Friday, May 24, 2013

Another week has passed, we are now at the one month mark on our mission. Woohoo! It has gone by so fast it's scary. We had an opportunity to attend a graduation ceremony for the young people who had completed the water sanitation training. Now that they had clean water from their new bore hole (translate water well) which the LDS church had financed, the prefects and class head man were trained so that they could train the other children in the school. The school of 1250 children is well-run, the children seem happy and disciplined, and they were pleased to present a program celebrating the turnover of the well to the school. The choir sang the Zimbabwe national anthem. The pre-school class sang a bouncy song about the uses for clean water, complete with hand actions, first in Shona and then in English. The dance class (which has won national trophies) did a traditional dance of successful harvest, in celebration of the "harvest" of clean water. They were all in costume, and were incredible to watch, and they were having a good time showing off their skills. A PE class demonstrated exercise and tumbling, and of course there were speeches, most of which were quite short by our standards. Unfortunately, we forgot our camera. The children are beautiful, and love to smile and wave to us.
The pictures are from the Domboshawe Branch. Sister Reynolds got to help with the Primary both times we visited there before our assignment to Dombotombo.
The tree silhouette is in the parking lot of the Harare Mission Office, and I felt like this was our new place to call home, and the landmark I will always remember.

Saturday, May 11, 2013

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We had a marvelous time at the Missionary Training Center, or MTC. The group we were with was lots of fun. We actually spent the whole 2 weeks with most of them, since one couple included a doctor, and one a nurse. We did our week of medical training together as well as the week at the MTC. Well, here we are in Zimbabwe! We will add a couple of pictures, but we haven't really gotten a chance to take many yet. We are sitting here in the dark with the computer running on batteries, and 2 candles burning. The power is out. This is not unusual here, but the first time since we got here on Wednesday that it has gone out on us. Our bigger problem is water. Some days the city water fills our tank, and some days it doesn't. We quickly learned to get up and run the hose from the bore hole(read well)and fill the water ourselves! Our apartment is very nice. We have 2 bedrooms, 1+3/4 baths, a large living room and a tiny kitchen! The bedroom has a queen bed and 4! reach in closets with drawers. We have lots of storage space there, but none in the baths. The kitchen has enough space for our few things. The mission stocked the kitchen with new small appliances and kitchen gadgets. It's quite nice. Elder Reynolds has ventured to drive to and from work for a couple of days now, and is getting a little more accustomed to driving on the right side. We ventured to the shop down the street and got a few groceries. It is a fruit and veg mart and has really nice produce. We took a trip into town with one of the locals driving and wandered through various shops. We really felt like we were in a foreign country. Sights, sounds, smells, and shops. Lots of people and cars. You wonder how they keep from being hit, since no one has the right of way. I don't think we will be driving there by ourselves. We have already seen giraffes in the grassland between the airport and the mission office. Exciting! We will go out of town a little farther tomorrow to go to church. We will go with the Smilanick's another missionary couple. We will be working with them doing office work, between my nursing and Elder Reynolds' checking out apartments and cars, or fleets and flats as they say!