Untukmu Para Pengunjung

Three conversations from the past week:

"My children were sent home from their (boarding) school this week. They were sent back because we hadn't paid the full amount for school fees. I felt so ashamed. We had told the school that we just needed a bit more time. The fees went up so much this past term. We pleaded with them, and they were allowed to go back on Thursday. My daughter asked if she could have some money for groceries. I gave her all I had. So, now I'm just waiting for the 15th when we'll get paid again. It's hard to not have money for your children, when you just want them to have an education. But we keep on praying..."

"I'm studying Information Technology. I really like it, although it would be easier if I had my own computer. That's my dream - to have my own computer someday."

"These are my children - their names mean "Blessing" and "We thank you God." They are the blessings in my life. When they get older, this one will be a pilot, and this one will be a business manager. And then our family will be happy. Right now we live in a one room shack, but not forever! I think I will only have to wait another 20 years, and then I will be able to live in a real house. That will be great!"

This morning I went to take my bath and there were hundreds of ants
swarming all around our bathtub and the floor. Yuck! Of course, my
first instinct was to beckon my heroic, insect-killing husband, but he
left for a band trip to Chinhoyi this morning. So, I had to take
control of the situation. I grabbed some toilet paper, and starting
smushing and squishing as many as possible. It felt sort of like a
movie scene - me at war with the ants with Vivaldi's 4 Seasons playing
in the background! As soon as I got most of them out of the bathtub, I
turned on the water. No hot water today. I had a fairly short bath,
because, well, it was cold, and there dead ants floating on the top of
the water.

I went to wash my hair in the kitchen sink, and I love hot water, so I
decided to be clever, and boil some water first. I put the hot water
in a juice jug, and tried mixing that with the running cold water. It
worked fairly well, and my hair has a lovely juicy raspberry scent.
You don't think ants are attracted to that sort of thing, do you?

Sometimes I just feel "so city" (to quote our friend Geoff). John's
more used to camping and stuff. Although, the other day, as he was
breaking up cow manure with his bare hands to put on our garden, he
even had an "I'm so city" moment. Speaking of cows, I had cow heart
for the first time this week. A little chewy...

The other day I went to visit Alice & Mac, and one of our other neighbours, Gogo ("grandmother"), was there. She asked if we could have a prayer together, and I was really moved by her prayer. It went something like this, "Dear God, thank you for birds. I thank you for the way they chirp in the morning, waking me up, and making me realize that I am not alone. Many people try to kill these birds, but I love them. I thank you for times when a car drives by my house very early in the morning, because it reminds me that I may have visitors. I also thank you for my daughter in Australia. She is very far away, but sometimes she sends me postcards, and she promised that one day she will let me come and live with her. I know she must be very happy with her family, and so I pray that you would bless her." Walking by Gogo's house is a bit of a risk, because if she sees you, you'll be caught talking for quite a while (and likely having the same conversation you had the day prior), but she is a daily reminder to me that life is hard to go through when you feel alone.

There is also a men's shelter on our compound. I was asking the security guard the other day how the men find money for alcohol (because around the neighbourhood, I often see them drunk). He explained that when well-wishers come, they will often bring things like soap or socks. And then the men use these items to sell and then buy alcohol. "We try to check them at the gate, to make sure that they're not carrying out their things to sell, but you know, these men are so lonely and hurting, that they just want to buy alcohol. Alcohol allows them to forget for a short while, so they will sell all they have for it."

Loneliness (which is so different from solitude) can be such a soul-destroying disease. All of the major religions have some sort of notion of loving our neighbours, and yet there seem to be a lot of neighbours in our world who feel really alone. Sometimes I wonder if loving our neighbours gets lost in the debates about the more "complex" areas of religion.

I was just talking with my friend Grace. Her only daughter, Christine, was in an accident yesterday on her way to high school. The combi she was in had no brakes, and therefore went right through a red light and got smashed on the side by a car. There were a lot of schoolchildren in the combi. Grace went to the school and then brought her daughter to the only public hospital in Harare (which is actually just down the street from where we work). They were waiting in the queue for 5 hours. There are only 2 doctors in the hospital. She said that generally people can't afford the hospital fees, and so only go to the hospital for emergencies. Grace saw several people die while they were waiting in the line. When she finally got to see a doctor, he took a look at Christine, said she looked fine, and suggested she take some painkillers for any aches and pains. Grace is debating on whether going back and spending the $5 million on an x-ray just to make sure. When she was reporting the incident to the police, they said that the day before, a gentleman had been in a combi accident. He went to the same hospital. They looked at him, said he looked fine and sent him home. He died the next day. So, Grace is a bit freaked out. Sometimes life here feels normal, and then sometimes it just feels really abnormal. Is it ethnocentric to say that public transit vehicles should have brakes, and there should be more than 2 doctors at the one public hospital in a capital city?

I have spent that last two days at the Zimbabwe College of Music, accompanying various members of the Royal Air Force band for their music examinations. One of them discovered that I play piano, and there aren't a lot of pianists in Zim these days, so I ended up playing for all of them. It was sort of nice to play some classical piano again, and the guys seemed to really appreciate it. Last Saturday I was playing the piano at the O.T.C. (Salvation Army Officers' Training College) and 4 young people walked in. I ended up giving a group piano lesson. I taught them some simple chords (C, F & G) and this one guy was just thrilled because he was able to sing a song he wrote using the 3 new chords (plus a little A minor). I must admit, all of those years and hours of piano practising had much more meaning as I saw this guy's face light up.

The examiner for the air force exams is a lady from the West Indies who has relocated to Zim. We had a great time together. Today she brought her adult son to the exams with her, because he really loves music. He is mentally challenged, and she said he really connects with music, and it soothes him. She also said to me today, "you know, people look at me with my son and they feel pity for me. But they shouldn't. Nicholas has made me who I am. He taught me to be gentle and kind and patient. I would have never learned those things on my own. I owe him my life."

Death has befallen us. When we came home yesterday we discovered that one of our banana trees had collapsed onto our herb garden. We suspect foul play. Sure, it could just be that the bananas were too heavy for the tree but the neighbourhood kids looked a bit too guilty for it to have been just an accident. There are these other Murungus (white people) who live nearby and are always chasing the kids away from their guava and mango trees. Most of the little kids are afraid of them, so I'm going to be relaxed about the whole thing. Kids will be kids. When we left home this morning my friend Va Mafigu was chopping the tree down completely for me. When my neighbours saw the fallen tree and my squashed herb garden, they said, "shame, shame." That's a common phrase here when something goes wrong. Like my mangled sage and basil. Shame. But there are three smaller banana trees that will hopefully mature soon so that they can produce fruit.

The good news is that after a few classic mess ups, my garden is doing quite well. It's been a great connection point with my neighbours and they've started telling Rochelle (or Amai Shoko - people have decided that her totem is monkey) that I'm a good farmer. They're exaggerating but it is exciting to see things growing. We now have carrots, onions, green peppers, chillis, eggplant, tomatoes, lettuce, spinach, covu, rape, green beans, pumpkin, butternut squash, beans, garlic, chives, basil, purple basil, rosemary, three types of thyme, mint, sage, strawberries and lots of flowers. We should be able to eat vegetables regularly from the garden within a month. We also have banana trees, a full-grown guava tree and a small avocado tree. We're planting a lime tree and a naartje (orange) tree this weekend. As you can tell, gardening is my new hobby. And quite productive. Rochelle said that I had to mention the sacrifice she made by carrying the naartje tree for over four kilometres. To be fair, I was carrying the much heavier lime tree. Rochelle got quite a few smiles and cheers by carrying it on her head most of the way. Unfortunately, I think she now has a headache. It will be about two years before we can expect fruit from the lime, naartje and avocado trees.

We purchased a small camping stove this week so that we can cook when the power is out in the evenings (usually at least three times a week). We've usually been eating peanut butter or avocado sandwiches when the power is out, but we can't keep that up. Especially since our breakfast and lunch normally consists of peanut butter sandwiches as well. The stove uses a flammable gel made of sugar cane that is supposedly cleaner than other fuel sources for the environment (David Suzuki would be proud). The gel and stove were imported from South Africa. It seemed a better option than cooking over a fire in our backyard. I cooked some onions and green pepper with the stove yesterday and it worked great.

I found a spiritual director to meet with once a month. He's a Jesuit priest who has been in Zimbabwe since 1964 and his parish is in the community where we live. We had a really great session earlier this week and I think meeting with him will be beneficial to my spiritual development. I also think it's healthy to have someone outside of The Salvation Army to speak with.  

Thanks to everyone who has been sending us e-mails. We've really appreciated hearing from you. And feel free to drop us a line through the blog as well as all comments get forwarded to Rochelle's email address.

Happy Canada Day! We decided not to set fireworks this year, just in
case... but we did listen to Avril Lavigne as we had breakfast, and
handed out Canada flag pins to all the neighbourhood kids.

And I thought I would tell a funny story to honour my homeland (even
though it has nothing to do with Canada). This week, our territory was
visited by the International Leadership and Development Secretary from
International Headquarters of The Salvation Army. So, our human
resources task force met with him to share ideas, etc. At one point,
this one very respectable, distinguished senior member of the task
group was talking about how the group had spent over a year working on
a policy document. And he looked at this Salvation Army Colonel from
England and said, "I've got to be honest. That shit took a hell of a
long time." The Colonel almost fell off his chair, no one else
flinched, and I did my best to suppress my giggles. Is it bad that I
found that really funny? The thing is, he really wasn't trying to be
rude at all - here they're just not considered to be bad words. Maybe
because it's in their second language? In any case, I guess people are
getting to know me a bit here, because It was decided on Friday that
my totem is "monkey" (whereas people automatically thought "lion" for
John! Hmmm...)