How I survived the Road of Death in Zimbabwe is a bit of a tale that requires some background before you understand how I got myself into this humorous but truly dangerous situation.
In 2013, I returned to Zimbabwe for the second time for a couple of reasons. First, I received an invitation to present the world premiere of my one-man show, Coming to Zimbabwe, at the Harare International Festival of Arts (HIFA). Secondly, to help create a rural teaching program for drama with the National Institute of Allied Arts, whose artistic director was Gavin Peter.
Zimbabwe the First Time
Gavin had hired me in 2012 to come to Zimbabwe and be the first American judge or adjudicator of their national drama contest. The month that I spent in Zimbabwe during 2012 was a life changing experience. The opportunity to work with almost 8000 kids over a three-week period had been exhausting but also exhilarating. I watched these talented African kids do monologues and scene work, recite poetry, do improvs and work in many other performance styles.
Plus, the two-week tour that NIAA sponsored for me to travel around the country to different historical sites. I did the tour in the company of the Republic of Ireland’s representative, Gary Killilea and his family. The experience was a joy and wonder, and helped cement Zimbabwe is one of my favorite places in the world. The beauty of the country and the hospitality of the people was unmatched, and I resolved to return as often as I could.
Lack of Resources
The chance to return came very quickly for me. As the adjudicator of the drama festival, I watched as the dedicated volunteers of NIAA kept meticulous records over where students came from and in what performance categories they had participated. Some students would only be in one area while others might be in 9 to 11 different areas of competition.
At the debriefing at the end of the festival and working with Gavin, we managed to streamline some of the requirements for the participants and the number of areas they could participate in. We also found out that the students from the cities mostly focused on drama presentations while the students from the rural or country areas focused on poetry. Now Zimbabwe is mostly an agricultural country so that made sense, but this was primarily a drama festival and if most of the students in the rural areas were participating in poetry that meant there was a disconnect somewhere in the education system.
Zimbabwe had become a poor country over the 40-year reign by their former dictator Robert Mugabe, and one of the fallouts of his terrible economic policies was that teachers in the countryside hardly made any money whatsoever. It was hard to retain teachers who taught English and drama although it was required as part of their education requirements to graduate. We found in our research that the rural teachers who were instructing the drama students were science and math teachers, or physical education teachers or soccer coaches. Well-meaning individuals who had no idea what they were supposed to do for the festival, but they had been ordered by their principal to get the kids ready. These poor individuals having no knowledge of what the contest required just did what the teacher of the year before had done which was recite poetry.
The Solution
Gavin and I developed a training program for countryside teachers, guiding them in understanding dramatic literature, locating resources, directing plays or scenes, and applying best practices to inspire their students. During the year while I was back in the United States, I also recruited other Americans to come and work in Zimbabwe with NIAA to help move the program forward.
Acting My Way to Zimbabwe
Yet when it came to providing me with air flight back to Zimbabwe, they just did not have the money. Gavin concocted an unusual solution. That year, he was also the Artistic Director of HIFA and said if I could come with a show, he would ensure I got a superior performance slot. The idea of a one-man show based on my experiences in Zimbabwe had been floating around my head for about six or more months and now I put it down on paper.
I workshopped it a few times at my theater in Los Angeles, the Attic Theater and knew I had a good show. Because Zimbabwe was a dictatorship, I had to send the script to a government office there to make sure it was not offensive in any way to Zimbabwe or President Robert Mugabe. To their astonishment there was an American who was writing wonderful things about their country and proclaiming it a wonderful place to visit. Gavin true to his word gave me a wonderful time slot and the show sold out before I even got on the plane to go to Zimbabwe, and extra performances were added. It was that money that allowed me to buy a round trip ticket to Zimbabwe.
What is the Road of Death
So, that is how I got to Zimbabwe, but the title of this article is ‘I Survived the Road of Death.’ What is the Road of Death? It was a stretch of highway that went from the city center of Harare to an upscale suburb called Borrowdale. This road was a four-lane highway and was one of the major thoroughfares in the city. It also ran right by the Presidential Palace. In fact, you could spit out the car window as you went past and hit the building. It was that close.
After an attack on Mugabe’s residence in 1982, officials enforced a 6 PM curfew to stop traffic from passing in front of the Palace. This restriction lasted until 2017. Anyone traveling down that road after 6 PM risked being shot by patrolling army soldiers, earning it the name “Road of Death.” By 2013, the Presidential Palace served only ceremonial purposes, while Mugabe resided in a massive house on the outskirts of the city. Despite this, the law required the four-lane road next to the palace to be blocked every evening at 6 PM until 6 AM. If you were trying to drive to Borrowdale from downtown or vice versa you had to find an alternative route because there were soldiers with rifles everywhere. In fact, there was an army barracks right across the street from the Palace where the security guards lived.
The Car: How it Started
After completing the successful run of my one-man show, I had about ten days before Gavin could meet with me to discuss the educational tour heading into the rural areas. My friends in Harare couldn’t entertain me constantly, and without transportation, I often found myself stuck in a hotel room or staying with generous hosts.
After a week of this, boredom set in, so I rented a car and drove up into the Nyangani Mountain area near the Mozambique border, planning to stay at a small inn for a few days while exploring that part of Zimbabwe. That adventure was a story of its own, but I had the rental car for several days. When I returned to the capital, my good friends, Keith and Jeanette Nicholson, invited me to a social function at their home. They had been kind enough to host me during my first two weeks in Zimbabwe in 2012.
The Drive
Harare is an exceedingly difficult city in which to travel during the night. The reason for that is there are almost no street signs or working streetlights, because they have been stripped of all their copper wiring. Why is that you ask? Because the economy is in ruins, and no one has any work. So, some people steal what they can steal just to be able to put food on the table.
Therefore, I had to be careful in plotting my route to the Nicholson’s home is Borrowdale to avoid the Road of Death. I found an old map of Harare and laid out a route that I felt confident would avoid the Palace. At 6:30 PM, I walked out to my car and started driving towards the Nicholsons. It was winter and already dark. As I got close to where I was going to turn left and head out towards Borrowdale, I recognized that I was right next to the presidential palace and about to turn on to the Road of Death.
From my car, I could see a large blockade and there were armed guards everywhere. I freaked out. There were two lanes of traffic to my right which were turning toward the city center, but it was rush hour and there was no room for me to cut in. If I turned left, I was sure I would be shot. I was terrified. The only other direction I could go in was straight so that is what I did.
The Zimbabwe Defense Force and Me
I drove on straight and ended up in the parking lot of the army barracks that protect the presidential palace. It was extremely dark, so it was impossible to read my map. Being the only white man in a parking lot full of black soldiers with rifles made me feel very uneasy. No one bothered me or even said anything to me, but they gave me strange enough looks that I knew I was not supposed to be there, nor was I welcome.
I quickly called Keith and explained the situation. I must have seemed a little chaotic because he told me to calm down and gave me explicit instructions about how to get around the presidential palace and follow a road that would lead me toward Borrowdale. Following the explicit instructions of my hosts I drove around the presidential palace and ended up approaching the Borrowdale highway. At this point, I meant to turn left toward the suburbs but mistakenly veered right, heading back toward the Presidential Palace.
About half a mile in, I noticed the blockade ahead and realized I had returned to the Palace. Panic took over, and without hesitation, I swung the car into a sharp U-turn in the middle of the highway, floored the gas pedal, and sped away. The entire time I was driving I thought a sharpshooter was going to blow off the back of my head. I was sure because I was the only car on the highway that I was breaking some law and that the entire Zimbabwean Defense Force was following me. Every tank, every Jeep, every helicopter, and every soldier was hot on my tail, and I was going to end up either dead or in a Zimbabwean jail which would be the same thing.
Trying to Hide
Spying a road off to the right and with screeching tires I made the turn. I found myself in a housing development. Taking the next right and then next left, I parked in the first driveway I could find. Turning off my lights, I crouched down in my seat hoping that they could not find me. I quickly called Keith and tried to explain the situation to them. Just as I began talking to him there was a knock on my window, and I turned to find a Zimbabwean soldier with a rifle standing next to my car.
I exclaimed to Keith, “Oh my God, they found me already.” Pleading with him to stay on the phone, I put my cell phone down on the car seat and rolled down the window. I immediately started babbling to the soldier trying to explain why I had turned around and driven away from the Palace. I gave him my passport, my international driver’s license, my work visa, the contract that said I was there to work with NIAA and all the official paperwork that I had to carry around with me all the time.
The soldier took each document and looked them over. I just kept babbling the entire time telling him I was sorry. I made a mistake, and please do not arrest me. That I was an American citizen and at least give me a chance to call the embassy. On and on and on until finally he had all my documents and I had nothing left to say. I just knew he was going to shoot me now. The waiting felt like an eternity.
He quietly handed me all my documents back and just looked at me for a moment, then he asked me, “Do you have a smoke?”
“What!?” I asked?
And just like any American tourist who has gone to a foreign country and do not speak the language, the cliche is that we always talk slow and loud as if that is going to make someone understand, he did the exact same thing to me. In a very loud voice speaking very slowly, he went, “Do you have a cigarette?”
“No, I don’t smoke,” I stated
“Ok,” he said, then turned and walked down the driveway headed towards the main road. It was then that I realized there were no jeeps back there. There were no tanks, there were no helicopters, there was no one. No one had followed me. This lone soldier was walking to the Palace to go to work. Most soldiers are so poor they cannot afford a car.
An immaculately dressed soldier, automatic weapon in hand, strode through the neighborhood toward the main road, preparing to walk the mile to the presidential palace for check-in. As I processed the bizarre intersection of my fear and the sheer oddity of the situation, laughter erupted from the cell phone beside me. Keith, thoroughly amused, found it to be the funniest thing he had ever heard.
The Joke Was on Me
Now red faced with embarrassment, I picked up the phone and told him that everything was ok, and I would be there in 10 minutes. Keith repeated one more time how I was to get there, and I followed his instructions to the letter. I arrived at their house where there was a big wine celebration going on, and of course, all the Zimbos laughed at me because they thought it was very funny that the American who traveled around the world got lost and scared driving around the Presidential Palace.
Well, the joke was on me. I took the good-natured ribbing for the rest of the night, had three or four glasses of wine to calm down and so that I would not get lost or die on my way back home my friends were kind enough to let me crash in their guest room.
And that is how I survived the Road of Death in Harare, Zimbabwe.
Below are photos from the NIAA school tour that we took after this adventure happened. Shots of myself and good friend, Musa Saruro, teaching improv and acting technique in and around Bulawayo 2013.
All opinions expressed are the personal opinions of the author. Tripswithjames.com is a copyright of Carey-On Creative, LLC. 2023. Atlanta, GA.
About the Author –
James Carey is an avid world traveler, blogger, writer and award-winning theater and film director based in Atlanta GA. He writes about travel worldwide, entertainment, and lifestyles. You can find out more about him at his personal websites listed below.
PERSONAL SITE – http://www.jamesrcarey.com
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