Friday

Last night we had a nice supper with the Besters and other missionaries. The food was very good. The restaurants don't open here for dinner until 6:30 or 7:00 p.m. and then they take a long time to serve. It is usually at least a 2 hour affair if not more.

Trying to get organized to get our picture taken!
Elder & Sister Taylor, President & Sister Bester, and us

Harare Zone missionaries with President & Sister Bester

Some of our missionaries

Today our container DID NOT come! They say maybe Monday. It is here in Harare though on the rails and since their computers were down nothing could be processed so.....

We went with Tabeth to a place called Caledonia Farm. It is a high density community of displaced persons. 340 families have arrived in the past 4 days that have been thrown off some farm land several kilometers away. What we are hearing is that some of the farms are being given back to the white farmers and so the police are kicking all the native people off the farms and sending them to Caledonia Farm (we aren't sure if they stay there permanently or if it is a stopping off place until they can get back to their villages etc. where they originally came from). They are putting up some temporary housing made out of plastic and whatever - kind of a tent city. Someone must have donated the plastic for them. They were digging holes here and there for latrines (small square plastic covered outhouses).

Caledonia farm houses

More of the tent houses

Plastic tents town at Caledonia Farm

Tabeth said it was a worse situation than Epworth or Hopley Farm but I am not sure that it is. We will check into it more next week. I don't know if we would be allowed to distribute anything there - Pres. Neild seems to think that they would only allow goods to be dropped off to a central place and the authorities there would distribute. However, the question is whether or not the right people would get the things or if the authorities would take it for themselves.

Borehole at Caledonia Farm

Kids on way home from school

It can be hard to get the help to where it needs to go sometimes. We did stop and give a couple of hygiene kits to a man who looked like he really needed them. He said he had 7 children. He was really grateful - seemed like he was going to cry. I think we gave them to the right person!! Tomorrow we have an all day meeting with the Stake/Branch presidents throughout the mission and the public affairs people. There will be training given from a couple coming up from South Africa.

That's about it for our day!!
Love, Elder & Sister Bullock