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February Journal Entries
I am a little bit settled into life in Harare! I haven't gotten
involved in all the things I want to, but things are starting to get busier! I
am now staying at a Dutch couple's house. (The TerVeens) They are really great!
They let me use their email, although I think its expensive. (Tanya is emailing
me all the Zimbingo mail I receive, as to save money here - it costs per email I
receive.) I am networking as best as possible, and seem to have some really good
opportunities with street youth. Tonight I met with a woman named Annie, who has
given me some names and numbers to get in touch with! I am meeting people in the
ministry of getting kids off the street and although things are slow, I think by
next week I should be getting my hands dirty in some programs. I think that youth need to make the decision to be safe in
whatever culture they belong... in Canada this means something very different
than from here. I honestly think that it would be taking a HUGE risk to be
sexually active here, at all. So having "safe" sex isn't really
possible. I haven't really talked to anyone about this, so these ideas are my
own, But I think I'm just making some observations and picking up on what I see.
Perhaps I'll see differently as things unfold. I am still not ready to On a different level, God has made me deal with the challenges
of having unexpected authority - I have mentioned before that I was a little
surprised at the role of TEAM in organizing my ministry. I thought I'd be doing
everything on my own - and expected (and prepared) to do this. But because I am
a TEAMServe short term worker, the organization has a pretty big responsibility
for me. They have to be sure of all the places I am looking into, they set me up
in the living situation and so on. Anyways, this has turned out okay, but it
made for some pretty frustrating first Love Lianne Hi again. I just wanted to thank everybody for sending me all the supportive emails. I don't think you know how important they are to me! It makes me feel connected to you, even when I am so far away! Karen is my TEAM supervisor, essentially responsible for me. We get along, so things will be okay, I think. Thanks for sending me the guestbook responses... While I am having some difficulty accessing them directly Tanya copies and emails them to me. Everyone, please know that I’ll be taking Sandy’s suggestion to look at the stars, while playing my guitar – and know that you're all listening. (Perhaps my Mum and Dad should get their hearing checked, if they're going to be listening from Canada! Perhaps as you all should... can you hear me? Hello? Hellllooo!!?) Mum, (and all my friends out there…) I have instructed my friends to come over periodically to leave more than one pair of my shoes at the front door. I hope this will ease Mum’s pain of a missing daughter. They should start coming mid-march, and continue till July. I saw some really high-density areas of Harare today. (Just driving) It was really interesting. The housing complexes are bachelor apts. left from when British rule disallowed any men working in factories from having their rural families move to the city. But now, whole families share the tiny apts. and the men still work in factories or in what is called "the informal sector". Totally make shift stores, well shacks, selling anything from homemade coffins to car parts to bananas. This is what a developing country's city really looks like. Forget suburbs. There were many many people all working and trying to live in this one small area. To top it off, there was a coca cola bottling factory nearby, called, "Coke Corner". I can't wait to visit and hope for a tour. Another interesting site was of Mugabe's Residence. What a
place! I just saw the outside gates, complete with armed guards at every corner.
From 6pm to 6am, no one is allowed to drive on that street, and big bars and
steel drums close it off. Mugabe's wife is currently building a 38 million-zim
home; apparently her knitting business is doing quite well. Love Lianne Hello
everybody! In Nairobi I volunteered at New Life Home. This is an orphanage for HIV+ babies. It was quite established and had room for about 20 babies at a time. They had lots of volunteers from the local high schools and collages to play and care for the babies, as well as a full time staff. I brought some baby clothes, and they were appreciated! I also visited Kenyatta Hospital. What a difference from Canadian Hospitals! The halls between wards are all outside, with covered roofs - very open concept. A friend of the Pattersons is part of a very prominent AIDS research team working out of Kenyatta, so I met with her for tea and heard about what they are doing. Most of their research is in breast milk transmission, but they also are looking at a group of Kenyan women (prostitutes) who seem to be in contact with the virus, but not infected. They are looking at correlations between the white blood cells of these women and babies who do not receive the virus from their positive mothers, among other things. (In a nutshell.) She also gave me a great report on communicating HIV and AIDS to youth in Southern and Eastern Africa. One thing I loved about Nairobi was the Matatus. A Matatu is sort of like a privately owned public transport vehicle. Imagine an 8-seater van with 35 people hanging out of the windows, loud music and yelling - each painted brightly with interesting titles. You bargain about the rates and hope your stuff isn’t stolen. By stuff I mean clothes and watches - you'd be crazy to bring a bag on one! I had fun, and people seemed to like that I was from Canada. The roads in Nairobi have dangerous traffic - all the Matatus competing for business, no lines painted between lanes or speed limits. And another funny thing is that they drive on the wrong side of the road - someone should really tell them. There are lots of people wearing anything from a business suit to mix-matched second hand clothes walking along the sides of the roads. The sides are very dusty and red, with lots of little shacks selling things... always selling coke. Coke, mangoes, avocadoes and perhaps some live chickens. These stores are called Dukkas. So Nairobi was wonderful- I am grateful for the awesome people I stayed with, the Malcolms, and the Pattersons, too. They were great - I didn't miss home at all! :) I really felt like I was in Africa and experiencing it all. Kind of a whirlwind in four days. The flight to Harare was fun too. I had to be very stubborn at Kenyatta Airport, because my luggage was apparently way overweight and they wanted me to pay 6 000 shillings for it! (About 100 US dollars.) I stood my ground and talked to the supervisor, and eventually they let me on, guitar and all. Hey, I figure, they let me into the country with this amount of luggage. I shouldn't have to pay to leave. Harare is a little different. I think that partly because I had such a wonderful time in Nairobi and because I became attached to the people, I have had troubles adjusting. First of all, I am staying out in the Suburbs of the city. Well, everyone lives in one suburb or another... High or low density, depending on your income. As you may have guessed, the TEAM headquarters is in the Low density area. It is very nice - like the houses around it, it has a gate and a guard and a dog. They are all big properties, with diverse vegetation. (diverse vegetation? I must mean cool trees.) But all this suburbia and green grass and toilets that flush was a little bit of a shock - I felt like I was in Canada, again. I am learning now that Harare is still a distinctly African city, but in different ways than Nairobi is. For example all the green grass is because it is the rainy season, and the grass is 5 feet tall. The telephones don't work, and there is no petrol. Actually, this is becoming the second of two major crises right now in Zimbabwe. The first is all the flooding near the South African and Mozambique boarders. Thousands in Zimbabwe are homeless, and some are dead, due to the cyclone in Moz. The bridge to South Africa is washed out, and we are isolated! This fuel shortage is getting out of hand, too. Partly because of politics, and partly because of the cyclone - we are clear out of fuel. (the Minister of Transportation resigned yesterday!) Line-ups, or queue as they are called, are kilometers long and two people were shot in a line today - all because there is no petrol! Imagine if the Toronto Star headlines read: No Gasoline left in Canada. So here I am. I am moving into a Dutch couple's home tomorrow, and will be living there until at least the end of March. I have had some problems organizing what I will be actually doing for the next four months, so I'll write more when I'm sure. The HIV education program that is running in the schools is not something with which I’m comfortable, for various reasons - the content concentrates more on religion than on straightforward HIV education. The teaching principles are quite different from what I’m used to. So I'm holding off on that, until I better understand the situation, and have attended a few classes to observe. The situation at Karanda Hospital is also precarious right now. The fuel shortage is hindering the Home Based Care program, which is what I was probably going to be working through. So, I wont be much use up there right now - I'll wait and see if the situation changes. I have three meetings this Monday with people working in programs to get street kids off the streets. One is school, and they are desperately in need of help. This would be a good place to start, as the street youth in Harare is very bad. I could help with regular subjects, as well as do some AIDS educating. In four weeks, I'll probably work with a program for older street youth - don't know much about it yet. Things have been a little hectic in this new environment. The people at TEAM have been good about working through all the confusion with me, but it was a little hard for me to adjust at the beginning. (I started to miss home too...) I'll feel better at the end of this week, when I know where I'll be and I'll be more settled. I did make a friend, a researcher in agricultural development. His name is Bill, and he is very nice. He took me all around Harare today, so I saw a little more about what the city really is like down town. I felt a little more at home there, I guess the way I would in any city. I'm exited to see more of it! Thank you for reading my website, and for those of you who signed my guest book, I still haven't been able to access it, nor my Zimbingo hotmail account!!! The Internet is really expensive, so I have to go to a cafe for that. I will as soon as I can. I am starting to miss home already and it is only the first week! Oh
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