Back in Zimbabwe

-

Major and I arrived back safe and sound at 5 p.m. on Tuesday evening.  It was a long flight—25 hours total but we had an overnight break of 14 hours in Dubai which helped a lot to have slept in a bed and got to eat dinner and breakfast before heading out on the flight again!


We arrived in the middle of rush hour and it took us an hour to get across town.  Then we stopped for groceries and were on our way to Chidamoyo at 7:30 p.m.  We got in at 12:30 a.m. Wednesday morning and welcome back to Zimbabwe—there was no electricity for the past 5 days!  


We were at work the next morning and from then on it has been busy and back into the routine of life at Chidamoyo.  We were informed a team from Global Fund was coming for an audit on Friday and everyone was so nervous!  


Thursday the solar team from Chinhoyi showed up to get our solar back-up  running again.  They worked until Friday and got it going—good thing still no electricity from ZESA—but today they are sorting out some issues with it.


We called ZESA to ask when they thought our line would be fixed and they argued with us that we had electricity.  We told them we did not and they said but we fixed it a week ago!  Major informed them that it only last for 1 ½ days and when it rained a line fell again!  They asked us if we were sure (we were sitting in the dark!) and Major assured them we were sure—so maybe today they might start working on it!  Of course we had called them for the past 5 days to get the same answer “we are working on it” when in fact they weren’t!


The audit on Friday went very well and was helpful to us.  They were only here for 3 hours and left and they had helpful comments to run some of our programs better and were very happy with what they saw.  We breathed a sigh of relief!


Today is a bright and sunny day—but the ground is still very wet from the rain they had when we were gone.  Some of our crops will be salvaged from the drought but the southern part of the country is really suffering.


Finally got most of my suitcases unpacked and now sorted and ready to put away! The hardest part of coming home—putting things away!

 Rush hour in Harare!


Putting in the new batteries for the solar system




Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Unpacking cintainer, interviewing a new doctor

-
Image
It has been busy this week unpacking the container that arrived recently.  We have been unloading it a truck load at a time and bringing it up to the hospital to unload.  Carolyn Mereki has been helping to unload and sort and then she delivers it to the different departments. We are really happy with a lot of good supplies that we are unpacking to use at the hospital. We are putting the barrels and boxes in the hallway outside my office and opening them when we have time.  It is always fun to see what we get! On Friday this week we traveled to Kadoma (1 hour south of Harare), about 4 1/2 hour drive for us.  We met up with Mashoko administration to interview 6 people for jobs at Chidamoyo and Mashoko as doctors.  We have tentatively made decisions, but have another 2 people to interview--so please pray with us that we choose the right doctor. The doctor strike continues since 1 March.  No settlement and government hospitals only doing emergencies so we can't really refer o
Read more
-
Image
 I stopped chemo in mid-February and the oncologist tried a period of Immunotherapy by itself to see if it would work.  In March I started to produce a lot of abdominal fluid (ascities) and had to go to the hospital every 2 weeks and then every week to be tapped to remove the fluid.  They got off up to 8.8 liters a time which gave me a few days relief before it would come back.  It made it hard to breathe without laying on my sides and I couldn't really eat without pain. So, I was in bed a lot of the time. They decided I needed to start Chemo again with the Immunotherapy.  My Oncologist said it was not time to give up yet!  He said the chemo helped before to shrink the tumor a bit so they felt if I could shrink it again I wouldn't have to go for tapping.  I was all for that. He did remind me there is no cure only remission and that I have months not years to live but he felt there were other drugs to try if these don't work.  I am usually not in pain so I am so thankful for
Read more

Happy Boxing Day

-
Image
Our Christmas dinner theme was Hawaiian Retro Christmas--so we had dress 1950's Hawaii. Michael, Major's son decided to add some tummy to his costume to look like his Dad! Enjoy these pictures!
Read more