Good week at Chidamoyo

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Last night we got electricity back at 11:08 p.m.!  In the last 32 days we have had electricity 1 ½ days in between blackouts of 14 days and 16 days!  We began to think it would never come back!


Since we got back from the US 10 days ago, I got my first warm shower this morning!  I stayed in longer than usual just to enjoy it!  I could move fridge things back to the fridge from the freezer and clean out all the fridges and freezers that had not been working!  Of course we always lose some food.  I have one freezer that keeps very frozen if you don’t open it a lot and my fridge in the kitchen works on my solar back-up at least most of the day.  We have been having rain (yeah!) so the cloudy days don’t help to charge my back-up well and it runs out by 7 p.m. each day and comes on with the sun about 8 a.m.


This past week on Friday we got our solar back-up working at the hospital for the first time in months!  Friends of Chidamoyo in Seattle helped us to put in a bigger and better system with more panels and more batteries!  Since then the hospital has had electricity 24/7 and we even did a C/Section without turning our generator on—yeah!  The night duty staff was so happy—they were jumping up and down and ululating a lot when it came on!  Now they can do deliveries with strong lightening instead of candles or solar lights—that always go out quickly!  We are so thankful and this is a real blessing to us.  Before this came about we were using a lot of diesel to get our lab tests and X-rays done each day and surgery cases.  Now I have a fan blowing in my office all the time—wow what a JOY that is in our hot summer weather.


This week has not been so busy at the hospital so we have had time to catch up on paper work and other business.  We are thankful for that!  We have started putting the toilets and walls in the new Waiting Mothers Shelter which should be opened soon for use.


How great is to have some rain.  The two weeks we were gone they had a lot of rain.  After we got back it has continued and almost every 2 days we get a downpour.  My maize is looking good and we are eating some green mealies from it today.  My Sorghum is excellent—now just to keep the birds away from it!  Pray for the rest of the country which is not getting rain and there are no crops.  


We have started a drought relief fund and are feeding many of our churches a meal every Sunday after church of cornmeal and fish for $15 for 50 people.  This one good protein meal a week is helping many.  If you wish to help with this please send money to Sue Beckstead P.O. Box 714 Sebastopol, CA  95473-0714 and mark it drought relief.  This will be a big help to many of our drought areas.

Grandmother taking care of her grandchild at the hospital


Raining hard in my yard this week




Comments

  1. UnknownApril 6, 2016 at 5:20 AM

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  2. Ann WunderlinApril 13, 2016 at 6:11 AM

    Great news on the solar panels. We really liked out with you electricity when we were there. Glad to hear the walls and toilets are going into the shelter. And most of all thrilled that you have rain. Thanks as always for the stories, Kathy!

    ReplyDelete

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