October 3, 2007

Dear Friends of Zimbabwe,

We are entering our 3rd week here.  My husband has already returned to the US and Laura has 
arrived safely, with all her bags, a massage table, and plenty of supplies.  She brought all those 
things we forgot and more.  We are very happy to have her adding into our team and are ready 
for another month of getting into the nitty gritty.

For the short version:
MONEY and FOOD – Exchange up to z$470,000. New monetary policies are not clear to us.
ELECTRIC OUTAGES – There are many reasons given, including sabotage to make the 
economy fail faster.
TRANSPORT AND EDUCATION – The transport to the university is costing more than 
tuition, now that the students can’t live on campus.
FUNERALS – There are queues to use the gravesite and fees charged if you are late getting in 
and out.
NHIMBE HEALTH CENTER – Temporary (hopefully) closure has us waiting for a 
reopening. 
JANGANO HERB WORKSHOP – Workshop went well.  Benita returned to town to have her 
baby!!!
RETURNING TO MHONDORO – Leaving today for the village area and will return on the 
9th.  Laura, Conni and I will be offline.

For the longer version:

MONEY and FOOD
Monday the 1st was a big day here.  The main man in charge of setting monetary policies has 
determined some new ways forward.  I don’t really understand what he said as we listened to his 
radio address, and there are many versions we hear about what the affect might be.  He used a lot 
of those college trained terms (there was some fog-index” we used to use in the corporate world 
to determine a papers readability…his speech was one of those high index with many terms 
designed to mean something but who knows exactly what he said.) Maybe by our next week’s 
Field Report we will have something interpreted by Cosmas’ son Muda, as he is our driver, reads 
the newspapers a lot, and really enjoys studying these things.

Just prior to this policy the US dollar brought z$430,000 on the parallel market.  When we came 
it was z$280,000.  Yesterday the parallel market went up to z$450,000 and now today we hear 
that it is z$470,000.  More money if you have foreign currency but not for the people whose 
wages aren’t increasing.  But if you recall a little over a year ago, a policy was created that 
removed 3 zeroes from the money and issued new cash.  So really we are looking at a ratio of 
470,000,000, yes that is near a half-billion, to 1 usd, relatively speaking.  No wonder the average 
person is suffering so.  

Where we are staying in Belvedere the electric bill went up over 1000% from z$103,000 to 
z$1,585,000 zim from the last month.  The water bill also went up over a mere 850% from 
z$184,000 to z$1,586,000. These are elderly people (65 and 77) who have simple lives trying to 
find ways to get by. As pensioners, they receive between the two of them around 4 million zim a 
month.  Something here doesn’t compute.  Within their circle of friends they all help each other 
splitting up whatever food stuffs they can find.  Times like these really clarify who are your 
friends.

Literally you have to go to 4 or 5 stores and then you still may not have found everything on 
your list.  One store might have soap and another one beans.  They all might have some instant 
coffee for $6 usd a bottle or something else not quite so useful.  Pasta remains steadily available.  
It’s a real eye opener to walk down the aisle and see mostly empty shelves with a 2’ section 
loaded up with some commodity.  And then in another 5 feet maybe another item.  They have 
kept all the shelving with the products as everyone is used so that if you shop there regularly you 
will know where to look.  We did finally go to a very upscale store that had many things with 
full shelves….what an amazing experience.  Laura had just arrived so it looked normal to her.

The price compared to the usd price is not that different that in the past.  In other words, once 
converted back to the greenback, it will cost the same.  But also, I have paid more for some 
things when we have to buy on the black market.  For instance, we are buying cement today for 
around $7.50 usd a bag (the most I have paid before has been $5-6 a bag) because we have many 
people who want to get a loan to build, a toilet, a well, or a hut. So availability and ability to 
make products is a huge wholesale concern.  I wish I understood more about economics.  I 
understand from discussions that there are many people manipulating the market-place, and not 
all from one party.

ELECTRIC OUTAGES ETC.
There are many things being blamed for the outages.  One is that the equipment that loads the 
coal in the Hwange area is broken down and hasn’t been fixed. Who knows exactly why. There 
are also major problems with transformers being vandalized – they drain the oil out of them and 
mix it with diesel to run a bus. Cosmas’ home has a broken transformer in the neighborhood and 
the electric company continues to not repair it.  Some of the neighbors have suggested they all 
chip in and buy the repair part.  They keep being told that there are many people in the queue 
ahead of them.

There is also much talk about many of the problems here being because of sabotage to make the 
current administration look even worse, in an effort to stimulate a collapse sooner. This makes 
some sense in light of the years of struggle here to have fair elections.

TRANSPORT AND EDUCATION
Most of our older children who want to attend the university are quite capable and are very 
excited to have been accepted at the college or university of their choice.  For us, expanding to 
help the older children is something we have undertaken in the last couple of years and is a 
stretch as the administration is far more with many students at many locations.  

The problem is that even though the tuition and registration fees are within our budget, their 
transport costs are extremely high.  One main university has stopped all usage of dorms and is 
not allowing any students to reside there due to demonstrations and other unrest among some 
students.  This means that our students have to travel from another part of town.  At this point 
that is z$300,000 one way (z$150,000 to a central stop and z$150,000 to the university) so that is 
z$600,000 round trip costing $1.50 usd per day (this was a quote from last week).   Normally a 
bus trip was costing much less.  If a student has a 12 week M-F schedule, that is 60 days or $90 
usd for the semester.  We are only asking $250 for the year.  You can see that this has us worried 
a bit if things continue to escalate.  I am so happy that the older students are showing up with an 
interest in higher education and am hoping we will be able to work this out.

Diesal continues to go for a US dollar per litre, and petrol for more.  There is just not enough 
foreign currency in the country to buy the needed petrol or diesel, and so it remains scarce.

FUNERALS
The number of people dying each day is impossible for us to imagine.  The people here who are 
losing their loved ones are resilient, or they can’t cope up and leave us. Really how does one 
process so much loss?  

The graves are a foot apart.  The ministers are preaching their sermon as fast as possible because 
there is a queue to get into the site, and so an untimely haste cast over the service.  If they are late 
getting in and out of the graveyard they are charged a fee because so many people need to be 
buried.  It’s really hard to relate to queues for the gravesites.  Bread, beer and petrol are one thing 
but being buried is another….isn’t it?

NHIMBE HEALTH CENTER
A little over a week ago we had an official come by and ask us to close our doors. Without 
providing any paper work, he maneuvered his way with the younger staff and we have been 
looking into the problem ever since.  I suggested they do as he asked and close the clinic, but 
also remove all products from the room to store elsewhere so no one could come and confiscate 
them, and then seek out the officials to figure it out.  There is nothing more than over-the-counter 
drugs being offered and we must provide help for the young people playing after school, as well 
as the preschool, so we really need to remain open for that purpose.

 Apparently there is a great deal of jealousy and competition – we were having too much success 
and too many people coming.  Jealousy is a serious problem within the culture but when it shows 
itself in this way, trying to stop the needy from getting help, it just makes no sense.  Cosmas 
once explained that the centuries of polygamy tend to make the dynamics for the children in 
those families revolve around whether there is enough for all involved.

Since this time, Fred our nurse, has been at many official places, and today was heading to the 
district offices with our Project Manager, Charles, We are hopeful they can find out what is 
needed to get this all back on track.  We first sent in our papers last December and have been on 
a typical Zimbabwe rabbit trail ever since.

JANGANO HERB WORKSHOP
The women returned from their workshop and are very happy with all they learned.  They 
studied and used 8 herbs from both traditional and European origins.  You would recognize 
peppermint, lavender and basil for instance.  They all enjoyed themselves and learned a lot.  This 
was the first of these, and we hope to do some evaluations and then continue down this path.

Benita, my assistant, was also supposed to attend as four of our Nhimbe folks traveled to this 
area, at least 5 hours away.  She got there and began feeling poorly so returned to town the 
following day.  She was late in her pregnancy and so her mother had advised her to come back to 
town.  Following that great advice, she made it in time to give birth to a healthy, bouncing 3 kg 
(the normal average weight) baby boy, after a fairly short labor, and a bumpy road home.

We are thrilled.  They are including the name John, after my godfather, along with a Shona 
name.  We are very touched by that.  We saw the baby last night, quietly nestled into his blanket.  
The mother is looking beautiful, so happy, and feeling greatly relieved.  Fred, the father looks 
like he is walking on air, proudly being a new parent.  We were blessed to be able to participate 
in a traditional Shona way and offered the mother a monetary token.  This is called 
kushonongora and is recognition for a job well particularly when not feeling so good.  We also 
had picked up a bouquet of flowers and she was ecstatic.

RETURNING TO MHONDORO
We are leaving soon to be in the rural area for a week.  We will return next week by the 9th to 
connect with Fradreck as well as take care of more purchases for the preschool and general 
project.  We have had quite a successful couple of days buying things needed, with Charles 
spending a good part of the day at the Central Market in Mbare finding quantities of 30 to 50 kgs 
of dried fish, beans, soya mince, sugar etc. We are really trying to provide a varied diet for the 
children since at home they usually eat sadza every meal. There is much more needing purchased 
but it’s quite a start.  We are now purchasing double the normal amount due to the new preschool 
enrollment at close to 140 preschoolers (70 mornings, 70 afternoons).
	
Thank you for all your energy on that side of the planet, holding us and the people here in your 
thoughts.  The need is immense and is not comprehensible really.  We are only seeing a fraction 
of the world here and are doing our best to intervene when invited, but not to try and solve it 
all…more as coaches, up-lifters, and encouragers for holding a vision of hope and commitment 
towards a positive outcome.

We are remembering you in all that we do…you are the reason we are able to continue to help 
these people.  Thank you for your trust, your nudging, prodding, and prayer, as well as all that 
you provide us in the way of resources, be it your time, donations of money or other physical 
things.

Faithfully yours on this Zimbabwean soil,

Jaiaen, and Conni and Laura