Price Comparison.com and other news!

We thought some of you might find it interesting to compare the prices of goods in Zimbabwe. We have found that a lot of things are the same price or a little more expensive. Just an interesting exercise when you consider the salaries here and how little people earn!!

1L of Milk - £1
1L of Yoghurt - £2.88
Box of Cereal - £2.80 (Mark and Matt having cereal withdrawals!)
Coke - 65p
Loaf of Bread - 65p
Disposable Nappies - £24 (so glad we don’t have to buy these and we have reusable nappies)
Tin of Baked Beans - £2
Cocoa 50g - £2.60 (decided to have a vanilla cake instead for Zoe’s birthday!)
B&Q equivalent plastic stack of 3 drawers - £48 (didn’t buy – just shocked)
1hr in a soft play area - £3 (won’t be visiting this to often!!!)

Well another week down and a busy but good one! Mark was away Monday and Tuesday with Scott in Gweru and attended a few meetings and an education conference. It was good to reconnect with Zim people and education stuff! Mark then travelled out to Kadoma on Wednesday, the nearest town to Turf, to meet with the local education authority and introduce himself and let them know we will be moving out to the school. It was a good meeting – I was offered to run the nursery school in the village – very tempting so will see what happens. Still haven’t quite made it out to Turf – hoping it will be soon! We are pushing on lots of doors this next week for a house!!! Trusting God we’ll get break through here, so that our new lives can start soon! Finding this a little unsettling! There are no houses available and a massive housing shortage in the village – so we need a miracle!!

Mark was brilliant with his perseverance this week with sorting out the kids residency. He registered both their births here. Just need to collect the birth certificates and then the residency process starts. As I’m sure those of you who know Africa – these are not simple tasks!!! We’ve also had a few doctors visits and jabs for he kids getting them all up to date for this country. A very expensive process without the NHS! Done boring things like open bank accounts, get mobile numbers, health insurance etc – so slowly setting our lives up here!! All these things take 50 times longer here than in England and we are slowly adjusting to Africa time and pace! It’s good for us to take life a little slower – so trying to see the positives of it all rather than champ at the bit!!!

Meet the new additions to the Albertyn family given to the kids by the Peirson’s. A great empowerment iniciative – www.gogo-olive.com – gogo means granny in shona. Matt got given an Elephant whose name is Givemore and Zoe got given a Leopard with a baby on her back – Katie and Sara! Love it! This is just one of those things that reminds you of some of the amazing things that are being done in Zimbabwe. We have been blown away by the people who stayed during the toughest years in Zim where there was nothing here – we salute them!! I’ll try and keep my eyes peeled for more things to share with you but sadly Zim is not very world wide web friendly – so a lot of incredible things are hard to share because they’re not online!!!

Family news – kids doing really well! Zoe is taking about 6 steps between people now – too cute! She is soooo proud of herself! She turns one next week and we can’t believe how quick this year has gone! Matt is struggling at times with trying to understand that he won’t be going back to his home but we are very proud of him and is generally taking everything in his stride. He is a very open, friendly little boy who breaks the ice for us in many situations!!! We love them both so much and are so proud of them!!

They are loving the swimming pool, tree house and sandpit! Turning into outside bodies. We took the kids to a park that runs a train in it on Thursday – it hasn’t changed since I was a kid (feels a lot smaller than I remember it) – all needs a lick of paint but Matt had a ball!!! Zoe loved the train ride too, though is probably not as big a train lover as her brother!!


We went to a game park yesterday with the kids – their first taste of African animals (and a few farm animals mixed in the pot)! What a treat for all of us!! Even got a little sunburnt!
Watching lions:

Picnic in the back on Mark's brothers pick-up (Bakkie)at the end of our animal exploring

Matthew Quote for this week: This one needs a little explaining! On Matt’s last day at his play school they visited Zimbabwe on a map and gave Matt a Zimbabwe flag (which he calls Matthew’s flag) and a UK flag – needless to say everytime we are driving along and see a Zim flag this little voice pipes up with great excitement – ‘Look Daddy, Matthew’s flag. Might see another one?’

Quiz - What's wrong with this picture? (not sure if it's very clear)

My heart is way too soft and I find myself in tears or on the verge of tears often! We are surrounded by people who are so struggling to survive and life is tough. As a couple we want to help as many people as possible but there is a limit and we’re learning what we can do and what we just have to toughen up about! So so hard!! As a mother my heart aches and I want to open my home to all!!!! But I know it is not realistic and we have to focus on the little bit of difference we can make and not try and rescue the whole of Zimbabwe. Saying all that though, we are blown away daily by the character of the people of Zimbabwe. I feel so proud of my nation and it’s people!! They have stood and continue to stand!!!

So another update soon!!!