Happy February!

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It has been a busy time here at Chidamoyo.  Work at the hospital always keeps us busy and work at home with little electricity also keeps us busy.  My main occupation is moving food items from freezer to freezer to keep them cold and frozen when our electricity goes out for days at a time!  It is always exciting to be cooking a meal and the electricty goes off so you switch everything to the gas stove and 15 minutes later the electricity comes back on and do you go back to the electric stove to save on your gas or just continue? These are some of life's big questions we face each day!
We had 2 medical students from Ohio State University who joined us on the 13th of January for 2 weeks.  John and JP (also Jon) are 4th year students ready to go on to residency programs in July.  We had a great time with them and enjoyed their enthusiasm and sense of adventure.
We sent them to Batanai one Saturday to work weeding in my maize field with the youth group!  They were aching from that for awhile!
They head home today and land in NYC in time for the blizzard!  They are driving from NJ to Ohio and hope to be back on rotations early Monday morning-ha!
A couple of weekends ago I went into Harare to meet friends Ben and Karen Pennington who minister in Masvingo (3 hours south of Harare).  their daughter Sarah and granddaughter Seanna were visiting for a month.  We were able to go out to dinner and visit with them before Sarah and Seanna headed for home. 
We have started work on the new borehole.  Dion Hausbrook came out to survey and verify where there is water to put the new borehole.
Well last Monday morning at 1:30 a.m. the Super Bowl was played.  Unfortunately we couldn't tape it or watch it as we had no electricity and our battery back-up was dead.  I did get to catch the last 5 minutes during the lunch the next day!  Too bad the 9ers lost--I was cheering them on!
On Thursday here it is known as CD4 days.  All of our AIDs patients need to be followed with a blood test called a CD4.  If they are already on treatm,ent they get a test once a year to see if they are getting better or we may need to switch their meds.  New patients need a CD4 to know when we need to start them on medication.  We start at 0700 every Thursday drawing blood and running about 50-100 samples.  Then we spend the rest of the day getting results and acting on them.  We usually have about 10 new people to start that day.
This week one of the patients showed up with a very interesting hat.  I am sure he had no idea what it said in English but he thought it was a great buy at the flea market!
John and JP at work

 JP doing a spinal tap
Dion marking the borehole spot
 Major saying goodbye to John and JP
 Sarah and daughter Seanna
Grandpa Ben with Seanna

 Patient and his hat!
Go 9er's!
 

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