THANKSGIVING, STUDENTS LEAVE, AIDS SUPPORT GROUP FOR KIDS AND CHRISTMAS DECORATING!

-

This week we had many activities besides our work at the hospital.  Last weekend we had a great 3 days of rain and then it turned hot and dry the rest of the week!

On Wednesday the new "Bond" note that is the equivalent to US dollars was released in Zimbabwe.  It is only to use in Zimbabwe and is designed to get us out of the cash crisis we are in now.  We started to see them here by the end of the week.

Wednesday evening we decided to have our Thanksgiving dinner (6 days late) as everyone was here and in Zimbabwe we can choose the date to celebrate since it is not a holiday here. Michael, Major's son, had made us promise to wait until he got home from college to have it since he enjoys eating so much!   We had chicken (turkey is hard to come by here and expensive) and all the trimming, even some Cranberry sauce sent from the US and pumpkin pies and green bean casserole and many more dishes.  There were 16 of us to eat.  They all stuffed themselves and enjoyed!

On Thursday our three medical students from University of Zimbabwe, Ruvimbo, Vimbai and Tariro left for Harare after finishing 3 1/2 weeks here seeing rural medicine as part of their studies.  They enjoyed the Thanksgiving dinner before they left.


Thursday morning we had 2 special guests drops by.  Gloria Mukuze who is an ICU nurse in Santa Rosa, CA and her sister Solace Mukuze , who is an ER nurse in Melbourne,  Australia stopped by to say hi.  Their mom and home are in Mawhada about 40 minutes away.  Their older sister Cynthia teaches at the High School here.  Gloria hasn't been home in 15 years and so she is enjoying seeing everything again and all the changes!  These are my nieces through my sister Sylvia Majoni Brown who lives in Santa rosa.

On Friday Carolyn and Nancy began putting up my Christmas decorations.  They got a lot done and I continued on Saturday and Sunday and almost have my house in order.  I have a lot of decorations and lights!  I even started some Christmas baking!

On Saturday morning we had our AIDS support group for 5-10 year olds.  We refill their medicine, talk about adherence issues and had some video for them and then fed them mahewu (corn drink) and bread and eggs.  They enjoy this special time together.  We also have a support group for their caretakers at the same time which encourages them to take good care of their children.

It did rain hard on Saturday afternoon--we got almost an inch,  and it cooled us down for a few hours!  

The new Bond note


 University of Zimbabwe students

 Thanksgiving


 Pumpkin pie time

Solace, Kathy and Gloria

 AIDS support group for kids



 Christmas is here!





Comments

  1. australian-writingsFebruary 16, 2017 at 6:21 AM

    Christmas is one of the most fantastic event that came after a year and we wait for it throughout the year and these are mind blowing and lovely photography.really like it :)

    ReplyDelete

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

Enjoyable time away at Rhino Camp

-
Image
On Monday the 27th of July, Major and Patience and I left Chidamoyo for 4 days at Rhino Camp.  Its a 4 hour drive to Kariba and then a 1 hour boat drive down to Rhino Camp.  We arrived to large groups of hippo all around and some elephants munching the grass. Major and Patience went fishing twice a day and I went out on a game ride once each evening.  In the morning I enjoyed just sitting in the sun and reading my book while elephants walked by in front of me, munching grass. It was a wonderful and relaxing time.  Just a good time to get away and enjoy a change of scenery during Covid. Fishing wasn't that good for Major and Patience but they caught enough for all of us at camp to have fresh fried Bream for our last dinner there.  Major doesn't eat fish but the rest of it loved it! We returned home on Thursday afternoon.  Zimbabwe had started a very strict lockdown again due to Covid.  Now people have to have a letter from work to travel or otherwise stay at home. You must wear
Read more

Covid-19--The world has changed

-
Image
Throughout the world we are all facing big changes in our life.   Many are on self-quarantine; many are staying home because their state has been put on lock-down and all of us are trying to avoid getting this flu. It has hit Zimbabwe.   We have 5 confirmed cases—1 death and 1 doctor at Harare Hospital, in Zimbabwe.   They supposedly have only tested 150 people and as all of you are aware the results take 5+ days.  The tests are only available in Harare. We have few test kits in the country, no PPE and so nurses started a country wide strike today which means most hospitals are totally shut down.   Our local district hospital—which is our only other hospital in the district besides us—sent a message today to not send any patients as they were closed!   With no PPE you can’t blame people who make little money stopping work.   We hope it will cause some action from the government and not for them to continue to be quiet! We do have PPE here thanks to many donations from
Read more