Stressful But Successful Trip to Zimbabwe Concluded

To see a video of the “Good News – Bad News” taking place in Zimbabwe click here.
Having just returned from our annual volunteer trip to Zimbabwe and Old Mutare, it is time to share what was and what wasn’t accomplished. As always, we rejoiced in getting back to this beautiful country and wonderful people. As always, we were warmly welcomed and repeatedly thanked for the ongoing projects and new help that the continuing generosity and support of so many here in the US have made possible. Visitations of schools and pastors in the nearby deep rural areas, highlighted both the needs and vitality of the programs there. Their willingness to share what little they had touched us as we were given a meal by a staff-parish committee in a very remote area of the Honde Valley and were sent back to Old Mutare with a whole stalk of bananas, 3 pineapples, some corn, and a large packet of tea in the “boot” of the car.

Clare School [in an very poor area about 25 miles north of Old Mutare] has become an important new area of activity as the result of its visit by the November ’06 VIM team. The friendliness and determination in the face of such obvious need captured the team’s hearts. Resulting gifts and the instruction to “use it where you think best” created a new set of tasks for us to perform. When we visited them, the teachers proudly conducted us around, displaying the accomplishments empowered by these contributions. They spoke of their ongoing plans to improve what had been a rudimentary farm school for 200 children, but which is now serving 628, in addition to new preschool and high school programs. Thus we were shown their tiny library, made possible by 200 boxes of books in the 2006 container, the repaired and now operative pump providing pure water for the children and even irrigating a nearby plot whose crops will help support the school. We saw that over half of the children now have uniforms instead of rags to wear and many have shoes, as well. The textbooks are much appreciated, and a new grant will enable the purchase of more. Other programs are providing support for orphans and food for the kids. In all cases, more help is still needed badly, though the progress made since we visited in November ’06 is obvious.

The teachers, staff, and community are putting a lot of their own energy and resources into stretching our support. While supervised by professionals, much of the labor is being provided by the community itself. We toured their new classroom block. Last year they had put up the brick walls themselves. Two major donations enabled the roof, windows, and doors, with funding made available for them to pour the floors and plaster the walls once the necessary bags of cement can be obtained. Meanwhile, the children will be under cover when the rains come.

The need for more classroom furniture—especially desks–is obvious and the staff has located metal frames-from broken desks, that they are purchasing with their own funds. A collection we delivered from the Sunday School children at Clare UMC, Clare, MI will purchase the wood needed, and locals will then build about 30 three-child desks. This is addition to 20 purchased with VIM funding last year.

Activity at Hartzell Primary School was very satisfying in that all the projects seem to be going well—except for the computer lab and sewing classes—with the electricity on during only one school day in the three weeks we were there. [“Power-shedding” has become routine because the government cannot buy enough electricity for the country.] A woodworking program is on hold because the teacher identified for it decided to emigrate.

About 500 show up for porridge at 6 am, while the mahewu fortified drink serves nearer 800 at the 10 am break. We have asked for some form of a feeding program be during the month long Christmas break, to ensure that the neediest survive to start the new year. Almost all were in crisp uniforms and relatively few bare feet were visible. The students continue to perform very well on the 7th grade national exams, with the pass rate exceeding 95% every year in the tests that will determine their eligibility for high school. We like to think that the library and computers have helped. Obviously, the teachers are doing a very good job, despite their wages having fallen so far behind inflation that a month’s pay is now worth less than US $12, while prices are as high as ours. Everybody’s focus is on finding enough food for simple survival and on finding the funds to keep their children in school.

The library continues to be a beehive of activity, proving its value in so many ways. Ann’s “baby” is proving its worth. In our visits to two of the four primary schools that received enough books to start a library from the September 2006 container, it was noted by teachers that their year-end tests already showed significant improvement in reading comprehension. Imagine the difference the continuing and cumulative impact will make over the next few years! Imagine what a large-scale program of collecting books in the US to start primary libraries across the country could accomplish! We are looking for a someone or a group who is willing to accept this challenge.

We met the ten 7th grade candidates for high school scholarship places. The assumption was that at least four boys and four girls would score high enough on their exams to earn places at the high school. With results expected in early December, we will then pair the winners with their sponsors. Meanwhile, the results for the seven high school students who took their O Level exams will come much later and they won’t know whether they can continue on to A Levels [pre-university] until February or maybe even March.

The high school scholarship students gathered, as usual, for picture taking, receiving and sending sponsors’ letters, and the distribution of small presents and a very welcome gift of money to each one. For the first time, there were no complaints about clothes or supplies. The exchange rate this year is allowing us to make their clothing allowance a bit more generous beyond the absolute minimum. We are so grateful for efforts of retired Hartzell Primary School Headmaster, Naboth Maramba, in seeing that they have what they need in a timely manner. We also finally persuaded the High School Head to allow our day students to have food with the boarders during the two mid-day breaks. This was a part of a major discussion with the Head and High School Scholarship Committee about how we could help more needy children there.

As usual, we had filled our suitcases with analgesics, vitamins, and some supplies for Old Mutare Hospital. As usual, they were nearly out. Depositing 880 million Zim dollars with a medical supply house, has allowed the hospital’s Matron and Doctor to obtain some of the more urgent items on their want list. This method has potential for increasing help in this critical area.

The breakdown of the car we had borrowed from Tawana and November Mtshiya in Harare caused us much stress, expense, and time as we frantically tried to get the car repaired before we had to go back to Harare to get our flight back to the US. The difficulty came in finding the parts for the repairs and, after several leads which turned into wrong parts, false leads, etc. we ended up having to leave the car in Mutare still waiting for repairs. We dreaded telling our friends the news, but there was nothing else we could do. We still haven’t heard that it has been fixed.

Another stress and “downer” was a new rule for shipping our crafts to the US. Morris had to fill out a form giving detailed information about what we were sending and why, how we got the money to buy the crafts in the first place, and how and when the profits would come back to Zimbabwe. The request had to go through our bank in Zimbabwe. When we left, the permission still had not come and we did not know if it ever would come, so the crafts were sitting in the shipping warehouse waiting for the papers to move through the bureaucracy.

It was a jolt to come back from a country whose stores were almost empty, whose people couldn’t afford the cost of a can of baked beans, let alone any luxuries, and whose money was virtually valueless, to our usual Christmas buying frenzy here in the US. We had a huge stack of Christmas catalogs and store ads waiting in the mail for us and all the newspapers and magazines. are urging us to buy, buy, buy.

As our Christmas season moves into high gear here in the US, we need to continue to remember the people of Zimbabwe as they face a Christmas of desperation, hunger, and extreme poverty.