My friends Jane Salisbury and Philip Stanton worked and lived in Zimbabwe about 20 years ago. They were at the Jesuit Mission Makumbi. You can refer to the web site lower down on blog page.
It proved to be challanging to arrange a ride from Harare to Makumbi...But here I am. I was picked up by a Jesuit Isaac from the hospital. It was about an hour and half ride on a washboard paved road. We arrived after dark. Dinner with the Jesuit community was waiting. After dinner Fr Mueller the Jesuit Superior gave me a moon lit tour of the mission. Which I retraced in the light of day. The connection to WiFi is by satelite, so I sit out on wall outside the office to get internet.
My first activity was to attend the secondary school asembly. The voices of the children gave me goose bumps. It was half in shona the tribal language and half in english. All the academics are in english.
There are apoximatly 800 children here, 100 in orphanage, 400 in secondary, 300 in primary school.
Today I am just getting my barrings and trying to recover from the 16 hour days at the hospital.
Tomorrow I am going to the orphanage to hold and hug babies, I'm just going to try to be a spoonge and experience this place.
I will attempt to learn the Shona greetings. The kids say Good mourning How are you? So maybe I can learn some Shona
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