Home again

Well we made it home safely. After a long flight stopping in Lusaka (Zambia), Addis Ababa (Ethiopia) and Rome (Italy), we finally touched down at Heathrow 7am Saturday morning.

It's great to be back home with family and friends, and both of us enjoyed the welcome back we received from our churches on Sunday.

Now it's back to work and the normal routines. We both intend to let people find out more about our experience through various talks etc, so please let us know if you are interested.

Thankyou for your support and interest and for the comments you left on the blog.

Planting the pots

Open day - visitors enjoying refreshments

Open day

Open day was very successful. We had 18 visitors - a mixture of parents, committee members and friends. Children sang and danced beautifully, visitors watched a PE lesson and activities with the least able group. They also enjoyed a drink, popcorn and biscuits. The school grounds have been brightened up by 4 large plastic containers planted up by the children. Today, Henry the handyman at Gatehouse, has made 3 outdoor benches for us to put in the grounds of the school. None of this would have been possible without your donations. Thankyou.



Our time here is drawing rapidly to an end. We are looking forward to the party with children here at Gatehouse tomorrow afternoon.

Please pray for our safe journey home and continued freedom from migraine. We have been richly blessed during our stay here. See you all in cold England (with a bit of a suntan!)

Children from the orphanage

Musha Wavana Orphanage

We had a really good visit to this orphanage. It was built to house 40 children but now has 90 living there. As aresult most of them have to sleep 2 in a single bed. There are 4 houses with children living in family groups led by a house mother. Gatehouse community are one of their suppoprters. The children were pleased to see us and sang enthusiastically thanking us for the teddies we were able to give them.



This coming week is a very busy one. We are teaching at school each morning. On Wednesday we have an open morning to which we have invited parents, committee members and other supporters. On Wednesday afternoon we are holding a staff training session. Thursday is our last day and in the afternoon we have invited the Kukura children and staff to Gatehouse for a party and to look at thecows and pigs. It is with sadness that we shall say goodbye to them.

Kudzai and Ishe-unopa

Thought you might like to meet some more of the children we're working with and in these pictures you can see some of the things we've bought for the school so far. This first young lad is Kudzai:

And next is Ishe-unopa, who we introduced you to the other day. He is playing with animals and making fields of bricks:

The school has very limited resources, most of which are many years old and well used. You may like to know how some of the money raised in the UK is being spent. As well as things we bought in England, we've bought paper, exercise books, glue, biros, pencil sharpeners, sellotape and storage boxes. It's not easy to buy exactly what we'd like as the shops have limited stocks. We have managed to get a few simple childrens books, but a book we might pay 50p for in the UK costs US $3 in Marondera! From the craftsmen in Bulawayo we have bought small wire cars and wooden animals. the local youth group have made push along toys for the children using wire and drinks cans. We are sure the children and staff appreciate what your money has bought so far.

Prisca and Ishe-unopa

Just thought we'd upload a couple of pictures of the two pupils we talked about in the previous post so you can get an idea of who we're working with.

Above: Prisca

Below: Ishe-unopa

Back to work

Today we are back at work teaching in the school. Today and the next 2 days, we are being observed teaching by potential candidates for the job of superintendent which becomes vacant at the end of April. (Ruth and I are considering whether we should apply!)

This morning we taught the youngest children and used playdough, sang, did drawings and ended the session with a game of skittles. After the morning break, we split and took the 2 other groups. Ruth's group did writing patterns, number recognition and number sequencing to 5 and ended the morning with a music session. Stephanie's group (the most able group), read together a reading book we have made using the childrens photos and then did some simple subtraction work. The session finished with simple geography - looking at maps and then using video taken of the animals we have seen whilst we've been here. The children really enjoyed it and were impressed by the technology.

Let's introduce another 2 of the pupils. Prisca is 24 and has been in a wheeelchair for many years. She lives in the hostel for Kukura children. without any special aids being available for her, her spine has twisted badly and she is unable to sit up straight. She attempts speech and makes her needs known. One of her hands works fairly well so she uses a pencil. She loves to sing and joins in clapping when we have a worship session. She's always happy and smiling.

Ishe-unopa is a small bright eyed lovable child. He too lives in the hostel. He can't walk on his feet because they are malformed, but this doesn't stop him getting around using a crutch. Amazingly he loves to dance and has a good go at kicking a ball. He speaks in Shona - if only we did too! This morning he enjoyed using the playdough and spent time cutting up little bits with a knife.

Victoria Falls

On Saturday we visited the Victoria Falls. We walked along and were lucky not to get too wet. Though they are not full at this time of year, they were spectacular. The sun came out to give us a rainbow. From there we went to the Victoria Falls Hotel to take tea! We sat in the garden overlooking the lawns with the VF Bridge and the spray of the falls in the distance. Reminders of times past.
We stayed in a beautiful thatched lodge. Our bedroom overlooked the bush - it didn't have a back wall but canvas sides that you could roll up. While we were having breakfast on the patio we were visited by a curious warthog family, guinea fowl and a pangolin.

Monday 1st Feb

We're still in Bulawayo this morning, but travelling back to Harare this afternoon. Fantastic weekend spent with friends (Amita, Pradip and Amir Sudra) who have looked after us so well. We spent a night at Hwange Safari Lodge where we seemed to be the only guests and enjoyed watching zebra, impala and buffalo at the water hole behind the hotel. At 6am the following morning we took a game drive and saw lots of birds, giraffe, gibbons, warthog and a crocodile. It was hard to believe that we were really sitting in the African sun watching these animals and it wasn't something on TV!