Abby and I arrived at the farm on Monday night, June 11, and it immediately felt like home. We walked into the same dorm we stayed in last year and couldn't help remember our time in Zimbabwe last summer. It felt so good to be back! On Tuesday we spent the day getting ourselves settled, helping around the farm and we even got to cook a little. We knew we would hit the schools on Wednesday, so we took our time resting and getting ourselves together. Plus we used this time to get to know Chi Chi again, as you can see, it didn't take her too long to warm up!
Wednesday morning we woke up early, climbed out of our warm sleeping bags into the chilly morning air. Abby and I were very excited to get into the schools, see what had changed and decide what we were going to do with our time in the Matopos. As we got into the bright red fire truck, our excitement only grew. While traveling over those bumpy dirt roads we were full of anticipation. After making plans to travel back for almost a year, traveling thousands on miles on an airplane and a truck, we were about to embark on our adventure!
Chris, Abby, and I decided that Abby and I would split up, she would go into the grade 0 classrooms (US Kindergarten) and I would go into grade 1 classrooms and help however we could. These first visits would be just for observations, so we could pinpoint what we could do with our time. Dobi Primary, our first school, were taking graduation pictures of their sweet Grade 0 class. As we left the schools Abby and I made notes of our time, supplies we saw they needed, or areas where the students were struggling.
Thursday was a cold and windy day. Abby and I cut fabric for Norma's sewing group. It was not easy, as the chilly wind wanted to blow the fabric away while we were cutting. For lunch we had SADZA! (a traditional Zim food, its cornstarch and water, stirred till it gets the consistency of mashed potatoes) We also enjoyed some wonderful walks this week, getting to know our wonderful surroundings for the next 4 weeks.
Friday we rested and I made banana bread out of old bananas. It was delicious! The farm was a different than last because of the lack of rain during their summer. They installed latrines for toilets and when we showered we caught the water in a basin, which we used to flush our toilets at night (so we wouldn't have to walk to the latrines in the dark). Chris and Diamond would have to haul water, so on Saturday we tried to get water out of an old borehole. Dennis, a guy from a neighboring farm, came to help put the piping down the hole. We all came to help hold the piping and prayed hard we would get water!
And we did! Not very much, but we knew there was water underground, we just needed longer piping.
Hooray! Clean water!
Sunday was a day of rest, lots of reading time, and enjoying the lovely scenery, before we began our 2nd week in Zim.
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