001: Why I Started ZimXcite
You're listening to ZimXcite.com. How's it, and welcome to the Make A Plan Podcast brought to you by myself, Ryan Koriya and ZimXcite ZimXcite is an international culture fashion brand selling not just a range of high quality clothing and merch, but also promoting a fun spirit of inclusion and global diversity, inspired by all things Zimbabwean. A very warm welcome to episode one of the ZimXcite Make A Plan Podcast. So I thought it would be a great place to start by explaining why I started ZimXcite in the first place.
Ryax:And it is actually our three year anniversary here in Ibiza, Spain. It's April 2023, and three years ago, I actually built ZimXcite during the very first lockdown here in Ibiza, Spain in March 2020 and launched it a month later in mid April twenty twenty. If you remember when we all went into this crazy lockdown situation, Spain was one of the first countries in Europe, I think, just hot off the heels of Italy, and it was a hardcore lockdown. Like, no going outside the end. It was weeks and weeks of just being indoors, and all you could do is go to the supermarket, and that didn't feel like a good idea anyway.
Ryax:I was literally getting groceries delivered to my door at that point. So the first thing I did was literally to sit down and build this online business I'd been wanting to do for a long time, and it was hardcore. I was going to bed at seven in the morning, and I was up all night just making designs, building the website, coming up with concepts, and just everything, the brand, the name, it all happened very quickly. And so I think a good way to start understanding a little bit of the culture of ZimXcite and the brand is to understand the person who founded it. So myself being the founder, it is an extension of who I am and like it is with most entrepreneurs.
Ryax:So I think we'll start there. Let's go into a little bit of explaining of who I am. Right? So I was born in Zimbabwe. I was raised in Zimbabwe in Harare, which is the capital city.
Ryax:And interestingly, I was born at independence in 1980, so I am technically the same age as Zimbabwe as a nation, and that's a bit weird. But in a good way, though, it feels pretty cool. Although, we've had a tumultuous upbringing, the two of us together. I often joke and say, I'm not sure who's in a better state myself or the country because we've gone through some serious battles. And there's another podcast all about my Zimbabwean journey, so stay tuned about that.
Ryax:But for today, I would like to just talk more about, ZimXcite as a brand. Listen. I have had to come back and record this bit into this podcast because it is now 01:42PM. Right?
Ryax:And I launched this podcast at 06:23AM, I think it was. This morning, I was up all night working on it, and then I went to bed. But when I was in bed, I saw the date and I thought, what? It's the April 18. It's Independence Day right now.
Ryax:Zimbabwean Independence Day. And I had no idea that I was going to be launching this podcast on Independence Day itself, which is such a serendipitous, moment. So I just wanted to come in and just mention that that I didn't do this on purpose. And I I am someone who's very spiritual, so I find that a lot of these things happen, quite naturally. And we'll talk more about that down the line.
Ryax:But just wanted to say, wow. And happy Independence Day, Zimbabwe. So I was a city boy, essentially. Harare is a nice sort of medium sized city. Nothing too crazy.
Ryax:You know, I grew up in the suburbs, in the western suburbs of the city near the sports stadium in a in a place called Belvedere. And what's really cool about that is I went to a school called Belvedere. So I I could walk to school when I was old enough to do so. And I went to a high school called Prince Edward School, which is actually very close, to Belvedere, so within the same part of town. And I think this is very important to talk about my upbringing in Zimbabwe because that'll give you an idea of my culture.
Ryax:Right? I think our cultures are very well informed by where we grow up and who we are as children and what we experience. So myself, I identify as mixed race, which is a term I don't use because in Zimbabwe, we call ourselves colored. And this term is also interesting because it means something a bit different whether you're in The US or in Europe or in The UK. And we even have this really interesting name called gothel, which means colored, which means mixed race.
Ryax:And we'll go into that a bit more within the the series. But for now, it's just important to understand that the reason why I mentioned this is because my background is a very mixed background culturally as well. And so school wise, Belvedere Junior School was a very amazing place for me to go to because I got a lot of, you know, just very amazing starts in certain areas that I still love today. And for example, I was acting from about the age of seven. I was in speech and drama and doing school plays and poetry and so on.
Ryax:So I was an early performer, and I was also singing in the choir, school choir from about the age of nine, and I loved singing. And we used to have these big combined schools choirs, which literally had about 400 junior school children in one place singing these amazing songs. And I grew up under the helm of Ava Rogers, who a lot of you will recognize that name because she was an amazing teacher, but also an amazing chorister. She used to lead school choir, played the piano, an amazing musical director on the theater stages of reps, and so on. So that is where I really got my cultural, you know, infusion was very young which I love and I'm very grateful for that and the education system in Zimbabwe allowed for that.
Ryax:And so I went to high school just sort of up the road from Belvedere and that school was called Prince Edward High School. And what's important to understand here is Prince Edward was a government school. So it was not privately owned at that point and it was very much something inherited from the colonial era of the Rhodesian days. So it was to give you, you know, some kind of idea from what I understand, my parents' generation would not have been able to go to Prince Edward's School because it was essentially for white people. So I grew up in a school that was set up.
Ryax:I was actually a senior during our one hundredth year. So I was a centenary prefect, which meant I actually got to be a leader within the space of about 1,300 teenage boys as an 18 year old. Again, early experience in life of becoming a leader and and sort of honing your your leadership skills and so on. So a very interesting educational experience for me. What happened at Prince Edward was fascinating for me because I still remember arriving as a sort of wet nosed 12 year old teenager coming from junior school and just being surrounded by all this testosterone.
Ryax:And there's like, you know, as I said, nearly one and a half thousand teenage boys. And I could just see this gymnasium where we all sat for assembly three times a week, and you would just hear one of the prefects sort of grunt out the words, everybody stand. And everyone would shuffle to their feet, and you're looking at all these members of staff kind of peering down at you, you know, over their their reading glasses or whatever it may be, spectacles if they wore them. And then our headmaster, the legendary Clive Barnes, would appear, and he would say, morning, gentlemen, and let us, you know, say the Lord's Prayer. And we would just have this incredible mass of energy that was focused on one common collective goal, which was let's educate these young men.
Ryax:And he used to say this a lot. Clive Barnes used to say, you have arrived as boys, and you will leave here as hopefully all rounded men. And I think this is very important to mention because Prince Edward School was such a fountain of wealth when it came to education and extracurricular activities. So to give you an idea, right, some of the the subjects I remember learning were things like Latin, you know, which surprises people because we had only three schools in the entire city that taught Latin, and we were one of them. And if I'm not mistaken, the other two were private.
Ryax:I'm not sure if Arendelle Girls is a private school, but St George's, the other Latin school, certainly was. So Latin, French, English, English literature, Shona, which is Zimbabwe's major local language, followed by Ndebele, which interestingly we didn't have as a subject. And I think that just talks about the interesting complexities within Zimbabwean culture. And it you know, Ndebele is more of a different region called Matabele Land, and Shona is Mashona land. So they're kinda different regions.
Ryax:It's almost like think of Spain as a good example where you have Catalan, you know, the Barcelona area, and then you've got, like, a different language they speak there that is called Catalan, you know, instead of the traditional Spanish. So it was something similar like that, what was going on. And Shawna for me was an l two language, which meant it was my second language, which is very important to also bring up as a topic because Zimbabwe has many different languages. English is one of our major languages, and I think it's the official language of the country, in that sense. So we we also had sciences.
Ryax:We had physics. We had biology. We had computer science, which was you know, we were one of the first generations to study computer science. We had a very old, at this point, desktop computers called two eight sixes and stuff like that where you had stiffy and floppy disks, you know, for storage devices. (stiffy disks were our local name for 3.5-inch floppies) And it was amazing to be able to have access to that in my, you know, teenage years.
Ryax:We had geography, agriculture, classical studies, which entailed Greek mythology, all the, you the Greek gods and all that sort of thing. We had history. And and these are all subjects I personally actually studied in high school. And then we had other subjects which I didn't have myself, which were things like woodwork. We had our own woodwork workshop.
Ryax:We had metalwork with our own workshop there as well. We had religious education. We had astronomy. Literally had our own observatory. Right?
Ryax:So you could study astronomy and have this big telescope that you could look up into the stars, with from our own campus, which is incredible. We had our own printing press, which means we could actually print our own school magazine. And bear in mind, this is the nineties I'm talking about. So no digital. There was no, there were no smartphones.
Ryax:There was no Internet for most of us at that point. So very amazing to grow up in such a a culturally, rich school. And what's so incredible is we then had I believe it was over 200. It might be over 100, but I think it was about 220, if I'm not mistaken. I may have to go and find this out.
Ryax:But about over 200 sports clubs and societies as well, you know, to choose from outside of the classroom. So, again, this whole thing of wanting to raise all rounded boys. Right? It's like we don't want to just have you guys I remember the headmaster would say, we don't want you to just be able to be academic, but we want you to also be able to play sports and be active, maybe have a bit of culture so that if you do win, a sports cup or whatever it is in your future, that you could actually stand up and actually give a decent speech, you know, for example, and have conversational skills and so on. So one of the major sports we had was rugby, and then you had your cricket, soccer, as we call it back home.
Ryax:I know it's called football, especially in Europe. And then we had basketball, we had tennis, and we had soccer fields. So we had a basketball court or a couple of basketball courts. We had, tennis courts as well. We had volleyball.
Ryax:I played volleyball and I played tennis when I got there. We had athletics with our own fields as well. We had gymnastics. We had badminton, music. We had orchestra.
Ryax:I was in the school orchestra. There was a jazz band. There was an epic marimba band. The more cultural ethnic instruments coming through. We were even playing along to the hymns at assembly once we knew how to play well enough.
Ryax:It was really interesting. Just a rich rich tapestry as you can see. We had choir. We had drama. We had bridge, chess, public speaking, Toastmasters.
Ryax:We had stamp collecting. We had, bird club, you know, orthology, and we had rollerblading club. At at some point, I remember we had the Air Corps, which I was a member of. So I literally used to have my military camouflage, and we used to go to the air base and learn about aviation and aerodynamics and learn how to be within that space if you wanted to become go into the air force, which for me was not out of, you know, the possibility because I wanted to be a pilot throughout my entire education. I love airplanes.
Ryax:I still do now. I still plan to become a pilot one day, but unfortunately, life didn't work out the way we planned. You know, all sorts of crazy things happened at that point when I left school, 09/11. Our economy crashed, so I could never afford to go and get flying lessons. But I was in the Air Corps.
Ryax:My first time flying was in a military helicopter, and that was a day I will never forget. So we had that at school. We had our own gymnasium, our own chapel, we had our own hospital, and we had boarding houses because we were also a a boarding school and a day scholar school. So some of the clubs that I went, that I was actually a part of were things like the Latin Society, where we used to conduct soirees with, Arundel, which was the other school that did Latin. St George's never showed up for some reason, and so we just used used to go to Arundel, and Arundel used to come to us, which was fun because they were a girls' school.
Ryax:We were a boys' school, so we got to learn how to socialize and hang out with girls, which was fun. I was a member of the Environmental Protection Club, and we used to be in the drama club and perform all sorts of school plays and enter festivals and competitions. And also, I used to be a member of the string orchestra. We had a French club. We had agriculture as well.
Ryax:And so just a really, really big experience for me when I talk about my teenage years and growing up, you know, as a teenager in Zimbabwe. My musical journey is very important because I'm actually a musician first and foremost. And so when I was 13, I got to Prince Edward School, and I started playing. So part of the school package, I didn't have to pay anything extra because I would never have afforded that. Our family was not financially comfortable, should I say.
Ryax:We struggled throughout my my upbringing when it came to money, so there was no way my parents would have afforded violin lessons. And so I was very, very happy to get the opportunity to do so. And so we played violin, in orchestra, and I then played cello, started the cello at 15. Mind you, this was only possible because we had violins and cellos and various other instruments at the school. They were there, and we had access to them, which wouldn't have been possible otherwise for me.
Ryax:And then I got a full scholarship, to attend the Zimbabwean College of Music, which is our conservatory in Harare. And that was through the school as well. You know? They saw the talent I had. They really encouraged my early progress, and they supported my education.
Ryax:So all due to the upbringing I had and the education I had access to. Yes. For example, I I won that school. And then certain things also happened during my school years. For example, I won the National Best Actor Award when I was 17 in Lower Six, And we used to have this incredible annual cultural festival called the National Institute of Allied Arts.
Ryax:There was a drama festival, and there was a MusicAIS Stedford. So, again, very rich in culture when it came to the access of what we could engage in as teenagers. So now what Zimbabweans tend to do, which I think is interesting, is if you're in a room with Zimbabweans meeting for the first time, you'll inevitably hear them say things like, where did you go to school? And I know some colleges think this is really strange, but I believe it's quite a a nice way for people to just find a commonality and identify, you know, connections. Because not coming from a very big country, once you identify which school someone went to, you either went to the same school, then you know, you know, the same teachers or perhaps you have similar experiences growing up or with your education.
Ryax:And then you identify, you know, who you may know very quickly. So I think that's a very interesting tactic that Zimbabweans tend to use culturally. So I myself, I'm based in Ibiza, Spain, but I used to be in 12 countries a year, multiple times a year across four continents until 2018. So I was touring around the world having a wonderful adventure building this musical career from a very grassroots level. It was all self managed.
Ryax:I literally, at points, would fly to a certain country with only 10 or $20 in my pocket, and I would figure it out from there. And that's because I'm super driven, as a person. And I feel this is something that's important to mention because that's something that Zimbabweans have. In fact, the words make a plan are really some kind of cultural motto that we have, which is all about resourcefulness. We've been given some pretty bad deals when it comes to, life experience, unfortunately, in terms of opportunities and so on.
Ryax:So we've learned how to become very resourceful, and so that's what Maker Plan's all about. And so I am a professional musician. I'm a singer songwriter. I'm a film composer, actually, and I'm a music producer as well. So I scored the first Zimbabwean film to make it to Netflix, and that film is called Cook Off.
Ryax:And if you haven't seen it, definitely check it out on Netflix or your streaming platforms. I think it'll be on a few others as well. And so I created the the soundtrack for that, and that means the songs that are not sung by other artists who are their own composers in that sense. I did all the film score creations, so all the classical music, especially in the scenes where the chefs are cooking. I'm very proud of that achievement, and that just tells you a bit about how I sort of operate within the arts.
Ryax:I'm quite diverse in terms of what I'm doing musically. And I'm also a certified life coach. So what that means is I help people win at life, and that can be within relationships, dating, and intimacy, which is something I like to really focus on. But I'm also an integrative hypnosis change practitioner, which means I help people, overcome limitations with their own mindset, overcome habits, things like anxiety, like stress. With so much trauma in our culture, this is something that I'm really passionate about helping people with.
Ryax:I also help people supercharge their careers because it all comes down to the same thing. It's about how our minds work. Our minds are running the show, and most of that's unconscious. So that means it's a program that's automatically happening, and I help you get into that and rewire that program so you show up differently in areas that you've been struggling with. I really love doing that.
Ryax:I love building up people and so that's what I do as well. I'm also a branding and marketing consultant, and I've just created an agency recently. So I get to not just teach people and coach people in how to get their business ideas out there, or if they've got the business, how to find new customers, or if they're musicians and artists, how to find fans who really are interested in what they have to offer. And so I can do that, but I can also now help facilitate such things when it comes to social media management, maybe doing the design work, building websites, all that stuff is possible. So as you can tell, I am an entrepreneur and I'm a very busy man when it comes to the various things I have my fingers in pies in.
Ryax:And in fact, rather than having fingers in pies, I'm actually creating all of these. So I'm very hands on in that sense. And so, yeah, I also started this culture fashion brand called ZimXcite for example. And so I think that's really a nice little sort of roundup of who I am as an individual and I think it's important to understand that. So as we move forward with ZimXcite as a a brand, you will understand it a bit more and why it's it's being presented in the way it is.
Ryax:So next up, let's go on to why I created ZimXcite I think that is also an important question to answer. So one of the main reasons is because I wanted to help connect Zimbabweans around the world. This is very important to me because the best way to describe Zimbabwe for me or Zimbabweans at large is imagine you're sitting down at this big table at Thanksgiving. Right?
Ryax:And life is pretty good. Like, yes, there are issues here and there, but the the standard of living that you have and and the lifestyle that you you live is pretty good. Amazing weather, wonderful culture with community and connection, and, you know, as I mentioned earlier, so many incredible things like high standard of education and pretty decent living situation depending on, you know, who you are and where you come from because every country has its spectrum of of of sort of, like, class, you know, systems, which is interesting, and that's something we'll talk about in the future. So I really want to connect everyone because, as I said, like, imagine you are sitting at this table. It's Thanksgiving.
Ryax:And then someone runs in all of a sudden and is just shouting fire, you know. And then everyone has to just run and run out the doors in different directions and we will never be able to sit at the same table ever again at the same time with everybody. And that's what it feels like for me because, basically, in when I was 16, 17, 18, things really hit the fan when I was growing up, and Zimbabwe just collapsed in a huge violent way. And everyone sort of dissipated. The ones who could get out left, and I got stuck there for another five years or so.
Ryax:But, like, everyone who could get out got out. And so being Zimbabwean is like having all these people around the world who did live in Zim at some point or grew up there, and they left and they have never gone back or they've gone back to visit, but they're living a life they didn't quite anticipate because home was pretty good. And, yes, we we wanted to go overseas and to study and all that stuff. But I think many of us imagined this life where we would be back home and, you know, get a nice house and live a decent life. Right?
Ryax:So I want to help connect these Zimbabweans who are now living in countries they probably didn't expect to live, and a lot of us are in Scandinavia. Not a lot, but, like, there are people in Scandinavia, in around Europe, especially The UK, in Australia, in New Zealand, in The US, in Canada. We're pretty much all over the world. Right? And I would love ZimXcite to be this brand and this energy that connects us all to that nostalgia that we miss and also the people who live in Zimbabwe to be able to go, hey.
Ryax:That's something that people can identify with Zimbabwe that's positive and that's warm and it's optimistic, and it's this thing of bringing people together. So that's one of the biggest reasons I started ZimXcite And then another reason is to allow people to express themselves through their own culture and their own language. So Zim Lingo, for example, is one of the main collections we where phrases and Zimbabwean words onto merchandise. And I can just see that kind of thing starting conversations, you know.
Ryax:If someone's walking somewhere or in a party or whatever, and then someone goes, hey, that word on your hoodie, what is that? It's very weird. What is that shongololo? What what does that mean? And then starting a conversation to go, oh, shongololo.
Ryax:Well, actually, it is a da da da da da, you know. So that's kind of one of the things I want to do. It's like just have people express themselves with words and and and language they're not maybe used to using where they are because it's not really something people would understand, and then start conversations that way. So some of these phrases that we already have on the website are things like make a plan. That's one of our popular ones.
Ryax:There's a a design that has the word lacquer on it, which we use a lot even though it has Afrikaans and Dutch, roots, which is another thing that's important for people to also understand that we've got a mixture of different cultures and different languages within Zimbabwe, like South Africa and the region around us, whether it's Namibia, Mozambique, and so on. And then we've got Shongololo, which I've mentioned. There's a design with the word Mududududu on there. There is Jirukufaya as one of our designs. Robots is another one of our designs.
Ryax:Braai is another one of our designs. Yano, which can be confusing, is another one of our designs. Then there we've got things like now now and just now. So all of these are fun phrases, which I'm not gonna explain now because then I'll be on you for ages. But you can actually go to the website and there's actually a glossary that explains all these, terms anyway.
Ryax:And we're going to be going deeper in all of these in our podcast anyway. So stick around so you can hear more about what these mean. I'll get some Zimbabweans to come on and give you, you know, a rendition of what they think these words and phrases mean. So another reason why I started this podcast is to help educate the world on our culture and our languages and so on. So traveling the world made me realize how little is known about us as a country, never mind as a culture.
Ryax:And I kept being told by, by people that my English is too good to be from Zimbabwe, and that maybe I sound like a Brit, and I've lived in England and all this stuff, which can be quite ironic considering that Zimbabwe used to be a British colony, hence why English is our main language. And the way I like to describe it is this. It's like I say, listen, when you meet an Australian person, you're not expecting them to speak anything but Australian English, which is English with an Australian accent. Right? And then when you meet someone from New Zealand, they do the same.
Ryax:They speak English but with a New Zealand accent. And now if you're not from there, you often don't even know the difference. You'll meet a New Zealander and go, oh, are you from Australia? And they go, nope. I'm from New Zealand.
Ryax:You're like, oh, my bad. Zimbabwe and South Africa are very similar in the sense that South Africa is basically our Australia, and Zimbabwe is the New Zealand. So a lot of people do meet South African people, and they recognize the more sort of Afrikana infused stronger English accent from the Dutch heritage. Whereas Zimbabwe is a former British colony. So we have a more plain English.
Ryax:And then again, depends who you're speaking to because some people don't have English as their first language, so they're going to have a strong accent on top of that, an an African accent or an Indian accent perhaps. Or there are people who spoke English as children like I did. I grew up in an English speaking house. So English is my first language. So I have very interesting conversations with a lot of foreigners about this because they're they're basically saying, I don't believe you, a lot of them.
Ryax:They're like, it's hard to believe that you spoke this English when you left your country, and you just don't realize how much living in England influenced your English or whatever. And I have to be adamant and say, no. Actually, there's a country full of people speaking English in our various ways. And I even have a documentary series called The African Astronauts, which I'm working on that's gonna help demonstrate that through this project. So that's one of the big reasons why I started ZomxSight is to just go, let us show you our culture so that you also feel a bit more exposed to the reality of who we are as a culture.
Ryax:And and and it's no one's fault in the sense that people only know what they know. If they haven't seen or heard, then they don't understand that. And also, another thing I think interesting to mention is a lot of people will meet a Zimbabwean, but they will have no idea they've met a Zimbabwean. Because Zimbabweans are also quite reserved and, come from a very sort of conservative culture. So we're not necessarily out there going, I'm from Zimbabwe.
Ryax:Yay. Look at me. Like, we just like to assimilate. We go to a new culture and we just fit in. We speak English.
Ryax:No problem. So obviously, some people would think, oh, this person's from from here or whatever it is. So if we don't show up as Zimbabweans, then it's not easy for people to understand that, oh, that's what Zimbabweans may look like even though there's a range of us in terms of how we talk and how we think and so on. Another reason I think that would be really good to lean into some Zumex site as a culture is to help promote Zimbabwe as a tourist it's such a beautiful country and such culture in terms of the people. I love Zimbabwean people.
Ryax:And I think it's quite funny to observe again. Like, a lot of people will think about going to other African countries within the region. But I feel Zimbabwe is actually rich with culture as well, but also safer. And I actually, for example, 100% feel safer in Zimbabwe than I do in South Africa. Crime and safety is a huge issue in South Africa, but you'll find a lot of people will go to Cape Town and all these amazing places, which is great.
Ryax:And sometimes they do. Some people go, oh, while I'm in South Africa, I'll fly off to Zimbabwe for a bit or to Victoria Falls or whatever. But a lot of people don't even think about that. So I really want to bring that to the table to go, hey. Zimbabwe is right there and it's amazeballs.
Ryax:Come check it out. So that's one of the things that SimExcite is also going to be really on the forefront of. It's just trying to show parts of Zimbabwe that people don't even know is there. For example, Victoria Falls, the mighty Victoria Falls, which I love our local name for it, which is Mosi Oatunya, which means the smoke that thunders because Victoria Falls is a big beast. Okay?
Ryax:To the point where Victoria Falls is twice the size of Niagara Falls. But a lot of people will know about Niagara Falls but not know about Victoria Falls. And I mean, literally twice the size. So Victoria Falls stretches for one and a half kilometers, right, and drops to a depth of 100 meters. And Niagara Falls is literally about half of that.
Ryax:So I found that fascinating myself to go, what? Really? I okay. This is interesting. And it's just a mighty experience.
Ryax:Like, if you've never been to Victoria Falls, if you speak to anyone who has been, just ask them. I ask people all the time when I'm at home. Because when I'm in Zimbabwe, I like to live in Vic Falls. And I often ask people when I say, how was the falls? And the word that comes up a lot is life changing.
Ryax:That's what they say. The sheer power of that experience is something else. So I want to be able to showcase things like that. We've got Lake Kariba in Zimbabwe, which is the world's largest artificial lake literally by volume. It's like a good 223 kilometers by 40 kilometers in terms of size.
Ryax:Surface area is, like, 5,580 square kilometers, which is, like, 2,150 square miles. Right? The water volume is 180 cubic kilometers. It is huge. And I remember going to Korea and thinking, it looks like the sea.
Ryax:You can't see the other side. You know? And that's there as well, and fishing and all sorts of things that people could do. Then we've got the Zimbabwe ruins, which actually, the the movie Black Panther, the the Kingdom Of Wakanda is what I read was inspired by the Zimbabwe ruins, which is this ancient Zimbabwean kingdom, right, African kingdom, which was founded in the ninth century, literally. We're talking about the years between the 9th and 15th century.
Ryax:That's when this kingdom existed, and it was built with these amazing rocks and, you know, quite advanced in terms of how it was set up. And that was about the same time that the Vikings were raiding Europe and stuff in this period. So this is, like, a long, long time ago. And Zimbabwe as a name is inspired the country gets its name from the Zimbabwe ruins because Zimbabwe basically translates to houses of stone, which is where this ruin sort of like place comes in. And you can go visit this place when you go to Zimbabwe as well.
Ryax:So it's already and so many other places that we could go on and on about. So I want to talk more about these, through ZimXcite and just demonstrate and and showcase all these various places that people can come to. So that's one of the things as well. So, yeah, I think that's enough for today. I wanted to also do a giveaway, so I'm gonna do that next.
Ryax:But I just wanted to, yeah, just welcome you to the ZimXcite Sight family. Thank you for stopping by. Please do share this podcast series with anyone you know from Zimbabwe and anyone who you think would enjoy the Zim vibe. Because the other thing that's important to mention is that Zimbabwean culture, I feel, is a very inclusive one. So even if you're not from Zimbabwe or you've never been, Zimmick Sight is a very, very much an energy that's open to you.
Ryax:We would love to just bring people together around the world. That is it. Using our sense of optimism and community and and wanting that to be a contagion that can go around and just have people feel good about themselves and express themselves and connect with each other around different topics and different ideas and, you know, exploring different ways of seeing the world, you know. So I think that's be really fun. So thank you very much for, yeah, stopping by.
Ryax:Do check out our website and follow our Instagram and Facebook so you can join the mailing list so you can stay in the loop as the magic unfolds. So let's do the giveaway, shall we? What I'd love to do is I want to give away one pair of t shirts, right, and another pair of mugs. So I'm giving away two t shirts and two mugs. And what I'd like to do is the following.
Ryax:If you would like a chance to win yourself a t shirt, I would love you to tell us which Zim Lingo phrase you would pick and wear. Right? And so you go to the website and there's a menu called Zim Lingo And just check out the t shirts. They're all there. And choose the one that you think would be a match for you.
Ryax:And then I'd like you to think of someone who you know that would also love that same phrase or design, and then tag them as well. And that way, you win a t shirt for them and for yourself if you are selected. So the best way to do this and to enter is basically follow us on Instagram or Facebook, whichever one you're using. If you're using both, that would be great to follow us on both. And share your chosen Zim Lingo design, right, on your wall or your page, whatever you're doing, and tag us so that we can see.
Ryax:And also tag your friend so they can see what the prize is that is on offer. And then once we select a winner, then we can basically, yeah, get in touch with you and let you know and then find out where to send your prize. Now what's important is to know that you have to be in one of the regions that we are able to ship in. So you can enter this competition if you are in Europe or Scandinavia, if you are in Australia or New Zealand, if you're in The US or Canada, if you're in Japan, Mexico, or The UAE. So these are the places that we can ship to at the moment.
Ryax:So make sure that you are able to receive your prize if you would like to enter. And apart from that, yeah, that is basically what we'll do next, and, so keep an eye out for that one. Share this podcast with your Zim friends as I was saying earlier. That would be amazing. And otherwise, until next time, see you soon.
Ryax:So stay tuned and see you just now.