Today is Wednesday for me. Yesterday was a sermon writing, celebrate a birthday (boy next door), and general study day. Today was a travel to work day. It started early with a three hour road trip to a place I have been two years ago, Dinhe. The first couple of hours were on very nice roads, though a bit narrow. It was a road I have travelled before so it was nice to see familiar things. I enjoy seeing the rock formations. Huge rocks and towers.
Then the last hour plus was on a road that reminded me of Haiti. Along the road we say corn, cotton, sugar cane, and what I assume was sweet potatoes. There were cows, donkeys, goats, and pigeon. They occupy the roads as if they own them. As we came home the animals were headed home and didn’t care we were there. One other fun moment, as we headed out this morning we came upon a large truck jackknifed in the middle of the highway. We figure he was going too fast and came to a T in the road. Trying to stop or make the corner he took out the directional sign and then twisted his truck into a pretzel. As we came home, the truck was not in the road but not gone either.
We arrived at the clinic we helped dedicate/open last time we were there. We took a tour of the working facility and assessed the situation with the drug room. Our church ladies and youth group raised money for a cabinet for them, but as a result of said assessment there might well be an adjustment to the plan. We dropped off the baby layettes (Sherry has a story about them she will tell) and spit up. Sherry visited with the expectant mothers and I attended the annual meeting for the local primary and secondary schools. They sent me off to speak to the high school students. I spoke two years ago to them and a few said they remembered me. I repeated the four story sermon from Sunday (a bit shorter). The only problem was most of the students’ English wasn’t very good and I didn’t have a translator so a lot didn’t get as much out of the message as I had hoped.
I returned to the parent meeting and listened to speeches and the nomination of a new school direction council. At one point the new committee was taken aside, given instruction (I think) and selected officers for both a secondary school and primary school council. Back to the meeting where I listened to the local chief make a speech. I have no idea what he said but he did reference me by name. I liked that. Following the meeting I was taken with others to a room in the school where we found lunch being prepared. I got a heaping serving of sadza (finely ground corn), a tomato relish, and a piece of chicken. I haven’t liked sadza before, but this was pretty good. I felt bad as Sherry wasn’t around to eat lunch. Fortunately we packed a lunch so she didn’t starve.
The day wrapped up with Sherry speaking to the church ladies. We then went to a meeting with the headmasters of the schools. While there Sherry met a deaf student (imagine that). They had fun sharing the differences between US sign and Zimbabwe sign. We then headed home enjoying our Zimbabwean friends. We arrived home just as dark settled in. We are home, waiting to see what tomorrow brings.
