Last week we were finally able to have the graduation service for the young men from Mawabeni who we trained in various aspects of building.  The service was held at Willow Park in the new (and nearly completed) dining hall. 

The young men could invite 2 people each to the ceremony so they could show off what they had done in the last 5 months. This meant that I needed to try to find transport for 30 people to get from Mawabeni to Willow Park (about 20klm).  Being true Zim style a majority of my transport plans did fall through at the very last moment … but we did manage to get everyone there after calling on some favours… if there was just one extra person we wouldn’t have had enough transport.

We had en excellent time with the young men and their families, they enjoyed showing off their work and their families were so proud of their accomplishment.  One mother, when we handed out the certificate to her son got up and did a HUGE dance and African song/chant … she was as proud as punch.

Unfortunately, the hall isn’t quite complete yet.  The paint that was stolen from our house was the paint we purchased for the hall, so we need to go across the border to buys some more.  We also need to make some changes to the roof structure, as the company who constructed the roof didn’t make the cross beams strong enough and they are pushing against the walls making them crack under the pressure.

Last year we were really lucky and had absolutely no baboon stealing any of our crops.  This year however they have come in nice and early and have began to plunder; not only have they plundered some of our crops but they also attacked Willow Park’s dog.  Tiger (the dog) took it upon himself to try and sort out the baboon, but unfortunately they ganged up on him and gave him a massive hiding.  The girls from Samkele heard his yelping and came running and they scared off the baboon by throwing rocks.  Poor Tiger … he is getting better now though.

On Monday, Alice, one of the babies from the Sandra Jones home celebrated her first birthday with all the other kiddies from the home at the Hillside Dams.  It was a great afternoon with party hats, snacks and even a birthday cake.

Last night I was welcomed back to Falcon College (one of the only larny (posh) boarding schools in Zimbabwe) to worship and speak at the mid week service.  This is my forth time out there and it gets better each time I go out.  One thing that amazes me the most is how polite all the young men are; as we drive to the chapel the boys will stop on the side of the road and give a single wave and say hello; then after the service, a majority of the boys will come up and shake your hand and thank you for coming out.  You never get this type of politeness is OZ (not on a large scale anyway).  ROCK ON!!!

Just the other week we had a second fire at Willow Park.  This one wasn’t as bad as the first and we were able to get it under control fairly fast.  We had all of the girls from Samkele as well as the teachers and the Willow Park workers getting in and fighting fires.  Believe it or not, I was there too getting involved and helping put out the flames.  It only took about an hour and it was all sorted.  Then later that night it started up again.  The workers got up out of bed and contained it again … no damage done thank goodness.

The other day, Jodi was sitting in our lounge room and saw movement by the door from the corner of her eye.  As she looked over she saw a little tortuous venturing towards the open door.  It is a fairly fast mover, Jodi went out of the room for only a moment and it had gone out the door and into the garden.  These little fellas don’t take much to look after; in fact they find there own food and are totally self sufficient; they just pop out every now and then to sun themselves and say “g’day”.

In one of my previous blogs I asked for suggestions on what we can do in regards to all of our stuff go missing.  Someone emailed me and gave a “thumbs up” suggestion to start up a “chipin” to help replace the items that were stolen.

So here it goes … there are two easy ways you can chipin … firstly you can click here OR if you look across to the right and click on the picture of Jodi and I looking confused, you will be able to see what went missing and how much it will cost to replace.

Now comes the easy part … by using paypal, you can help us pay for some of the stolen items.  Thank you for chipping in!!!!

About 3 months ago, Jodi and one of our friends found and purchased really nice outdoor furniture from a store in the industrial area at a ridiculously low price.  Over the last 2 months Jodi and our friend have been calling and wanting to know where this furniture is and how much longer it will take to be made and delivered.  Finally, on Friday, some of the furniture was delivered and we stored it in our carport and we had planned to stain it ourselves on Saturday (after my game of golf).  The following is where one has to find a comical side to anything and everything that happens in Zim.

As I have recently mentioned in other blogs, we have had two instances on a Friday night of someone getting into our property and stealing stuff … at least this time no one broke into our property … but … on Friday night something we didn’t expect to happen happened.

I got up as usual on Saturday morning to prepare a cup of coffee before my game of golf.  I opened up our dining room curtain to look out at our drive way and behold something that I would never have imagined stood before me.  Our thatched carport had collapsed … not only had it collapsed but it had annihilated the outdoor coffee table and broke the double outdoor lounge chair that Jodi had been waiting so long to get.

One has to stop at a moment like this and try to find positives …

• no one was inured;
• our car was not damaged because it was not parked under the carport;
• it missed smashing our trailer;
• not all of the new furniture that Jodi had been waiting for was damaged;
• it is another story I can blog to you all.

Laugh or Cry?????  We chose laughter … what else could we do?

Last week, just after finding our fuel drum close to empty we borrowed a 20lt jerry can from our friends so that we could at least get to a filling station to fill our car.  All was good.  I think it was very the next day we headed off to Botswana to do our monthly grocery shop as well as purchase some supplies including 40 litres of paint for the Willow Park dining hall and a few other nick knacks for around Willow Park and our house.  The house we live in doesn’t have a huge amount of storage space so I did need to leave the paint under the carport again for a few days and then I would take it out to Willow Park.  It was in these few days that someone got into our property again and stole our last two metal jerry cans (they were out of eye sight … at least it wasn’t our friends jerry can) and the 40 litres of paint for Willow Park.  I think the thing that frustrates us the most is that this time it was done in broad daylight whilst Jodi and I were out for only 30 minutes.  Both Jodi and I are at a loss at what we can do … we changed our gate remote codes again, we padlock the gate of a night time and moved everything else that isn’t nailed down to the back of the property … but other than that I don’t know what else to do … do you have any suggestions?????????

After changing the codes to our gate and not having our maid and gardener living on site any more we were starting to feel more secure in our property.  Last week we needed to put some more petrol in our car, so we went to our large 200 litre drum where we store our fuel and went to siphon some fuel out to find that there was only about 10 litres left where there should have been at least 100 lts.  It seems that whoever was stealing our cement, wheels and jerry cans was also taking their time in filling up the jerry cans with the fuel from our drum.