Letters from Zimbabwe
Volume 2, Number 1
January 30, 2000
Mutare, Zimbabwe
Dear Family & Friends,
We have been in Mutare now for two weeks. The flight via London was
smooth and uneventful, with no trouble with overweight luggage or customs.
But it was tiring-two overnights with a long day in between, followed by
more waiting and then three hours by car, reaching Mutare at 5 pm,
Thursday the 13th. Painters finished our apartment, at # 5 Greenglade on
Friday. It is nicer than last year's flat, and includes a balcony view of
the mountains. In the first week we were visited by a troop of Vervet
Monkeys, a squadron of Abdim's Storks, five Trumpeter Hornbills, an owl (near
the Wise Owl motel!), and a Malachite Sunbird. We have been very lucky, as
all but the monkeys were uncommon sightings.
An Abdim's Stork.
Week two has been much less
productive of exotic wildlife. The weather is quite warm. The sun is hot,
but out of it there is usually a breeze and we have not felt the need for
a fan in the flat.
Settling in is going on apace and most of the time it seems so normal
that Ann's comment, "It seems like we've never been away," sums
it up pretty well. We have had to make only a few extra adjustments so
far. Inflation has continued, but the exchange rate is the same so we are
paying more for most things this year. We are still very rich by
local standards. Continued high unemployment and relentless inflation are
grinding people down.
We have no telephone connection for email, with little prospect of
getting one. We broke down and bought a cell phone (cheap, but
sophisticated). When calling from the States its number would be
011-263-23-897-626. Incoming calls are free to us, so feel free, but
remember that we are seven hours faster than Eastern Time. That means that
8 am in Michigan is already 3 pm here and 4 pm there is 11 pm and bedtime
here.
We have access to email at the office of Icon, our service provider.
Since it is downtown and is only open business hours on Monday to Friday,
we are already noticing the inhibitions this is placing on our online
chatting. Nonetheless, it is relatively simple to download and upload from
a disk and thus we encourage your e-mail letters. We also intend to beg
the use of other people's telephone lines for this purpose. So keep the
messages coming!
Ann found her library at Hartzell literally stuffed. The shelves are full and the
tables covered with a motley collection of computers. I am certain that
she will soon have the clutter decluttered and the program underway in
earnest. In fact both are well underway.
Ann & Morris at Hartzell.
A Volunteers In Mission team from
West Michigan is completing a two weeks stay with emphasis on running an
eye clinic at Old Mutare Mission Hospital. Customs chose not to cooperate
and the 25 boxes of glasses to be given away have yet to be released for
distribution. Almost all the patients will have to come back in order to
receive the glasses prescribed. The long, patient lines of people waiting
to be seen (and to see!) were a testimony to the value of this work. There
were already more people in line before the clinic opened at 8:50 than the
three optometrists could see in the entire day. Two members of the team
were helping Ann in the library. Another team of 20 from the Detroit
Conference arrived yesterday. They will give out the glasses if they have
been released.
Eye clinic line.
VIM teams have also been making quite good headway on the construction
of on-campus faculty housing with three being added to the four already
finished. The two new dorms donated by the South Indiana Conference have
been completed. One was appropriately named in honor of their Bishop,
Woodie White.
Classes started on the 24th at AU, but the education
students who would make up Morris' class are still drifting in during late
registration. As a group, they seem far less motivated to get underway
than the students do in other faculties. Many of them are late because
they cannot register until they have paid off their debt from last
semester. Schedule, office, and classroom were finally determined late in
the week. Tomorrow should see the class properly underway. Morris has
decided to work one morning a week in the Information Office, mostly
answering email queries from future UMVIM teams.
We have already begun acquiring Zimbabwean art; some to decorate our
apartment, some for the purpose of fundraising at home. It will be
difficult to pace oneself to avoid buying out the country, but it is
difficult to resist, both as to the quality and the need of the artists.
The sermon in chapel on Wednesday, "The Face of God",
reminded us that Mother Theresa saw God's Face in the dying people on
Calcutta's streets. The minister (from Michigan) then gave us a series of
powerful similar illustrations as to how we meet God's Face in our
everyday encounters with "the least of these". It was inspiring
and a very apt beginning for our work. Actually, we have been getting a
variety of inspiring preaching, both at chapel and in the international
English language service at St.Peters UMC in town.
We solicit your prayers for the people of Zimbabwe and our efforts to
help. In addition to the privations caused by the ongoing economic crisis,
the country is also facing the question of adopting or rejecting a new
constitution on February 12. The government is heavily publicizing it as
the final end to colonialism, while a somewhat stifled opposition is
portraying it as entrenching the power of the president and the ruling
party.
Our love to all,
Morris & Ann
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