We are home again!

-

Major and I had a whirlwind last week in Santa Rosa, CA before we headed for home on the 24th of October.  We saw many friends, ate lots of meals (Major's favorite), enjoyed some rain and had to go out of town to do shopping because of the fire that hit Santa Rosa.

We left at 1:30 p.m. from San Francisco on the 24th and flew to Hong Kong where we had 5 hours before we left for Johannesburg, SA where we had 3 hours and then arrived in Harare about 12:30 p.m. on the 26th.

We were met by Karen and Ben Pennington who left the next day for the US.  They took us to the townhouse and we had a new dining room set that Pennington's gave me as they were packing up to retire to the US.  It is beautiful teak and fits so well on the townhouse! I am really going to miss them as they w

It was 91 when we landed in Harare and so we knew it would be even hotter at Chidamoyo!  We enjoyed the air conditioned car on the way home!

Major headed for a haircut and I ran to the bank and grocery shopping.  We were surprised to find everything in the store--after some bad times when we were gone where groceries disappeared and then were limited.  I was able to get everything I needed and even fuel on the way home.

We left Harare at 7:30 p.m. and got home just before midnight.  Major drove and I tried to stay awake most of the way but quickly fell asleep on the dirt road!  It was 86 degrees at midnight!

I went to work for a few hours on Friday morning and during lunch decided to sleep and never woke up until 5:30 p.m.!  Jet lag really hit and after 3 hours up went back to bed until 4 a.m. Saturday!

Around 2 a.m. Saturday morning we got hit with a big thunder and lightening storm and then rain!  We got more than 78 mls in 12 hours!  That is 4.7 inches!  The temperature dropped from 95 to 75!  Boy did that feel good.  Of course, our electricity went off for 24 hours and just came back now!  People are now anxious to plow and get ready to plant!

After not sleeping most of the night last night--have been trying to keep awake so I can sleep tonight!  We had sunny day this morning and then cloudy this afternoon so the cool helped!

It's great to be home.  Sorry if we didn't catch up with you in the US--but know we love and appreciate all of you--it was a quick trip! They didn't think so here in Zimbabwe and felt we were gone forever!  They are very happy to have us back!



New Dining Room furniture from Pennington's

 Rain filling up Rain Gauge


 Rain flooding my backyard


Sticker given by my family to remember fire we went through--put on my kitchen window!

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