Chidamoyo Hospital in Zimbabwe

Christmas started here on the 20 th of December at 7 p.m. when we met for caroling at the hospital.  We start with a few people and as we go around more people join us.  It rained that afternoon so we had about 8 of us to start but ended up with more than 30.  We sang in each hospital ward and gave out sweets to everyone.  We then went to staff housing, waiting mother’s shelter and more staff housing.  We got our walk in for the day and ended about 9:30 p.m. On the 21 st of December we had our annual Christmas lunch and party for all the staff at the hospital.  We close our Outpatient Department at 1 p.m. and then gather in our dining room for an afternoon of fun. We served chicken, beef, rice, sadza, coleslaw and potatoes this year and people ate and ate until they were so full. I made 6 chocolate cakes for desert and they ate then all too. We then did some questions with prizes that got some very funny answers. We end the party with all he staff getting a bag full of

Well it has been a busy 3 weeks since I wrote so lots to catch up on.  We have been on the go and keeping very busy with the countdown to Christmas.  Emily helped me to get the decorations up on the 2nd of December--she decorated the tree.  We are all decorated and ready for the whole month to celebrate! On December 4, Michael Mereki, arrived home for Christmas holidays from University in South Africa.  It is always great to have him home and an extra driver to help us out at the hospital.  I have been putting him to work driving and helping Emily and I to get our outreach Viral Loads done at our ART clinics we do away from the hospital.  The first time he took us we had a flat tire on the way home so it was great he was with us to change it! On December 4 our research team from Harare and Stanford came out for 2 days to work on all the details for our study which should start in January.  Dr. David Katzenstein from Stanford is our Principle Investigator and we enjoyed are talks