Zimbabwe

4 November 2008
Greetings from Zimbabwe! Boy, does it take a while to get here! 23 hours of flying time and 9 hours of layovers, but arrived here smoothly and am now trying to stay up long enough to get adjusted to the time zone. We arrived a few hours ago, and went straight from the airport to the hotel. Don’t have much to share with you today, other than Harare seems to be a bustling city, lots of people and activity. Right now, I’m listening to the US elections on BBC news. You’ll be glad to know that all the way here (Heathrow, Johannesburg, and Harare), the election was front and center on every newspaper, and it appears to be the only thing happening in the entire world on the major news networks (CNN and BBC). Very different perspective when you hear about it from outside the US.


Wednesday, November 05, 2008
Harare is a very interesting city. It’s very western in terms of architecture. The hotel is in the downtown area, and there is lots of activity here from early morning until late night. You see many people walking and driving to work, shopping, etc. However, you hear on the local radio about water issues, and a cholera outbreak outside the city. This is in one of the areas we’ll be going in the next two days.

The folks here are very friendly. They have a huge faith in God and are very resilient and resourceful. Everyone we met is looking to the future and to times when they will get through the issues currently facing the country, and into better times. They are an amazing group of people! Not much more to share today as we spent most of the day in the office. Tomorrow, we’ll be outside the city, and I can share more about our travels there. Just a few other interesting facts –

· you can go to a good Chinese restaurant anywhere, even in Zimbabwe

· internet service is difficult to impossible (the reason why you are getting this well after the fact!)

· Everyone here is very interested in the US elections and are all very excited that our election has confirmed President-elect Obama. We even saw t-shirts reflecting this today! They see it as a great thing for not only the US, but many other countries as well. One quoted a saying "When America sneezes, the whole world catches a cold", and then said we had just been given a dose of cold medicine to keep the US from sneezing. Now that’s a whole new way of looking at it!

More tomorrow!



Thursday, November 06, 2008
Today was spent in a location a few hours north of Harare. You get a very different perspective of Zimbabwe when you travel outside the city. You see evidence that at one time, there were many farms, small houses made of brick, stone, or concrete. You see small town areas with banks(called investment centers) a general store, a butcher shop, and maybe a few other businesses. Today, these areas are like ghost towns. Most of the farm areas are not prepared. We’re told there is no seed or fertilizer for the fields, nor fuel for the tractors, so only small garden areas are prepared if anything at all. In the small towns, the shops appear to be vacant. Some of the buildings are now suffering disrepair. We stopped in one small area, and walked into the grocery. Only a handful of items were on the shelf, where we’re told at one point, the shelves were stocked full. None of the items were key food items (corn, flour, other staples).

We traveled out to meet people in a school and clinic in the area. The people amazed us! They are resilient, hardworking, caring, and smiling! I don’t know if I could smile if I lived as they are currently living. All look forward to a time when things will improve, and they believe that time will be soon. It’s hard to believe when you see schools with few to no books, libraries with only a handful of books. But the children at the school put on a performance for us, and they clearly showed they are learning incredibly well. They are smart, articulate, and ready to learn more to help their country.

The clinic was more difficult to see than the school. Very knowledgeable, competent nurses run the clinic. However, they have no tools to treat their patients. There were few drugs at the clinic we saw today, and they see up to 200 patients in a day, serving an area of maybe 7000 people total. They have no electricity, no communication, and the nearest water source is 2 km away. If they have a patient that has to go to the district hospital many kilometers away, they would have to walk, or be transported by ox drawn cart. The clinic cannot call the hospital, and cannot evacuate emergency cases. They simply treat the patient as well as they can, and pray for the best.

In the last few days, the area we were in has seen an outbreak of cholera. There have already been many cases, and they are afraid there will be many more. There are no drugs to treat the illness on hand. We were all cautioned to not shake hands with people. This was difficult for the people here, as properly welcoming visitors requires handshakes, smiles, and greetings, often followed by welcoming songs. A greeting without a handshake feels like no greeting at all! But after a few forgetful moments, and gentle reminders from the district ministry of health official traveling with us, people remembered to either touch fists or elbows as a sign of greeting.

On our way home, we took a slight detour and our host took us to see where some of the business people in the area live. What a difference! Many of these homes are 2 – 3 times the size of our homes in the US (maybe more!). The disparity between even middle class and the very wealthy in Zimbabwe is amazing, and when you compare it to the area we were at today, it’s even harder to comprehend.

I haven’t talked about the hotel we are in yet. It is rated as one of the best hotels in the world, according to all the signs in the lobby. It’s been here since 1915. Everyone is very nice, but technology seems to be a bit beyond the team here. So far, no access to the internet, which is why you all are reading a bunch of these notes all at once. Hopefully, I’ll be able to log on and post them soon.