Blogs from Bulawayo, Zimbabwe, Africa - page 3

Botswana April 26 Botswana is where we went for an overnight trip. Batswana is another country next to Zimbabwe. We went there to get money for our tour on May 3rd; we can’t get American money in Bulawayo. Anyway, when we got there most…well all of the banks were closed. Of course, none of us thought to use the bank machines. We searched around for a place to stay that was cheap enough that we could pay with the little pulas we had already. We hand’t found a room to stay in so we were gonna camp. But we didn’t have a tent so we asked Aruna to ask her cousin for a tent to borrow. He didn’t have one. But, he offered to let us stay at his house. Now what we worried about was ... read more

Isaiah’s House of Love April 24 Yesterday and today we went to Isaiah’s House of Love. Isaiah’s House of Love is a orphanage for babies up to three and a half years old. Until then they encourage people to adopt them. If they are not adopted by then they are takin in by the S.O.S children’s villages but are still able to be adopted. The youngest child under the care of IHOL is just two weeks old and staying in the hospital. In most cases of babies being abandoned the mother comes to the hospital, gives birth, and leaves! And the nurses in the hospital don’t even think of feeding the babies or changing their diapers, they just give them their medication and leave them, the children sped their days sitting in a bed… Some of ... read more

April 21, 2007 Kame Ruins. On Saturday Pastor Bonani and his wife Perseverance took a trip out to Kame Ruins, some spell it Khayme Ruins. It was a nice day out there viewing the ancient walls and in their small onsite museum there were artifacts from the stone age when the Bushmen occupied the area. Cindy, I found that game you asked me about, the one with the glass beads. Dakotah knows how to play it. This park once again describes how the Bushman tribe was pushed out of their lands by other tribes. This one though was from the North. They built platforms on the slopes and hills out of what look like bricks. These bricks are actually brick shaped pieces of rock. The granite rock of this area fractures in layers with the ... read more

April 20th, 2007 Khayelihle Children’s Village We were not quite prepared today as we didn’t really know what we were going to encounter. We should have brought a storybook or something. I brought balloons and read them stories from the books that the children had and they taught us some games. It was worth it meeting the children and seeing how well taken care of they are there. I blew up the balloons and handed them out and they proceeded to untie them and play with them. Khayelihle (ky-leet-ley) Children’s Village is an orphanage operated by the Church of Christ. They get the majority of funding through Churches of Christ in United States, New Zealand and Australia. The orphanage is set up like a village which has different homes and a house mother. There are ... read more

Last days of camp April 16 Camp is now over, The last few days were very hectic, time was the biggest issue. Masiye camp is meant to be an eight day program (at least) but this time it had to be fitted into three days. Usually the first three days would be spent getting to know your group, and then the next five days would be spent doing the tree of life exercises. But, what really happened was we did two days of getting to know each other, then we squeezed the whole eight days of tree of life into the last day. But luckily at least one of the campers in my group opened up on the last day. It was heart breaking to hear, but at least he told us. My birthday April 17 ... read more