopo River. However everyone here is Shona, the most prolific and widespread people here and in Zambia. I should be able to confirm this tomorrow, but I believe that Shona were the main inhabitants of Great Zimbabwe, they are an ancient tribe.
This afternoon we took a drive around Lake Mutirikwe, amazing scenery, great, black granite boulders, with the remnants of last nights rain oozing over them. We were at 1,100 metres but in the distance we could see higher mountains against the sky-line. It really is the most beautiful place.
We are the only people camping here tonight. The two Canadians, father and son motor-bikers on a round trip from Cape Town to Addis Ababa and back in 4 months, who escaped from the rain and took a cabin next to us, left this morning. The ablutions facilities here are excellent, we have a bathroom all to ourselves. We are only just over 24 hours into our trip trip to Zimbabwe, I hope the rest is as good as this.