Chidamoyo Hospital in Zimbabwe

Some days it is not hard to know I am in Africa. Today I spent the whole day starting AIDS patients on ART (drugs to treat it). When doing a history on one of the patient’s they named their 6 children: #1—Pride #2-Perserverance #3 - Purposes #4-Prejudice #5-Polite #6-Pretend Where else but Zimbabwe can you get such wonderful names? Then on my way to the Lab a patient stopped me and needed her VD taken. When I said VD—she said yes VD and when I looked at her card she was a hypertension patient and I figured out she meant Bp! As I keep the office doors open where I am counseling and the open to our outside courtyard, a chicken wandered in today. Not something you normally notice in a hospital in the US—I wonder if they are JACHO approved. Then I went to the outpatient department and saw a person sitting with his chicken in his hands—to pay for any drugs ordered and another one had left a pig tied outside for the same reason and we could hear it squealing throughout the hospital! Does he ...

HAPPY NEW YEAR—2010! Well today is January 2 and so far it has been uneventful New Year. We closed out-patients on NY Eve at 1 p.m. and finally got to go home about 2 p.m. for the day. I spent the rest of the day taking down Christmas decorations (5 big plastic bins) and my tree—by 6 p.m. 5 guys came to carry it and my tree off to my store room. As I get older is sure is nice to have help in carrying those heavy boxes! At 7:00 p.m. we started movie night at the church. They watched 9 to 5 and then a Jet Lee Kung-Fu which was the hit with everyone. The church was packed and people even looking in the windows! We had a church service from 11-12 to ring in the New Year and at 12 they beat the church bell and blew the horn on the truck! It was nice to see the community come to some family time instead of going to the township and drinking to bring in another year! Friday I took the day off and Lori went to the hospital and I continued to take down decorations and clean my house. I was swea...

Well Christmas 2009 has come and gone. We enjoyed many activities which included our local community. On Wed December 16 we started with the movie “The Nativity” and then had to cancel the movie on December 18th due to a heavy storm. Our chapel is still full of our bartered food for hospital services so we have to show the movies at my outside movie theater and so if it rains we have to cancel! We did show a movie on Saturday the 19th and on Sunday the 20th the youth group did a drama for the crowd who came to church on Sunday night at the hospital. On Monday the 21st and Tuesday the 22nd we showed Christmas movies and then on the 23rd we went caroling around the mission. The tradition here is that we start with a small group and as we go house to house those people join us—so by the time we finished we had over 200! We gave sweets to all who came! Tuesday the electricity went off and has not come back since. We sent people on Wed and Thurs to get ZESA workers to fix the problem but al...