Pediatric AIDS conference, Harare

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This week I was invited to speak on behalf of ZACH (Zimbabwe Association of Church Hospitals) at an International Pediatric AIDS conference.  The theme was “Start Free, Be Free, and Stay Free.”  I presented preliminary studies of our research project looking at 307 kids in our area and how well they are doing on drugs.

We are proud to say that we have had not one baby born to an HIV positive mom this year that was positive so far this year.  The government has set this as their goal for 2020 and we have already reached it!

The conference was a good time to see many old friends and talk to other people working in the field.  We were the only hospital that presented as all of the other presentations were from NGOs doing work in the country.

The conference was all day Thursday and Friday and so Major and I came in Wednesday so he could pick up a truck we had in the shop here.  He picked it up and called me 15 minutes later and said he had only made it about 5 miles from the shop and it broke down.  They came and towed the truck back to the shop and Major spent the night and took my Jeep home on Thursday morning and is coming back tomorrow to try and pick up the fixed truck again!  Then we will both head for home.

Friday night I had dinner with Dr. David Katzenstein from Stanford and his colleagues to discuss our research.  Also Dr. Megan Fitzpatrick had been to Chidamoyo for 2 days while I was in town setting up her research project so she came with Matt and we got to hear about her time at Chidamoyo.

Saturday and Sunday I worked on cleaning and sorting at my townhouse and shopping.  Actually having time to go row by row instead of the usual rush.

Today I went out to get things for the hospital and get my veges so that after I see my doctor in the morning I can take off for home!  We have had a couple of hours of rain here since I came which is nice, as I got to plant some more plants in the yard and they got a good soaking from the rain the same night!

Happy Thanksgiving to everyone this week!  Enjoy and have lots of turkey for me.  We hope to have ours next week after Michael gets back from school on Friday this week!  He always complains he misses it—so we will do it late for him!  No turkey here so we eat chicken!

 AIDS Conference in Harare

 Mrs. Chitimberi from ZACH telling how much mission hospitals are doing towards the fight against AIDS

 


 Planting new flowers and plants at the townhouse in Harare

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