Thursday, February 11, 2010

Good morning,

We have had a good week so far. Today we are stuck in the office because our truck is getting serviced. That is okay though as we set up appointment with people who want to talk to us.
Some ladies want to come in and talk about a 'sewing' project they would like us to look at. Pastor Mhike wants to come in and talk about 'doctrine'. He was in yesterday with some paperwork and a map for the water project we are looking at up in Muzarabani.

We are lining up some possible areas that need boreholes and we will get a visit from a 'water specialist' from USA to come and assess them with us and help us develop the projects. We are looking forward to that. It will really help us a lot. The specialists will visit Zimbabwe and also the humanitarian couple in South Africa. We will likely have them for a couple of weeks and then they can also assist us via email afterwards.

1 Feb 2010 - On wall of ZESA office in Kadoma

1 Feb 2010 - Another one

5 Feb 2010 - Elder Bullock picking an avocado

We took Bruce, our borehole guy, out to look at a place where we want to replace a 5000 lts. water tank and he gave us a price on what that will cost. On our way back we stopped at the school 'head master's' house and he wanted to give us some mangos and some green mealies.
Green mealies are cobs of maize that haven't had a chance to dry on the cob yet. We were given instructions on how to cook and eat it. So we tried it. It didn't have much flavor (not like the sweet corn). It was rather chewy too but ok, I guess. I don't think I will care if I have it again or not though. We gave away a lot of the mangos - they were the smaller ones that have a more stringy fruit. Everyone loves the mangos and we lots of people eating them right now. They are very good!!

Pastor Sikyani's wife passed away - she had a stroke 2 or 3 weeks ago. We went to the funeral. He told us to come at 2 p.m. and when we got there they were filling the grave with dirt. I guess he wanted us to miss whatever happened before that. There was lots of singing and clapping as the young men took turns shoveling the dirt back in. Then everyone was fed a meal of sadza, meat with a little sauce and some shredded cooked cabbage. We ate too. That is the first time we have done that. We ate it with our fingers like everyone else. They take a bit of sadza, roll it into a ball and make a little indent in it and then dip it into the sauce. *Before you begin eating they come around with a bowl and some water so people can wash their hands and then do the same thing afterwards as our hands are dirty from eating. The sadza has no flavor and the sauce and vegetables are a bit on the salty side but it tasted good. These people LOVE sadza!!
Afterwards we went and thanked the ladies who had prepared the food and got a surprise!! Check out the pictures to see 'what we saw'! YIKES!! I guess it is a good thing we had already eaten or ............. we might have declined the offer.

10 Feb 2010 - Ladies who prepared food for the funeral

10 Feb 2010 - YIKES! This was on the ground by the pot (goat's head and feet)

10 Feb 2010 - Ladies with Elder Bullock

10 Feb 2010 - Shredding cabbage

10 Feb 2010 - Lady eating a mango

10 Feb 2010 - Two little girls wanting their picture taken

We had a pregnant lady waiting for us at the gate when we came in a couple of days ago. We stopped and she came to my window (the ladies usually want to talk to me and the men choose to talk to Elder Bullock). The lady said, "Madam, I have a problem". We hear that a lot. I ask what she needed and she pulled out her papers from the doctor and they did say that the baby was breach. She told me she was 12 months pregnant because the baby was breach and couldn't come out. I told her that I have had 7 babies and that it doesn't work that way -- that she is NOT 12 months pregnant. She wanted money from us and we don't give money so she went on her way.

Last Saturday we were invited to Nield's for a birthday party for CeeCee. Her request was for Mexican food and it was wonderful. One of the best meals we have had since being here. They have a great family and we enjoyed our afternoon with them. We bought a couple of bouquets of flowers off the street to take with us. One cost $10 and one cost $5 -- too bad I paid the $10 first because I probably could have gotten them both for $5 as they were desperate to make a sale. O well -- they were beautiful arrangements.

6 Feb 2010 - Bouquets of flowers for $10 and $5. Nice!

6 Feb 2010 - Nield's yard -- gorgeous!

6 Feb 2010 - Bullocks, Reeve, Deppes, Lolly, Mayfields, CeeCee at Nield home

6 Feb 2010 - Nield clan and friends

Tomorrow morning we are going for a golf lesson (after we play squash at 5:30 a.m.) so that we can meet a couple that our golf friends know. They are hoping that perhaps we can get to know these people and friendship them. He is a retired Dr. and does some humanitarian work here too.

Our first appointment of the day has arrived so .... back to work.

~Later~

Hi, We had a good day today. This afternoon two young men came in. One said we had met him at the grocery store a while ago and talked to him and he came to find us because he wanted to learn more about the church. He is a police officer and his friend is looking for work. They were both about 27 yrs. old. One is married with a baby girl and the policeman is working on saving up the lobola so that he can get traditionally married about April, he hopes.

We taught them about the Book of Mormon etc. (1st discussion) and gave them a restoration pamphlet and a B of M each. The police officer had very good English and really understood everything well. It was good!

The lady came in to discuss her possible 'sewing' project and we will go out and meet her group of ladies tomorrow morning and talk with them.

They have a problem at one of the grinding mills. One person wants to only charge $.50 to grind a bucket of maize instead of the normal price of $1.00. They cannot make any money at that rate and possibly not even have enough to pay the electricity bill and the $50 they pay to the miller. This particular person is trying to get points with the people there as he wanted to be re-elected as the SDC chairman (School Development Committee). He did get re-elected yesterday! So, we have a problem. There is a grinding mill committee and they should all be making these decisions but...... The head master came and discussed it all this with us. We were all hoping the chairman would not get voted back. Anyway today Elder Bullock phoned the MP (Mr. Zhanda) that we really like and he really likes us and told him of the problem. He will meet us at the mill on Monday morning, hopefully along with the committee, and talk to them. He is well respected and they will listen to him (we just need the one man to listen, really). I think he will be able to solve the problem for us and set things straight. We are doing several projects in his jurisdiction so he will do whatever he can to help and he really appreciates all we are doing.

We talked to him about the problem the church had recently with getting items cleared through ZIMRA (tax people) - and he knows the head guy and is going to set up a lunch with him and the mission president and ourselves and see if things can't be simplified for us. That will be great it he can help us. Pres. Dube says he will be happy to buy the lunch if we can get these people together.

Elder Bullock has gone to pick up the truck from being serviced. All is well. We were hoping to get our talks written for Sunday but our day just fills up (with good things though, like discussions of the gospel).

Love to all, E/S Bullock

Thursday, January 7, 2010

We have had our challenges this week with getting the two mill operations set up at the schools. With any luck we will have things working tomorrow when we take the guys from Precision Grinders back out. The school where we put the new motor for their mill has had troubles because their mill needed some refurbishing which we weren’t planning on. Luckily we did put extra money in the project budget and we will be okay. If we had realized we could have brought the mill into the shop in Harare and had them do the work here. O well – it is getting done but just taking longer than we thought. The new mill that we put at Kadyamadare School keeps flipping the breaker, even after we changed the breaker because they said we bought a bad quality one that was made in China. The electrician from Precision says he can fix the problem tomorrow so we will cross our fingers. If he can’t we may have to have them put in a smaller size grinder with a smaller motor.

This morning we went to a meeting out at the Reimer Clinic (Chifumbi is the actual name of the clinic). There were only 2 that showed up for the meeting but it was good and they have been doing what they need to do to get ready for the transformers and borehole repairs. When we got there the nurse said that they were having a new baby and ask if I wanted to come in. I did but found that the baby was already born a while ago. The mother was being brought in on a tractor and had the baby on the way. The nurse laughed and said all the bouncing on the tractor wouldn’t have helped much.

We enjoy our drives out into the rurals these days as everything is lush and green and beautiful. The crops (maize, soy beans, tobacco, tomatoes, etc.) are growing nicely. They grow a lot of peanuts here too but they call them ground nuts. We found out that when they are in the shell they are called ground nuts but once they are shelled they are peanuts. They make a lot of peanut butter here too and it is used a lot in their cooking – peanut butter chicken, peanut butter spinach, peanut butter soup, etc. etc. etc.

Leechies (not sure how to spell it) are a fruit that is in season right now. They are about the size of a big walnut. They have a thin peel that comes off pretty easy. The fruit is white and there is a pit in the middle. We think they are really good. They also make juice out of them and that is one of my favourites. Mangos are also in season and they are really good too. There are lots of trees producing right now – most of what we see are the smaller fruit, which isn’t as good as the bigger ones because it is ‘stringier’. We bought some big mangos yesterday from a street vendor (at a red light). He ask for $6 and I offered $5 and he took it. Earlier in the day a vendor had approached us by the bank and wanted $10 and would only come down to $9 but I said ‘no’ it was too much which obviously was true as I got a lot better deal from the other guy. We have to be careful as they will be happy to rip us off, especially when they see white people driving a nice truck and think we are rich.

When we drove the guy (Issac) from Precision Grinders out to the schools again and he was telling us that he got married a week past one – which means two weeks ago. They had their ‘labola’ wedding where he has to pay so much to her parents or family. He is 27 and has a pretty special girl who he says was not easy to get. He said, “She loves her husband” and he said that he really loves her. She works at a hospital here in Harare and is a biological scientist. He had to pay $3800 labola (which is a lot here) plus he has to buy the food for the wedding which will cost about $700 - $1000. He then told us that he had it all and on Oct. 28 someone broke in and stole $2000 and most of his clothes, groceries and blankets. I ask what he did and he said that his wife helped him and they were working together to get the money. Once the labola is all paid then they can have a civil wedding. The civil wedding will take place in April and he ask if we wanted to come. Perhaps we will. He is a really nice young man. Lots of people here never have the civil wedding but the labola wedding is recognized. If members want to go to the temple though they must be legally married.

The power just went out here at the flat so the computer is working on battery power. Jim was just going to put a movie in the dvd player so I guess he is out of luck. We will play a game or read by candle light and then go to bed early.

Here are a few more pictures from Sister Mayfield of our walk with the Lions at Christmas time.

Nancy with the lions

Nancy with the lions

Jim petting the lion

And some other pictures you might find interesting:

Another 'toilet' sign at Precision Grinders -- no toilet paper, but I always keep a little supply with me.

Dehuller for Rutope School

Tuesday, December 1, 2009

Hi all,

I've been down for a couple of days with 'something' - maybe food poisoning, but not sure. It hit me about 5 hrs. after we had breakfast at the Holiday Inn in Mutare on Sunday. The only thing I ate different than Elder Bullock was some fruit and a couple of little sausages. It was a long drive home (3 hrs.) and I was ready to go straight to bed (well after a badly needed trip to the bathroom). I have made a LOT of trips to the bathroom since and hopefully it is getting better. I did come into the office late today. I am starting to feel better but not all the way there yet. Elder Bullock took Elder Mayfield with him this morning and went to the Danangwe school 'prize giving day' that I was suppose to be the guest of honor at. They said it was really good.

They have been changing all the locks on the mission office today because this morning the mission president and the AP's were robbed (smash and grab). On their way from the airport at a red light some guys smash the car window and demand whatever you have. They got his keys, computer, bag and whatever else. This has been happening a lot in South Africa but not so much here. I guess we will have to be much more alert. Scary! They suggest putting purses, computers, etc. in the trunk, out of sight -- however that is rather difficult when we drive a truck. We will have to figure out something.

Other than that, we are doing okay. I guess this email is a little on the dreary side! Sorry.

On Friday when we went to Mutare we paid for the motor for the grinding mill at the Old People's Home and arranged to have it installed. It should be done this week and then Friday the 11th we will go back for the "turn-over ceremony" where there will be the mayor and whoever Pres. Chadambuka can get there. I guess we need to figure out exactly what we have to do at it.

Anyway - I need to go home. I hope Mike and Janeal have a new baby soon. It is hard when it is over-due (well not that I ever had that problem as mine always managed to come early).

Love to all, Mom and dad/ Elder& Sister Bullock

Well we made it back from Masvingo about 4:00 yesterday. We needed to get some petrol to make it back and they were out at the station in Masvingo where we can use our coupons. We thought we would try and make it but half way decided we didn't have enough so we stopped and
paid cash at a petrol station and had to pay $1.55/ltr instead of the usual $1.30. O well - we put in enough to get us home.

We loaded up with our donated food on Wed. morning - most of it was from Rob Spencer's SPAR (grocery store owned by a member of the church). He was very generous and tried to give us food to provide a balanced diet - powdered milk, bread, fruit, veggies, protein (dried soya, peanut butter and some little dried fish, and some beans). We also had arranged to pick up at a market near us but they gave us a bit of old greens (chinese cabbage and a bit of regular cabbage) - we were disappointed in what they gave. On the way out of town we stopped on the roadside and bought 20 cabbages for $10 from a young fellow -- he was pretty excited to sell that much at one time!! We also took a few bags of a high-nutrition porridge that Pres. Nield gave us.

We dropped in at the hospital unannounced as we wanted to see if they had the blankets on the beds that we took down last Saturday. They did not. They said they were putting them in their reserve storage and we told them that we had heard that the patients were cold and needed blankets now. ??? Most of the beds that we saw only had 1 blanket on them. They got a little defensive but we told them that we were just hoping that they were making use of the donations for the patients. They said they wanted to label them first (& that is a good idea).

Men's ward keeping warm around fire

More patients keeping warm

We gave them the food and they were thrilled to get it. We then told them that we had $200 that someone had donated (The Taylors) and that we would buy more food and bring it out the next day.

Delivering donated food to the mental health hospital

Vegetables for hospital

Oranges and soup mix

We asked the man in charge of the kitchen what they really needed and he told us they would love to have some dry yeast and some sugar (they had flour but no yeast). So we went shopping but had a hard time finding yeast. The SPAR store wouldn't sell yeast as they use all they can get in their own bakery - and they did have a huge line-up waiting to buy bread. We went to another store and they didn't have a bakery so we bought the 26 x 100gm. packages that they had. We also bought 100 kg. of sugar and spent the balance on 15 x 10 kg. bags of mealie meal (milled corn). We took it out to them and they were happy to show us that the blankets were now on the beds!!!! They were also making the mid-day meal and using vegetables etc. that we had taken them.

Cooking lunch with some of our donations

Directors at hospital and Jim - making a list of contributions

We took a couple of balls to them which they seemed to really like.

They were thrilled with the ball we gave them - they said they just need uniforms now

We also took some books to give to Vernon (I think I called him Vincent before and said he wasn't mentally handicapped but he is rather slow). He can read a little but probably not well enough. We left the books and perhaps someone will read to the patients who cannot read. They were good life-skill type stories.

Elizabeth & Vernon - checking to see if he can read before we give him some books (he can't read very well)

All in all we had a good trip down there and we feel like the directors will use the things appropriately - at least we hope so.

We took Elizabeth with us to the hospital - she joined the church about a year ago and is a really good lady. She is a social worker. She was good to take along and she enjoyed the trip because she had heard about the hospital but had never been there. She visited with the different patients.

We all took a liking to Mona Lisa, a 23 yr. old girl there. We found out that she is 5 months pregnant and that her boyfriend had dropped her off there for the second time. After the first time she went back to her family and then back to the boyfriend and he brought her back to the hospital. The nurses say she is doing better and her family visit her and are supportive. Hopefully she will get well - they had her rather sedated on Wed. when we saw her again. She is a pretty
girl with a really nice smile. We left a new-born kit with the nurse to save for her and left a note for her with it.

Mona Lisa and Elizabeth

Road coming from hospital

Gloomy day on way home from Masvingo

Semi tipped over on side of road - was there on Sunday too (Thursday today!)

We also saw another semi flipped over that had a couple of tanks on it. The edges of the roads have sharp drop-offs here and there so whether they went off (the roads aren't very wide) or whether the driver fell asleep, who knows. I wonder if they will retrieve the vehicles or just leave them there to get stripped. So many of the cars that are in accidents are just left where they are.

I had better get to work - we are trying to get a couple of initiatives written up and sent in still.

Love to all, The Bullocks