We have had another busy and eventful week. Our leaky roof was fixed from the outside and underneath. The outer wall around the yard is being worked on for large cracks and gaps between bricks, knocking down complete sections and rebuilding it all the way back in some areas. Fixing up the wall is necessary for security reasons. We have also replaced two ceilings in the house, which were falling down (one in the kitchen, where a light fixture was falling down, and the other in a bathroom, where the hot water heater had been leaking). We made sure to take plenty of pictures and some videos, so you all could see for yourselves what has been going on here this week.

Read the captions underneath these pictures to see more about the hot water heaters.

One of the major projects that needed to be done while we are here was drilling a borehole. This is what is known as a well in the U.S. :-) The house has been using city water, which is not clean for drinking. The last couple of baths we took, the water was coming out brown. The city water pipes sometimes get cross-contaminated with the sewer pipes. This is definitely something that needed changing. The solution is to dig a borehole. Many individuals donated toward this project. We thought the process would take a couple of months with the drilling and hooking up of pipes, the pump, and electrical, not to mention getting a permit. However, we are very excited to say that the process started last Saturday, and will be finished this Saturday (we did not need to apply for a permit, which also sped up the process).

Below is a video clip of the truck arriving at the house. It was nerve-wracking watching it come through the narrow gate and down the narrow driveway.

The next video clip shows how the drilling began and Yolanda's reaction to it :-)

It was found that there was water down to 53 meters, including 5 breaks (pockets of water). They drilled down to 55 meters, which took about 4 hours. Once they got low enough and hit water, it started gushing out and down the hill like a flood. They said that we won't have to worry about it running dry because the volume is so massive. Boreholes have the potential to last 30-40 years. We will have plenty of water, as well as excellent pressure, which is something that not all boreholes provide.


Check out the captions below the pictures.

Watch the following video clip to see how safety in the workplace differs from that in the U.S. :-)

Yesterday, today, and tomorrow, there is no water hooked up to the house. We hooked up a hose to the borehole, and are running water outside to water the yard, plants, and trees. The first bit of water that comes out is a little dirty, so before it is hooked up to the house, we have to flush the system. With no water in the house, we took "baths" in buckets last night (picture below).

We will have the blessing of hot, clean water by the end of the week. So much goes into the privilege of having quality water. We do not want to take it for granted. Thank you to the Lord for providing so many donors to make this possible!

We are thankful to finally be sending greetings from Chinhoyi, Zimbabwe! We have lots to share. It has been a long time since we have sent an update, but we will be more regular now. Ever since we landed, we have been only using the Internet on our phone, sparingly, as we have been paying by the MB. Today, we just got hooked up at the house for Internet, so it is a regular monthly charge. So, we can use the Internet as much as we need to, which is vital in keeping all of you updated.

Yolanda and I had a great time with her mother and brother in London. It was good for us to connect with them on our way here. We were thankful for time together with family. While there we were made aware of some serious health concerns that Yolanda’s mother is dealing with. At this point in time it is not our place to go into details but we do request your prayers for her.

Only in Africa

In the two and a half weeks we have been here, we have already had several observations of things that could only take place in Africa:

A semi-truck broke down in the middle of an intersection. Instead of a tow truck coming to move it, the driver was working underneath it, placing all kinds of parts on the street. It was still there 3 days later.

I wondered why there were no police to help traffic flow around this intersection. Once we got on the other side of the truck, we saw five guys pushing a police truck that had run out of gas.

I got pulled over by a policeman on the highway between Chinhoyi and Harare. He asked how my trip was, and then told me he stopped me just so he could say hi.

We have worked with guys who have some interesting names (real names): Never, Council, Good News, Western, and Lala. (Yolanda explained to me that people are named after specific situations, emotions or relationships they are dealing with during the time of pregnancy).

When a traffic light was out at an intersection, cars from all four directions were going at the same time, missing each other by inches. This was certainly my Driver’s Ed. 101 in Zimbabwe.

First Week

We landed in Harare on June 1, with all 6 suitcases intact. We were picked up by family friends. I was feeling pretty confident about things, because after all, this is my (Andrew) 3rd trip to Africa. Right after we drove out of the airport, forgetting that we were in the capital, I saw an animal and said, “Is that a lion?” Nope. It was a dog. Ok, so I’m still a newbie, haha. We stayed with these friends in Harare for just less than a week. Yolanda and I quickly became reacquainted with our car, driving on the left side of the road, and the way driving is done in Zimbabwe. You have to keep one eye on the car in front of you, one eye on the potholes, one eye on the pedestrians crossing at any given spot, one eye on the car next to you trying to create a new lane, one eye on the upcoming traffic light (which may or may not be working), and one eye on the GPS (you count how many eyes that takes). We spent much of that week going to various stores, trying to get the best prices on appliances. Because the stores do not have websites to check, we had to drive to each store. After spending nearly 8 hours each day, for 5 or 6 days, we purchased a refrigerator, microwave, washing machine, dryer, and freezer (gas stove still to be bought). These will all be delivered to the house this week. Until then, we are being creative with a cooler for a refrigerator and electric frying pan for a stove. We are excited to say that with these purchases, we are $2,840 under budget for furnishings (not to mention the $1,000 we saved with Internet, in not going the route of a satellite dish).

At the end of that week, we drove the 75 minutes to Chinhoyi to clean up the house before our shipment of boxes arrived. After the house was vacant for 6 months, there was LOTS of cleaning that needed to be done. The best item we purchased so far has been a vacuum! I (Andrew) am not a fan of bugs in the house (and yes, I still decided to move to Africa J), and was very happy to be able to vacuum up all of the spiders (30) and wasps (80) living inside the house. After that, I also invested in bug poison to spray the house with J Yolanda still laughs at me, and yet she too, is secretly happy for my obsessive-bug-vacuuming-skills.

Yolanda and I certainly felt overwhelmed our first night in the house, as we sat on the floor, eating noodles for dinner that were boiled in a kettle (electric pot to boil water) like college students, thinking about all of the repairs the house will need. There has been very minimal maintenance done in the past 10 years. There is everything from broken windows, to a leaky roof, to broken water heaters, to scary looking electrical connections, to water-damaged ceilings, to unusable bathroom fixtures. That being said, we have found a good contractor who Yolanda and I will help fix and improve several of these items. We will purchase the materials, and since work is scarce in Zimbabwe, the labor is inexpensive (but we obviously plan to give fair wages). This also opens the opportunity to new relationships in the area. We are grateful for the agreement between us and the owner (Yolanda’s mother) that the first year’s rent money will be used directly to get the house back into adequate living condition.

Second Week

At the beginning of the next week, we drove back to Harare to pick up our shipment of 65 boxes that were arriving at the airport. We showed up at the airport in the morning with our paperwork. It was definitely not as easy as showing them our papers, followed by us getting our boxes. When we got to the first window, the lady told us we needed to go to a different building. The person at the other building said we had to go back to the first building. Then, we were told that they would have to open every single box so that they could verify everything inside them. We, along with many others, had prayed that this would not happen. We had spent so many hours packing everything just right and did not want anything to break on the way to Chinhoyi. We also knew that if they saw some of the donations, such as mid-wifery packs or school supplies, that they would not let us keep them. When we finally saw our boxes, it was obvious they had been through a lot. They were beaten up, dirty, a few smushed, and a few wet and warped. At the sight of this and the thought of them opening each one, Yolanda burst into tears. It was overwhelming that some things might be damaged or broken. Well, the sight of a white woman crying attracted a little crowd, and the man felt so bad that he said we wouldn’t have to open any boxes that we didn’t want to.  We only opened 2, which had gotten wet, but thankfully nothing inside was damaged. Once that was done, we had more paperwork with ZIMRA (the tax people). Normally, items are taxed 80% that are brought in. However, since Yolanda is a returning resident, there was zero tax. Although this process of paperwork took several more hours and several more buildings to go to, we were able to collect 52 of our boxes, and would need to get the other 13 the following day, since they came on a different flight.

We were able to pick up the remaining 13 boxes with no issues, and hired a driver to take them all to Chinhoyi. We have only opened a few of them, because we still really don’t have anywhere to put everything. We also haven’t been brave enough to open any of the glass frames. However, everything is here and we are thankful for all that we could bring.

We have sorted out several other things as well. We have learned where we need to go to pay our water, garbage collection, and telephone bills (We attempted to get an up-to-date phone book, but the most recent the telephone company had was 2011. The one at our house is from 2006). The garbage hasn’t been picked up in 3 weeks, and the lady, at the telephone company, told us that if that happens, she just burns it in a hole in the back yard. Nevertheless, we will not be doing that. We also found out where to pre-pay for electricity at a local grocery store, which could result in a couple-hour wait in line.

There is obviously TONS of work that needs to be done, but Yolanda and I feel like we are slowly and surely getting settled in.