our adventures and wanderings

As we have mentioned a couple times, we spent most of our time at Chidamoyo helping teach English at Dandawa High School. This was a new experience for us as we are both elementary teachers. We taught students in Form 1 and Form 2 in "small" groups ranging from about 8 to 20. Coming here, we didn't really know what exactly we were going to be doing. We just figured we would fly by the seat of our pants for awhile until we would figure it out, and that is exactly what we did. One of our "small" groups  Our very first lessons we just introduced ourselves and tried to gauge how well the students could speak English. The first couple days we were faced with a lot of blank stares and confused looks. We would soon learn that a big part of this was our accents. It was pretty tough for the students to understand us and they were also nervous to speak to us. After having them write, we found out that their English was better than we thought, and they just weren...

Dad, Amy, and Grandpa On Wednesday, July 8th, Major & I picked my dad, my aunt, and my Grandpa up from the airport in Harare. As I waited for them in the airport, I was filled with anticipation. I could not wait to experience everything with them. They hadn't been to Zimbabwe since 1978. That's 37 years! And yet, in those 37 years of being away, each one of them spoke often of Zimbabwe. Zimbabwe forever changed each of their lives and would always be treasured by each of them.  I was beyond excited to see them. We headed back on the long, five hour journey to Chidamoyo. Major introducing the family at the hospital The next morning, we woke early to eat breakfast and have devotions at the hospital. Dad, Aunt Amy, and Grandpa were introduced to the patients and the hospital staff. After that, we headed to Dandawa Primary School (which my Grandpa built, Chidamoyo's local primary school). We toured the school and then they put on a wonderful program for us. Ther...

June 30th Journal Entry: The Smoke that Thunders. Holy smokes. Most unbelievable part of creation I have ever been able to witness. It dwarfs Niagara, and the land around it has been respected more. The first part you see when you walk up is the Devil's Cataract, which is the fall in the corner and it just roars powerfully along the edge as it banks the water down to the bottom. From this viewpoint, you can also see part of the main falls which are clearly huge, but you don't realize how wide they are until you keep going. Multiple viewpoints later I was still saying, "we still cant see the end of it," stunned. There were baboons everywhere along the paths. They do not fear humans one bit. At the second or third lookout there was a little mist, but I felt some more water hitting me than just mist. I looked up confused and saw that a baboon was peeing from the top of a tree. Seriously... a baboon peed on me. He got Rileigh too. I was disgusted but thought it w...

Mom and Dad Giraffe On Thursday, June 25th, Michael Mereki drove John, Rachel and I to Harare. We needed to renew our visitor's visas and pick up a new guest, April, before we flew to Victoria Falls. While we were in Harare, Michael needed to run some errands for Chidamoyo. But, there is another car in Harare and Kathy graciously told us we could drive it (thankfully, an automatic, so John could drive). So, on Thursday, when we arrived, John and I decided to check out a place called Mukuvisi Woodlands that Michael had told us about. So, after Michael gave us some directions (which I was not sure we would be able to follow), we headed out. Thankfully, we found the place. We thought it was going to be a drive around a game park. But, when we got there, we were told that you could either horse back ride, walk, or check out the animals from a platform. Since we didn't know anything about the place, we decided to just look at the animals from the platform (plus, it was only $4)....

Dancing at church Singing at church On Sunday the 14th, I woke up and learned that we are going out for church. Church of Christ is planting a new church and we got to be there for the first Sunday. The people from Hambakwe area have been asking Kathy and Major to start a church there. It was a VERY rocky road there. I wondered if the road was just a riverbed that is dry this time of year. Anyways, church was awesome when we got there. When we pulled up, everyone started singing and dancing. Kathy said that would have been normal when Bruce and Carolyn went to a new place. They were CRAZY excited to have a new church there. Purity There was a lot of singing, dancing, and fiery preaching. One little girl, Purity, smiled at us the whole time. I started making faces back and forth with her during the sermon and an older man saw me and thought it was funny. They fed us sadza and some fish that was staring at me for lunch. When no one was looking, I let Patience (Major...

We had plans to see Harare, Mashoko, and Masvingo this week/weekend, but on our second day in Harare, Major got a call that there was a death in his family so we had to head back to Chidamoyo. We were a little disappointed that we didn't get to see the Ruins, but obviously, that is small in comparison. We had some amazing pizza in Harare at a place called Pizzazz. Major also bought us some ridiculously delicious Bar-One ice cream. We felt like we were going out in Indy! We also got to experience the Avondale flea market alone. I would still like to see the ghetto one if we had a Zimbabwean to go with us and show us around (and to help with Shona). We got some knick-knacks, a little giraffe painting, and I got a pair of pants. I learned to barter before trying stuff on. I kept trying on pants I liked and then not being able to get a good price. They definitely up the price for varungu (white people) and not knowing Shona doesn't help our case. It was pretty funny changing there....

The gate in front of Kathy's house It is difficult to sum up the first two weeks in just one post, but I will do my best. We are loving our time here. Chidamoyo Mission is located in the bush. The closest town is about 2 hours away. There is a small township, Chidamoyo Township, which is very close. There are only small shops and stands in the township. The paved roads end WAY before you reach the mission. The mission is centered around the hospital. The hospital serves close to 50,000 Zimbabweans. People come from as far as Harare (a BUMPY five hour drive) to get care at this hospital. They come to this hospital because they get better care here than at other hospitals. The hospital is kept running by many capable Zimbabwean nurses, two doctors, Kathy McCarty, Major Mereki and other staff. Kathy McCarty has been in Zimbabwe and working at the hospital for 34 years. The hospital amazes me every time I set foot there. Kathy and Major have been amazing hosts to us. They are also ...