Life in the African bush continues
It has been awhile since I have written but life continues on. Sometimes it is discouraging, but we manage to keep going. In Zimbabwe we keep going on hoping for change and always “making a plan!” We manage to roll with the punches and keep coming up. Reminds me of those inflatable bozo clowns we had when we were kids, with weights in the bottom. You punch him and he comes right back up and always with a smile on his face!
The hospital work continues to be a challenge. First we almost ran out of TB drugs—and all there is nothing you can substitute and it is important not to stop treatment and cause resistant TB. No one seemed to have any. We “borrowed” some from Makonde Hospital and we have enough for 1 month and assurances that more are on the way “soon.” Of course we have a lot of assurances for many things in Zimbabwe and they never seem to materialize—so we don’t hold our breath anymore because people aren’t going to revive us from all our apnea spells!
Next we had a shortage of IV’s—not something a hospital can generally do without. Even private companies had nothing we could buy. A week later we found 400 bottles in a storeroom that someone had put them in and we had forgotten about! God provided just when we needed and it was under our nose all the time! They won’t last long and we keep hoping for more!
Our container of equipment and supplies from the US was sent on 22-February-2010 and is on the way here. We are anxiously awaiting its arrival. Pray for everything to go well and it will arrive safely without delays. We have a team in May arriving to unpack it for us—yeah! We have already started to collect more things for the next container and so keep sending any donations to Sue and Gene in Sebastopol. Their garage was cleared for all of about 1 day before they got more things in!
This past weekend Major, Lori, Gladys and I travelled to Hwange and The Hide for a 3 day safari to celebrate Karen Pennington’s birthday. I won’t mention it is her 60th! Ivan and JoAnne Martin joined us for 2 of the days. We had a wonderful time celebrating and had many game drives to enjoy animals and birds—check out my pictures! The last night we had a special birthday dinner in the “bush” and found out a big male lion was watching the celebrations from the shadows! That was exciting—especially to Major who had gone to the bathroom during the dinner—near the paw prints!
Our drive back was a big African Adventure—taking the Binga road (it runs the length of the western part of the country). We had tar for 4 hours and then 8 ½ hours of dirt. It had rained in the 3 days since we drove on it and it was a mess! We ended up in 2 feet of water when our car went off the road in the mud, got pulled out with a short rope and lorry—in the middle of nowhere and used 4 wheel drive on and off for the next 4 hours of terrible muddy road! It was really an adventure! I am sure you are all wishing you could have been with us! Next time I am flying-ha!
We have had some rain this week after nothing for 2 weeks so we were thinking the rainy season was over, but it is still here. It has been hot in between but already getting cooler at night. It was 66 one morning this week when I got up and so winter seems to be on the way.
Hey I read an excellent book recently about conditions in Zimbabwe from 2002-2006 and want to share it with you “The Last Resort” by Douglas Rogers. See what you think…
The hospital work continues to be a challenge. First we almost ran out of TB drugs—and all there is nothing you can substitute and it is important not to stop treatment and cause resistant TB. No one seemed to have any. We “borrowed” some from Makonde Hospital and we have enough for 1 month and assurances that more are on the way “soon.” Of course we have a lot of assurances for many things in Zimbabwe and they never seem to materialize—so we don’t hold our breath anymore because people aren’t going to revive us from all our apnea spells!
Next we had a shortage of IV’s—not something a hospital can generally do without. Even private companies had nothing we could buy. A week later we found 400 bottles in a storeroom that someone had put them in and we had forgotten about! God provided just when we needed and it was under our nose all the time! They won’t last long and we keep hoping for more!
Our container of equipment and supplies from the US was sent on 22-February-2010 and is on the way here. We are anxiously awaiting its arrival. Pray for everything to go well and it will arrive safely without delays. We have a team in May arriving to unpack it for us—yeah! We have already started to collect more things for the next container and so keep sending any donations to Sue and Gene in Sebastopol. Their garage was cleared for all of about 1 day before they got more things in!
This past weekend Major, Lori, Gladys and I travelled to Hwange and The Hide for a 3 day safari to celebrate Karen Pennington’s birthday. I won’t mention it is her 60th! Ivan and JoAnne Martin joined us for 2 of the days. We had a wonderful time celebrating and had many game drives to enjoy animals and birds—check out my pictures! The last night we had a special birthday dinner in the “bush” and found out a big male lion was watching the celebrations from the shadows! That was exciting—especially to Major who had gone to the bathroom during the dinner—near the paw prints!
Our drive back was a big African Adventure—taking the Binga road (it runs the length of the western part of the country). We had tar for 4 hours and then 8 ½ hours of dirt. It had rained in the 3 days since we drove on it and it was a mess! We ended up in 2 feet of water when our car went off the road in the mud, got pulled out with a short rope and lorry—in the middle of nowhere and used 4 wheel drive on and off for the next 4 hours of terrible muddy road! It was really an adventure! I am sure you are all wishing you could have been with us! Next time I am flying-ha!
We have had some rain this week after nothing for 2 weeks so we were thinking the rainy season was over, but it is still here. It has been hot in between but already getting cooler at night. It was 66 one morning this week when I got up and so winter seems to be on the way.
Hey I read an excellent book recently about conditions in Zimbabwe from 2002-2006 and want to share it with you “The Last Resort” by Douglas Rogers. See what you think…
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