Chidamoyo Hospital in Zimbabwe

It has been a whirlwind last couple of weeks and throw in many days of no electricity, it is hard to get a blog out!  We got electricity back after 6 days off, yesterday  at 4:45 p.m. and at 6 p.m. it was turned off for load shedding!  Then back on at 9 p.m. and off by 5:00 a.m. for more load shedding--saving 6 days of no electricity doesn't count!  Then it was off from 5 a.m. Friday morning until 9 p.m. Friday night and off at 4 a.m. this morning because another fault!  Yikes!  Trying to find electricity and water at the same time to do laundry for 7 people have been my big challenge! On Thursday the 29th of January I went with Carolyn Mereki (Major's 17 y/o daughter) and her cousin Nancy (19 years old) to pack up and get ready for our move to our new townhouse, in Harare.  We spent all day packing and sorting and throwing away a lot of 17 years of accumulation of stuff.  Many visitors had left things they couldn't get into their suitcase at t...

Last Saturday afternoon I drove to Batanai to deliver some fertilizer for my field.  I arrived just in time for a heavy rain storm.  Then we heard the MP (Minister of Parliament) for our area was having a meeting with the local community at Batanai, so we went to see him.  We were able to give him an update on the rebuilding of the kitchen/laundry at the hospital, and ask for more money to continue the project.   Then I drove home and got home to Day 4 with no electricity at Chidamoyo! My solar was out because it had been cloudy and rainy all day.  I watched a video on my computer and went to bed early! The rainy season and electricity seem not to be able to go together here--so everytime it rains we hold our breath because the electricity usually goes out and we never know for how many days!  We finally got electricity back on Monday--Day 6.  We all shouted for joy!  Makes life so good when it comes back! My kitchen remodel continues on. ...

This week the construction company came back to begin work on the fire damaged buildings again.  It has been 4 months that we have been waiting for money and for supplies.  We are happy to see them working again.  They have put up the trusses and blunderings for the roof.  They have been doing the beam filling in preparation for the roof.  We continue to pray that the money will keep coming and that we will be able to have a new kitchen and laundry this year. The rains continue and it is so great to be seeing green and crops growing so well this year.  We are so thankful for our new mower bought by the UK Trust last year that we can keep the grass low and free of hiding snakes around the mission.  We continue to pray that people will have a good harvest this year. On Monday I went to Harare to sign the final papers on the townhouse Sylvia and I bought in Harare.  We are so excited.  It was a long struggle for 5 months to get all the pap...

New Years eve we brought in the New Year 2015 with a church service and fireworks at midnight.  The church was packed and we had a band that played church songs and lots of people in the community came to hang out to wait until midnight.  The firework show brought in the new year and everyone went home at 1 a.m. to sleep. I spent NY Day doing rounds at the hospital and then came home to take decorations down and put them away for another year. We had some big storms since 2015 began and good rain.  There was so much rain one day that the fields between Karoi and Chinhoyi filled to overflowing and blocked the road for several hours so no traffic could get to Harare or the boarder.  Cars that tried to pass got swept into fast flowing rivers and a big truck even got swept it was so powerful.  Our doctor was trying to go to Harare for a few days and had to come back and try again 3 days later. The planned remodeling of my kitchen has started.  The first...

We have had a busy few days before and after Christmas.  We hope all of you had a great celebration of the birth of Jesus and that 2015 will be a great year for you and us! We went on 3 days of safari with our visitors from the University of Washington Physical Therapy team on the 19-21of December.  We enjoyed some very close encounters with elephants and saw a lot of other animals.  We had a great time and saw them off for home on the 22nd of December.  Major and I drove straight home after sending them off at the airport and got home at 1:15 a.m. in time to be up by 5 a.m. and planning of our staff Christmas party and a busy day at work since the 22nd was a holiday here. On the 24th we worked half a day and then started our staff party with about 80 of our staff attending.  It rained on and off during the party, but everyone had fun.  We served a lunch of beef and rice and coleslaw and cake.  Everyone ate until they were overfull.  We then ...

We had a great trip to South Africa.  We shopped and ate a lot and saw a movie.  We got caught in a power outage in a major mall one day which shut down everything.  At least here in Zimbabwe all our stores have back-up generators in case their our power shut down, but in South Africa they are not prepared. We got home at 2 p.m. and at 5 p.m. we were back at the airport to pick up Ann Wunderlin from Seattle and the Lake Union Crew Team.  They are a non-profit group that has chosen us as their project in 2015.  They will be building a new Waiting Mothers Shelter that will house 60 women under 1 roof.  She came to pick the building site and to peg it out.  We discussed a lot of the logistics for the team that will in December 2015 to build the unit along side volunteers from here.  It will take 5-6 weeks.  We are so thankful for their big help for this project and wish them well as they start their fundraising. Ann left on Wednesday evenin...