Welcome to our first blog from Zimbabwe. Both Jodi and I had a fantastic flight, the food was great, service was out of this world and the best thing was that both of us could get a few hours kip on the plane. One other thing to mention … if you ever have a stop over in Singapore for a few hours definitely choose to go to the Ambassador Hotel in the airport; very basic rooms, but gee did it feel good to sleep in a proper bed for a couple of hours, have a hot shower and get into a fresh pair of underwear for our next leg (Singapore to J’berg – 11 hours).
On Thursday we went for a walk around the town for a few hours & have found a small shopping centre called ”Bulawayo Centre” it is set up a bit like the ‘Wintergarden” in Bris, but on a much much smaller scale; it is definitely my favorite place. It has a café, trendy looking pub, optometrist, hairdressers, sports shop, cinema (which is about $1.00 entry), a few clothing & shoe shops and a supermarket. The supermarket is like our Woolworths at home, most of the supermarkets here are like small IGA’s. Apparently it is where the snootie people shop, but I think I may just have to go there for a bit of normality.
Next week we will be looking for a house, cottage (granny flat) or town house of our own to rent; the people we are staying with said we can stay as long as we want (which is really nice), but we think it would be good to settle in for ourselves as soon a possible. One thing we didn’t really think of was the set up costs for small items such as buying cutlery and crockery, linen etc… but we are in no hurry, all of this stuff will come our way at some stage.
The progress on the babies house has seemed to go backwards, it turns out that the application for final approval, which they were told was in Harare is in fact still in Bulawayo (it never got sent) and the case worker assigned to it has resigned. Another thing that has just happened recently is that the hospital where the abandoned babies unit was has now decided that it is a waste having qualified nurses babysitting healthy babies, so they have closed down the ward and have split up the infants into different wards. This causes a few different issues, most being that healthy babies are now in wards with ill babies and are now at risk of getting ill (and they don’t have any relatives to give them the care they will need). Hopefully the application for the opening of the Baptist house will actually leave Bulawayo and will be approved quickly.
In reference to the Baptist house, they now have 4 babies in the home, another 6mth old girl has just been brought in. Everything is basically set up ready for the infants from the hospital, they have a house mother and a newly appointed matron and a few locals to help look after the little ones.
Well it was great to blog and we will update as soon as more information comes to hand.
Jodi and Andrew.
Last Saturday we went to Arun’s place (Arun is our hosts old domestic) which is in a rural villiage about 1 hours drive out from Bulawayo driving towards Mutobo along some very rough dirt road tracks. Arun has a small “villiage” type set up where the Chief has allocated a plot of land for huts for Arun and his family / workers to live as well as a large plot for them to farm (both fruit and vegetables and live stock). Arun is able to grow a lot of mangos, banana’s, guava,spinach, chimolia as well as the usual crop of maize, the amount that is grown is enough for his family and any extra he sells to the local markets. The place where he lives is one of the most beautiful and peaceful places Jodi and I have been to.
On Sunday Des and Pete (our hosts) as well as Debbie (the YFC director) and her two girls (Maddie and Stephie) went out to the Mutopas game reserve for lunch. The lake where we set up for lunch was quite large and so tranquil; the whole scene was stunning. The lake was apparently home to many crocs as well as hippo’s … so as you could all imagine, Jodi (the fearless adventurer) wouldn’t venture any closer than 50m to the lake side. It was just after we had finished lunch that we heard a large grunting sound from the lake, as we looked over 3 hippo’s had their heads out of the water … Jodi and I switched straight into tourist mode and took quite a lot of photo’s as well as video footage … this was our first bit of game that we have seen this time through as well as our first ever sighting of live hippo’s. 
On Thursday, Jodi and I went out to Willow Park with Debbie to check out the training centre that YFC are opening for teenage girls. There is still a lot of work which needs to be done to get the building in a worthwhile state, but things are definitely progressing well (expected to finish the renovations in about 6 – 8 weeks). This training centre will provide the girls opportunities to get trained in many skills such as sewing, cooking, house maid duties (cooking, cleaning, ironing, washing) as well as skills in setting tables and serving (so they can gain employment in restaurants) as well as computer skills (typing, using Microsoft office etc). The vision that YFC has for this training centre is fantastic and it will be awesome to see the girls complete these courses and hold a much better chance of gaining employment or starting their or businesses.
