1st Day In Zimbabwe

Our travel to Zimbabwe significantly exceeded our expectations.  I told many of you that our overseas flight was on Ethiopian Airlines.  It appears I was mistaken.  It was on South African Airways and the service we received was as good or better than any flight I have ever experienced (rivaling Southwest Airlines).  Friendly flight attendants gave us each a tooth brush and tooth paste, a pillow, a warm blanket, little booties to put on our feet, and four hot, tasty meals.  After about 8 hours of flying, our plane stopped to refuel in Dakar, a city on the western most edge of Africa.  We were on the ground for approximately an hour before we departed for Johanesburg, South Africa.  We watched movies, read books and slept for most of the way.  Chance took a sleeping pill and was down for the count.  Kaila and I found ways to trade off sleeping on each other's laps.  The three of us arrived in Harare, with all of our checked luggage at about 9:00PM on Saturday night (noon Kansas time).  It took us about an hour and a half to get our Visas and get through customs.  We did so without much expense or hassle.  

John Birky, the Via Christi International Family Medicine Fellow/American doctor we know was there with a nice lady named Sue Rousseau.  Sue is a missionary with TEAM, which stands for The Evangelical Alliance Mission.  They picked us up and brought us to their guest house to stay Saturday and Sunday nights.  The accommodations are nice.  There is no air conditioning, but fans keep the air moving fine.  They have been wonderful to us.  It took some adjusting to get used to driving on the left side of the road.

Sunday morning, Chance, Kaila and I were up early to go take a walk.  We took many pictures and will try to upload them later, because our computer will not allow us to do it yet.  Among the things we saw were stone fences topped with shards of glass in place of barbed wire, African women with belongings on their heads or babies tied to their backs, and a small, Japanese truck carrying not one, but two cows in the bed.  Don't ask me how that worked.

After our walk, we went to breakfast at a cafe located in a grocery store in Harare.  The food was great and all the items we ordered on the menu were one American dollar apiece.  This country uses only American dollars and South African Rand.  It hasn't had its own currency since the country's economic meltdown in 2008.  Interestingly enough, they don't use coins at all.  Everything is in even bills and they will offer you store credits in case of change needed for an uneven total.

After breakfast, we attended church at a local non-denominal, multi-cultural service, where we met people from all over the world.  The pastor talked about the importance of dealing properly with feelings of anger as he discussed the sixth commandment.  People were so friendly to us.  They wanted to know about where we were from and life in the American midwest.

After church, we went to lunch at Sue Rousseau's home.  The food was delicious and we marveled at their home garden.  Zimbabwe's rich climate allows them to have fresh fruit trees and plenty of home grown vegetables right in their backyard.  Over lunch, we got a great education on the history of and the current political climate in Zimbabwe.  We learned what to say and not to say to ensure we would not run into problems.  We were able to share a little about life in Kansas with them.  They were interested in the similarities and differences between life in Zim and life in rural Kansas.  

Immediately following lunch, we received a special treat.  A man at the church we attended new a local Zimbabwean who raised some of the deadliest poisonous snakes in the world, right in his backyard.  We spent about an hour at this local's house this afternoon viewing each of them and even taking pictures and video of them.  Among the snakes we saw were the Black Mamba, Green Mamba, Boomslang, Spitting Cobra, North American Copperhead, Burmese Python, Viper, and a very angry and hissing Egyptian Cobra.  He was nice enough to open the cage to the Egyptian Cobra to allow us to get close up video of him as he hissed at us.  He also housed two crocodiles, "Snappy and Happy", that were both over 7 feet long.  He told us he gets into every one of these cages to clean them once per week.  Chance held several of the non-venomous snakes as we took pictures.  I wasn't interested in any of them wrapping themselves around my arms.  

Our snake adventure was followed by here at the compound and we all watched the movie, Invictus, a movie about the life of Nelson Mandella, starring Morgan Freeman.  It was weird to watch the movie after just seeing Mandella's pictures in murals on the walls of the Johanesburg International Airport.  His presence is still very real here.  

Tomorrow morning, at 5:30 AM, we depart for Doma, a small village in northeast Zimbabwe.  We will be visiting an orphanage called Eden Children's Village.  It is a largely self sustaining children's home that raises its own crops, chickens and other livestock for food.  The kids help raise their own food.  The couple that runs the ministry just spoke at the Protection Christian Church a few months ago.  We will be hand delivering a laptop computer, donated by a family in Kansas to a local missionary there.  

By Tuesday evening, we will be in Karanda, which is where we will spend the rest of our time in Zimbabwe.  We will have approximately 10 days to construct 50 custom malaria screens for all the windows in the missionary housing compound.  

We want to emphasize that we have felt no danger whatsoever on the entire trip.  Zimbabweans, regardless their color seem to be warm and inviting people.  Thank you for your thoughts and prayers thus far.  Keep them coming!

We'll keep you updated as we have time and internet service.

Benjamin