Chidamoyo Hospital in Zimbabwe

We have been having fun visiting friends and eating wonderful food.  We got to visit with our minister who used to be at our church in Sebastopol for 30 years,  Rick Hahn.  He and wife Sue are Chidamoyo alumni and now minister in Occidental. We also went to Gene and Diane Nabor's house in Windsor for dinner.  Gene is a 1993 Chidamoyo alumni.  We made ravioli's for our dinner which was great fun. A few days later they have been evacuated. On Tuesday the 22nd of October,  Major went with Gloria, Sylvia's niece, to San Francisco to see the sights.  He enjoyed a crab sandwich and a big fudge sundae at Ghiradelli's Chocolate factory.  On Wednesday the 23rd of October Major and my brother  Dennis and his wife Kathy and my great nephew Maximo and I traveled to Fairfield for a VIP tour of the Jelly Belly factory.  We were on the floor seeing how everything is made from start to packaging.  It was so fun and then we had a nice lunch...

Major and I have been busy traveling around and visiting friends and family and enjoying many meals! On October 5 we were visited by Dr. Lisa Fitzpatrick, from Washington, DC and enjoyed having lunch with her and my family.  I met Lisa in Zimbabwe when she was in a post fellowship in Infectious Diseases and stayed at my flat in Harare 1994-1995 and again in 1998.  She got to know my family when she moved to Berkeley to work on here MPH.  We enjoyed seeing her after some years. On October 6th we spoke at Adventure Christian Church in Natomas, Sacramento, CA.  We enjoyed speaking for 2 services and staying for a lunch with church members.  They blessed Major and I with some spending money and we headed that afternoon for Bass Pro Shop and Major bought fishing supplies!  He had a great time seeing all of the different things in the stores and how cheap they are compared to Zimbabwe. We spent 2 nights in Sacramento so we were able to have dinner with ...

We arrived in Santa Rosa on the 24 th of September and the same day I went for an Ultrasound to get ready for my proposed surgery. On the 25 th I turned 65 years old and I celebrated all day long and went to lunch with my forwarding agents Sue and Gene Beckstead and Major.   They then dropped us off and Major and I had a pedicure.   For dinner we met up with family—10 of us—and enjoyed a beautiful steak dinner at one of my favorite places, Cattlemen's.   We came back to sister Sylvia’s house for cake, ice cream and presents! On the 27th for lunch we met up with Amanda.  She was a Chidamoyo alumni for 2003 and 2005 and then moved to Santa Rosa to become a nurse and now works at Kaiser Hospital in Santa Rosa.  We hadn't seen her in years so it was great to get to meet up with her! On the 27 th we went to Dr. Stephanie Huang’s office to get our ears clean and then out to dinner with her husband and twins, Lucas and Julian (all Chidamoyo alumni) Jef...

On Saturday the 14 th of September, Major and I flew off to Maui, Hawaii with Dr. Derick and Jo Taninguchi, Chidamoyo alumni from Seattle.   They had rented an apartment for a week and invited us to come along to celebrate my 65 th birthday!    We were so excited.   Major had never been to Hawaii and I had never been to Maui. We arrived at 1 p.m. local time and were on the beach right in front of our building within minutes!    We were on the 6 th floor with ocean views and we slept with the sliding doors open to enjoy the ocean breezes and to hear the waves as we slept! We were joined by my best friend from Nursing School, Cathy Holdener and her husband Bart who had flown over from Sacramento, CA 3 days before us and were in the same apartment building, 2 doors down from us. On Tuesday, Rachel Taninguchi, the daughter-in-law of Derick and Jo flew in from San Diego to be with us for the rest of the week.   She and her husband Kevin w...