Zimbabwebound

Well I am still sick … I am starting to feel a little better but my nose is still manufacturing mass amounts of produce and my voice sounds like I have swallowed a cheese grater. Ohh well … what can I do … I have use up all my sympathy points with Jodi so I have to build a bridge and GET OVER IT. We are still without power and no power for this long means no hot water. Jodi and I boiled a pot of water over a gas bbq and had a bath about 2 inches high. Interesting …very interesting. Just think, if these things weren’t sent to try us I would have nothing to write about in the blogs … a blessing in disguise.
We traveled into the YFC office today in the middle of Bulawayo and finally got to see what we have been reading about over the last 3 years. We were only in the office for a short time before we headed out to Motopos which is a small rural community about 1 hour out from Bulawayo. There we were able to help with the children’s RE program … Stan you would have been proud, we taught them Dodge Ball. The music and the sermon we could not understand (spoken in Emdabelli) but from the looks of it 3 children raised their hands to find out more about Christ … praise be to God. It was amazing to hear the children sing, it was just like a well choreographed US movie, they sung in perfect harmony, pitch and beat. It seemed liked nothing could wipe the big wide smiles of these children’s faces, not even the fact they had to be at school, it was cold and they did not have any electricity and a majority of the windows were broken allowing water from the rain to produce puddles of water on the cold concrete floor. YWAM Bulawayo have a team place out there for 4 weeks working with the local Presbyterian church and it was fantastic to catch up with them and find out where they are from and what they have been doing.
Tonight we had our first experience of Zim pizza, it was an interesting experience. The Mexican Taco pizza was up there for innovations, it had mince, tomato and even fresh lettuce with salsa and sour cream sauces to put on top. The pizzas were actually quite nice and would give the dominoes and pizza hut pizza’s a run for the money.
It was great to blog with you … until next time !!!

Saturday
We woke up Saturday to absolutely no power, gale forced winds and rain ohhhh sooo much rain. It is absolutely freezing � rumor has it that polar bears will be immigrating shortly. We were organized to go sight seeing this weekend but due to poor weather we had to cancel. However, we did get to go to the train museum and look around all the old trains and find out about the history of trains in Zimbabwe. The Museum was also open, but our guides were horrified at the entry price, over 990,000 just for one ticket (we also needed to prove were we had got our local currency from to make sure it wasn�t from the black market) so we decided to skip that one. Our first taste of the local shops were interesting � we went to the local Spar Supermarket and found that jam was on a managers special of $Zim 99, 500 and that Natural Juice was marked down to only $Zim 280,000 (their normal juice is what we would call cordial � weird, totally weird, just like calling cordial, squash, hey Mike and Cass) � and people think that the Spar shops in Australia are bad.

Sunday
This morning (still without power), because of all the wet and cold weather, I have woken up with a blocked nose and croaky throat � gotta love that � thank goodness Jodi has come well equipped with her medical bag � I was able to get a tissue, a cough lonzinger, a panadol as well as a sticker on my hand for being such a good patient. We had a fantastic time worshipping at Bulawayo Baptist church and hearing lots and lots of new songs (even though the words on the screen did not always match the words sung). The rest of the day was a blur � Jodi gave me a stronger drug (I don�t know if it was to sooth my pain or to give her some peace and quiet) and I slept until the evening church service. The evening service is meant for the younger people and it went off like a frog in a sock. The band sounded great and the teenagers responded well to the message. We had an interesting time picking up a load of young people on our migration to the church. It was extremely cold and slightly wet night and due to fuel shortages only one car could be taken to church. The problem was that the car was a two seated tray back ute and we had 11 people to transport � At least I was sick and given right of passage in front.

Enough of my wining � Must be off. Happy Blogging.

It was fantastic to finally get a proper sleep after about 43 hours of being awake. We had a relaxing morning preparing for Kids Club in the afternoon. This club was run by an elderly lady who has resently passed away … Youth For Christ is now looking after the program which is run in a Methodist church in the western suburbs of Bulawayo. All the children that come to the club are orphans and a majority has been infected with HIV. It was fantastic to see the kids being able to smile and have so much fun singing and playing soccer with a plastic bag ball after starting life in such an unfortunate way. Tonight we will be sampling some traditional foods such as Sudsa and Brier (don’t know how to spell … or even if this is the right word … means BBQ or something to that effect).
Until next time
Andrew & Jodi.
P.S. Sorry there are no photo’s today … we got caught up in the moment and forgot all about the camera

The flight from Brisbane to Bulawayo was a long but comfortable trip. Both Jodi and I managed to trial the transit lounges in both Singapore and J’berg …. Highly recommended!!!!! The flight from J’berg to Bulawayo was only short and we were in a plane that sat no more that 40 and it was only half full … that was lucky, we don’t think the airport (as seen in the photo) could have handled too many more.

Until next time,

Andrew & Jodi