Happy Easter and Merry Christmas in April

-

Easter was a busy weekend here for us.  On Friday, the start of Easter 4 day holiday here, and our 34th Independence Day, we had a container arrive from the US.  It is always quite a job to unload it from the truck to our ground without a crane.  It involves our tractor pulling with chains and piece of old pipe to keep it rolling and a pit the truck backs up into to be level with the ground!  It is too scary for me to watch most of the time!
Saturday the Natomos team of Linda, Mercy, Elsa and Brandon helped to teach the kids during our church conference.  They did lessons, crafts, soccer and drama with them.  They all had a great time.
Sunday morning we had Easter sunrise service that started at 6 a.m. and went until 9 a.m.  Then we came home to cook Easter dinner and 13 people came to eat.  The Easter bunny even found us out in the bush and delivered some chocolate eggs.
We left after lunch for Harare with our team who was leaving the next day for the US.  We enjoyed an Italian restaurant for dinner.  The next morning we spent at the flea market negotiating and buying, buying.  Then they went back to the flat to pack up and we took them to the airport that evening.
Major and I spent the next day running around getting things for the hospital.  We had quite a list and finally left Harare just after 6 p.m.  We arrived home at 11:30 p.m. exhausted and up at 6 for work the next morning.
Yesterday afternoon we opened the container and started to unpack a bit.  It takes lots of time to get it all out and then unpack each of the boxes and barrels.  We unpacked about 1/4 of the container and we have plenty to put away already.
This morning the solar team arrived to install my solar panels for my battery back-up to give me lights and some plugs that will work when ZESA is off.  I had the back-up system for over a year and love it--now it is being charged by solar so even if we have no ZESA for a day it will charge my batteries.  Of course it rained hard for 2 hours while they were working.  Our raining season continues.
I was able to harvest my field 2 weeks ago and got almost 1 ton of maize for the hospital this year.  The youth group took a Saturday to go and pick it all.  They had a great time and got it all done.  We have had some of the pregnant mothers from Masasa who are waiting to deliver their baby pull it off the cob and put it in bags.

Mercy coloring and putting on stickers

Elsa helping with the kids
Easter dinner
 Easter dinner

 Kathy with Natomos team

10,000 liters of diesel arriving and being put into our storage tanks
 Major opening container
Unpacking container
 Putting the solar panels on my roof at home


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

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