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Published: March 20th 2007
Well here is a lot of reading. I will update again in a few days to get current. Love from Dakotah and I. We are both doing well, learning lots and gaining friends for a lifetime.
All packed and ready to go -March 13, 2007
It was just after 10am when we left the house with mew in the driver seat of Dad’s truck. He had worked afternoon shift that night before so I gave him the opportunity to have a nap. The weather was beautiful leaving Kamloops and turned to a downpour through Surrey to the airport. Dad came in to the airport with us so that if I had to take some stuff out of our luggage to meet weight restrictions he could take the excess back with him. Well we pulled up to check our luggage through. The man behind that counter was so Great! I explained to him that I wanted to pick up my luggage in Heathrow so that I could ask Virgin air to check it through South Africa to Zimbabwe. Then he did just that. That was an answered prayer that I didn’t predict for sure. He sent them all the way through for us. That was so amazing, I told him I wanted to hug him. He pointed us toward the ticketing kiosk to pay for the overweight bag. There the lady wanted to “talk” to the man that checked my bags through...because they are not supposed to do that when the flights are on separate tickets. She asked me to point him out to her and he wasn’t there. I hope she didn’t find him. So, we hung out with Dad for a while since we got there earlier than early then he left with the start of tears in his eyes. Dakotah and I walked through security and checked out the new international wing, sent off some e-mails to call off the South Africa back up plan for the luggage and picked up sushi + Chinese food for dinner returning to the gate just as they called last call for boarding at our gate. I forgot to look at the boarding time instead of take off time (silly me). So we made it on the plane and they announced that they will serve dinner. Ha! All’s well! All’s good. (7pm Vancouver = 2am London time). We should arrive at 10:45 London time.
Loading for Johannesburg - March 14, 2007 6:06pm London time.
It turns out that 6 hours in Heathrow is too long. I guess the gate that our Virgin airlines plane was supposed to pull into had another plane in it so they had to shuffle the plane to a different berth resulting in our loading on the plane almost an hour late. That’s not good when we have only two hours connection time in Joburg. I am not feeling so good today. I think I’m too old for functioning on four hours of not so good sleep, and a weird meal schedule. Dakotah’s doing fine though. There was a magician at the toy store that kept her entertained. That’s a great sales technique. We finally got on the plane. There were little tvs for every seat…We got jipped on the window seat though. There’s a wall there, and the seat behind us have two windows. O well its getting dark anyway. We should arrive in Johanessburg at 7am JoBurg time (hopefully). Note to self don’t get seats 32 K+H on the way back. I hope to get more than four hours of sleep tonight.
Arrive in Bulawayo - Mar 15, 2007
Well, the anticipated worst airport transfer went the most smoothly. The flight from Heathrow to Joburg was very long and it was dark most of the way. We gained another two hours. Even though the flight left Heathrow almost an hour late we landed in Joberg on time. At Joburg airport we had plenty of time to get over to the gate. We walked right through security in the transfers section and didn’t get asked any questions didn’t get our carry-ons weighed, didn’t have to even take the laptop out of the bag. The flight into Bulawayo reminded us a lot of flying over Kamloops. It was a two hour flight in a slightly bigger, much quieter plane and flying over grasslands for part of it. The terrain here in Bulawayo is very flat with shrub plant cover and exotic pine trees planted here and there along the roads. So we landed in Bulawayo Airport, purchased our visas for 90 days, went through customs and immigration without incident. Then waited but Jenni didn’t come. They thought it was tomorrow that we arrived. A lady that works at the airport helped me to call Jenni to come and pick us up. We looked up her phone number and tracked her down. Another pastor came to get us a couple hours after arrival. Linder had kept us company after she helped me call and Dakotah got to rid in the back of the truck with the pastor’s two boys. O well we were here safe and sound and excited, and tired.
First impressions Mar 16, 2007
Dakotah had a great time discovering the things that are slightly different here than at home. One thing, old keys and locks, and glass pop bottles. Jenni seemed surprised that these things interested Kotah. Some other little things: Jenni has “house help”. Her name is Precilla, but they call her GoGo which means Grandmother. Gogo calls Jenni Mother and has been with her for 28 years since Jenni’s son was 10 months old. Gogo’s granddaughter lives with her too. Nomazulu, Noma, is eight years old. Linder, the lady we met at the airport was so nice. She sat with us and waited to make sure that somebody came to pick us up. We exchanged contact information because she might travel to Canada one day. That would be great. I got onto the e-mail last night at Jenni’s house. Jenni explained that the internet access does not cost much but the telephone usage gets charged by the minute and the rates keep going up. As well, she only uses the internet after 6pm because of the lower charges and the electricity often gets shut off around 6:30pm and the phone lines keep getting interrupted because the government is trying to put tracking devices on the land and cell lines. What else? Whole milk, deep bathtub, tricky toilet I haven’t figured out yet, water rationing so you can’t take advantage of the deep bathtub, lizards like in Thailand, and worry of fleeing. Jenni cant buy a house as it might get taken away from her since she is white.
Day 1 March 16, 2007
We woke up this morning and Jenni had been on the phone dealing with a crisis of a couple’s in her church. Jenni had to go to a meeting with the pastor and offered to drop us off at the museum or to walk around downtown. I didn’t really like the latter idea as we have not reached the comfort level to go out on our own. Then Pastor Temba called and offered to take us for the day. We went to Jenni’s church, met Pastor Wayne and waited while Jenni was in her meeting. Pastor Wayne is a great person to talk to. We discussed the state of affairs here in Zim and he pointed out that the inflation here results in everything being about 20% more expensive than the week before. Today a loaf of bread would calculate into about $2.00 US but if you compare that to the Salary of a Zim person a loaf of bread is 5% of their income. After we met up with Pastor Temba he took us with him to deliver an eight year old boy, Wilfred, and his cousin who cares for him to the hospital. This boy has aids and needed ARV treatment but didn’t get it because his cousin had just secured a job and couldn’t take him the scheduled day. His mother had moved to Botswana and his Aunts and other cousins didn’t want him. He explained to Pastor Temba that one of his aunts used to look after him but when he needed to use the toilet she would give him newspaper to wipe with and give her own children real toilet paper but this cousin really takes care of him. The hospital didn’t accept him ritght away as he would have to return for a few councelling sessions first. They gave him a prescription for thrush and let them go. The cousin came out of the doctor’s meeting hiding tears in her eyes. After the hospital Pastor Temba dropped us off at a seminar for the organization called Family Impact. They minister to families and family members with God’s love and a focus on developing the God model of family in an attempt to curb the spread of HIV. We went to the grocery store after the seminar and picked up a few things. The store doesn’t have much in it. There were only five types of baged frozen vegetables. We asked for corn - Jenni thought that it was weird. Good night for now “God help that boy and his cousin.”
More about yesterday Mar 16.07
I’m getting my dates mixed up already. There is so much to say I just can’t capture it all. Jenni told me yesterday that there is a woman in her church who is pregnant and has aids. She has been on antiviral medications ARV for five years now. The church helped her to get her on that program. But some timed treatments are skipped because there is a shortage of the medications. So they give it to those who are most sick people, priority patients. The church was disappointed with her pregnancy but the girl says that the father has been around for eight years although noone has seen him. He has probably got another wife and family elsewhere. This is the traditional way here. A man is allowed to leagally have many wives and so they usually have a wife in the city and one in the rurals. In these tough times a man cannot afford to support two or more households so at least one suffers. Not to mention the spread of Aids.
Dakotah is getting hit by the heat worse than I am. That’s a change.
CHI Social Dinner Day Saturday March 17, 2007
We accomplished a lot today. I am a little scared shy to use my camera much yet so I describe things more. Pastor Temba picked us up at Jenni’s house at 11 am today. He called previously and requested that I pay for some petrol as he was short. I agreed. We drove throiugh town and stopped off at a flea market where people were selling their stuff. There were mounds of clothes for sale. Aparently these people purchase bales off ships that come from the states and sell the contents for their livelihood. We also visited a craft shop where things are sold on behalf of the disabled artists. There were some beautiful things in that shop. We will have to return before we head home and purchase some things. We headed from there to get some Zim dollars and fuel. While waiting for Pastor T to get the money I observed a few things. A poster on the garbage can advertised the Miricale Revival Crusade. It said “Come experience the power of God that will bring restoration, revival and deliverance”. On the other side of the garbage can there was an advertisement for Bulawayo Music Festival. There was an old blind lady sitting against the wall on the sidewalk and two little boys who looked about three and four years old were playing around. The older one tried to take money out of the lady’s cup. She grabbed the younger one and held him on her lap and pushed the older one away. Once we found a petrol station that still had fuel Pastor Temba took us to a cemetery. He pointed out that almost all of the grave markings indicated “born in 1960’s”. The majority of the dead were about forty years old. We saw one area of the cemetery where the graves all very new. It reminded me of overflow parking at a campsite. There were cheaply painted steel signs marking the plots which were no further than three feet apart at the base of the mounds. Must conserve space as there is a high demand. We then went to visit a man who Pastor T described as his spiritual son who ministers with him at his church. There was a youth group session just starting there we sat in on for a few minutes. There wer 6 boys about 17 years old and the leader was a girl. Pastor T’s spiritual son described that this leader had to take care of her grandmother as she died from aids and her mother most recently too.
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Deed,Dad&Mitchell
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We Love You Dakotah!
Hey, guy guy's! Wow, it sounds like you are seeing and learning so much. This log is great! Hopefully in time you will be able to post some pictures. Mitchell wants to know what Dakotah does all day. We wish you both well and we are looking forward to reading your next entries. How hot is it there anyway? Stay safe! Love always Deed xoxoxox p.s. Coca Cola?