Jacarandas, our bush home and other news!

Hello – it feels like a very long time since I last wrote – a lot has happened in the last few weeks!!

It is Jacaranda time!! I love it – I had forgotten just how beautiful these trees are – 7 years away makes me realise how much I’ve missed their beautiful flowers! Harare has streets lined with them and I thought it would be nice to share with you a few photos!!! I think I know why lilac is one of my favourite colours!!! There are so many flowering trees in Harare that I think I might do a post on a few more over the next couple of months as they flower.

We visited a miniature train with the kids a few weeks back – what great fun - they run it once a month as a bit of a hobby - real steam trains.

We are now together! Yah!!! Our season of being a family apart came to an end after doing it for 6 weeks. We moved out to our temporary home just over two weeks ago. Our stuff has been in strorage for 7 years so you can imagine the cleaning and washing that had to happen as we unpacked – 7 years of rat poo and wee!! It is in the middle of a game park – literally – nothing except our cottage separates us from the wild life and we look over a waterhole. It is amazing!!! As you can imagine the kids love it too!! We have a walled back garden – which has no gate – so we can get away from them but do need to keep an eye out for little nosey visitors. We have also had some unwelcome guests in our cottage – a snake – which crawled over my foot the first night, a massive scorpion (bigger than my hand), a massive centipede and loads and loads and loads of black ants (woken covered in them a few times). The cottage sat empty for a few years and I think it is taking a little while for creatures to realise this is our home now!!!

We were spoilt living with my folks, they were so well prepared for power cuts – solar lights, solar panel to heat hot water, an invertor to run little things off, gas hob, ice system in their fridge to keep it cool etc. So fending for ourselves has been a slight shock to the system!! We have 17hr power cuts every day – 5am to 11pm and we have had a 52hr power cut. As you can imagine a fridge and a freezer can not be run with this little electricity, so our first week here we had loads of things going off. Poor Mark goes to bed at 7.30pm and wakes at 11pm and works for a few hours before he leaves the house at 5.30am for work. So we have desperately been trying to make a plan as to how we can make our lives work without power!! We have amazing family and friends who have lent us bits, sold us stuff we can pay off over a few months etc and as of tonight have two batteries that power an invertor that can charge LED lights, cell phones, laptops etc and will be slowly paying off a generator that will run our fridge for 2hrs a day – this arrives on Sunday! Woop!!! Woop!! Headlamps are just the best too!!! So the hope is that come the evenings we hope to feel more motivated to work – not sure if it’s the lack of power or the heat – it is very hot here – way hotter than Harare but not as hot as Turf! Poor Mark roasts every day! Zoe lives in a paddling pool on and off all day and we try and keep our house sealed up to keep the hot air out but inside temps are 35’C – still cooler than outside though. It has been weird not having rain for the last 3 months, something that is so foreign to us having lived in the UK for so long. We have had thunder and lightening this evening which is very exciting but early for rains so not sure if any will fall!!! I can smell the rain in the air!!! (Other Zimbos will know what I mean – you can literally smell rain here – beautiful.) A few days later now – it did rain and it smelt glorious – I got up at 2am just to smell it!!! Was a welcome change!!!!

We have already had a few people out to stay with us and enjoy sharing the delights of our wild home with others! The kids love the visitors! Marcus, who also works for the trust we work for here, came to stay a few nights ago and we so enjoyed time with him. He is an incredible man who we are humbled by everytime we spend time with him. What an honour to work with him. A true servant heart!!!! I could fill this blog with his stories of life out at Turf – just incredible what he is doing in that community and who he opens his home to!

I have found it quite isolated out here being stuck on a farm all day with kids and not really being able to venture too far away from the cottage due to the wild animals. I have found it tough at times but I also feel like I’m learning a lot as a mum and it is certainly character building! We have a sand pit, paddling pool, craft stuff, books and a few toys to keep us busy. I have turfed a small bit of the garden so that we have grass.

I will be starting work in the local primary school with their Grade 0 (Reception class) from next Tuesday, one day a week and they have said that the kids can come with me. I am excited about this but also a little nervous about how it will work with the kids and how they will cope with the heat and journey – especially as we do not own a car with Aircon! Let me tell you about the desperate state of the junior school. There are 1200 pupils at the junior school, a school that is built to house 400 children. So they too hot seat (run two schools – one in the am and one in the pm) and teach lessons under trees. This will become more tricky once the rains arrive! The Early Years department (Grade 0) comprises of 5 classes, 5 teachers and 150 kids!!!!! They only have one classroom!!!! It was so humbling meeting the ladies who run the department – such amazing ladies who are so creative with so little! They literally have no resources, no desks, chairs etc but have a curriculum that they have to follow. I took home their schemes of work to see what they are teaching and where I could help out. Amazingly humbling reading what they do with so little – so imaginative but also desperately sad. I was there during break time and so many of the kids have nothing to eat and have to sit and watch those who do have food – breaks my heart and you can see it breaks the hearts of the teachers too. They themselves live off so little!! So I have come away buzzing with what I can contribute - from toys, resources to running game, dance, drama sessions etc. The money we receive from Makomborero quarterly, a proportion of this will be given to me to spend on the Early Years and I hope to provide a meal once a week for the kids, resources etc. I start at the school on Tuesday 26th October. Please pray the my kids cope with the day out at Turf, trusting till the house is built that we can use a room in someones house for their afternoon nap and I’ll travel back to our cottage once the day begins to cool down a little. I took the kids with me to my meeting and Matthew had the pied piper effect – these kids had never seen a white kid before so he was a huge novelty – touching his hair and giggling! I will try and do an short blog entry during the week with photos!

Mark continues to teach at Wanganui. He finds the days long especially with the very, very hot, dry weather at this time of the year. He has a 70km drive each way from our cottage. He has become particularly fond of a young guy called Peter. Let me introduce you to Peter. He walks 15 miles to school each day, which as you can imagine takes him a couple of hours each way – Mark started to give him a lift before he went off on his study leave for writing his A-levels. He is highly intelligent. Sadly his English is not very good and this is often his down fall when it comes to his examinations. Peter did not have any teachers during his two years of O’level (GCSE). He taught himself. With his maths, he did not have a textbook and managed to find a few past papers and taught himself from those. He has now mostly taught himself Maths A-level. His determination to succeed against all odds is so incredible. He doesn’t have any career ambitions, as so many of these kids, as he just can’t quite comprehend what is out there. He lives in a little mud hut with his family. Mark and I have been invited round there for a meal once he has finished writing his exams and we look forward to it. Mark has got to know his parents from the lifts he has been giving Peter, they are subsistence farmers who really struggle financially to feed their family. Here is a picture of their hut. We are trusting for great things for Peter and hope to be able to steer him in the direction of a career that he will find fulfilling and will use the amazing academic gifts he has. As you can imagine there are many students with similar stories and it is inspiring!

Mark will be running a movie afternoon at the school. This will serve two purposes – one it will be a fun thing for the kids to do and secondly we hope that this will help them improve on their English in a fun way. English is the medium that they write all their examinations in and so many of them struggle to speak a few sentences in English. Mark will run this on a Tuesday afternoon – with the hot seating and the school running in the afternoon, we have come up with a timetable for each form to attend without it affecting lesson time. This also starts on 26th October – with Form 1. I’ll be cooking popcorn for 150 pupils each week!! The little house at Turf is being built and has gone up incredibly quickly!!!

Here are a few photos to show you the progress to date. It is very little and cute!!!


The crisis on day to day funding has kind of sorted its self out after much stress and trying to make plans etc but sadly funding on a bigger scale for next year is not looking likely, so we are moving forward with some big plans to make next year work. Once these plans are finalised and we know exactly what is happening we will fill you in. For those of you who do pray for us, please pray that we continue to make wise decisions, we don’t feel discouraged, that we knock on the right doors and things really fall into place for our emergency contingency plan!! It is exciting but scary too! We have been reminded of that verse Proverbs 3v5&6 – Trust in the Lord with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding, in all your ways acknowledge Him and He shall direct your path.

I’ve been struck again at how amazing it is to be a parent and the blessing my children are to me. Especially being stuck in the bush with them and not being able to rely on anything other than what I can provide for them to do for entertainment etc. It has shown me areas in me that are yukkie and need sorting out and also made me see a fresh how delightful they are. It struck me that we are now parents to two toddlers – our baby is not a baby anymore. Matthew and Zoe are really beginning to play together and I love watching it! Poor little Zoe is suffering terribly with heat rash that blisters as her body adjusts to the weather!! They both drink so much water and I put them to bed now with beakers of water that our empty by the morning!!! They are so dirty by the end of everyday and are delighted to welcome Daddy home each evening!!! Master (the caretaker here) has won Zoe’s heart and she will often wander off in pursuit of him for a cuddle! Very precious!! She has to be watched like a hawk if the doors are open as has no concept of the dangers that surround her here!! She is covered in bruises from all her falls and climbing endeavours!! Matthew is still completely obsessed with trains and has duplo cars that were mine when I was little that he plays with all day and each one is a Thomas train – Percy, James, Toby, Spencer etc! He is a gentle soul and often comes out with things that melt our hearts. He often tells me now that he thinks I’m wearing something pretty, that he loves us to the moon and back, what he wants us to pray he will dream about that night, is totally in love with his Granny and Grandad and Uncle Steven, Aunty Linda and Jordan. They feature in all our pretend stories now – as well and Felix, Uncle Rich and Mr Peter (they know who they are). Matthew and Zoe have started to play together beautifully – particularly what is called ‘Rough and tumble’ time in our bedroom!! Very cute to watch all the screaming and laughing coming from both of them and Mark and I often join in too!! Matthew was a little sad the last few days so climbed into bed with him one evening and he told me that he is missing his friends in England - he went through his list of little friends and special people! I was amazed at how much he still remembers - the list was long too!!! Very precious but made me a little tearful too - not just us who feels home sick for England at times.

The kids love coming into Harare and it is such a highlight to spend time with their granparents - here are the kids picking roses with Granny in the veggie garden!

We're still waiting for our stuff to arrive from the UK - it's in J'burg and been there for 6 weeks - grrr!!!

Well I think I’ve said enough! Now to upload this – which is a laugh!! We drive about 2km out of the game park and sit on the side of the road and send and receive emails and check internet. Feels very odd the few times I’ve done it. Mark mostly does it on his way to work. So hence email is a better way to contact us at the moment. Waited till we were in Harare to upload this – still took a few hours! Happy half term to all you UK teachers! For those of you wanting to see pics of the kids: Thought this one might make you laugh - yoghurt eating by Zoe!
For some reason I can't get this photo to load the right way up!