Monday 18th June, 2002

Well at 6:01 p.m. on Monday the 10th of June we were connected to electricity! They worked all day to put in the line to our generator house and to put us “on line!” When I went out to officially witness the lights being turned on, quiet a crowd gathered and when they lit up the mission everyone yelled and jumped around! It is exciting for the community as well as us!

We all waited anxiously at 9 p.m. to see if the lights would go off, as usual—but they kept on going. I suddenly had a lot of things to do and the medical students came at 9 p.m. to watch a movie! So finally got to bed at 11p.m! I think I will get a lot less sleep and not be as organized-ha!

Had to go around and turn off lights so I could sleep! We have always just let the lights come on and off with the generator! I also enjoyed getting up and watching CNN on TV while cooking breakfast—wow!

Tuesday at work we could order X-rays on rounds and tell the people to go “now” and get them done, instead of our usual “wait until 11 a.m. when you see the lights come on, then go for an X-ray.” We also spent most of the day in surgery and could break for lunch and start again at 2 p.m.!

Tuesday evening Dale and Linda Marshall, from Chinhoyi came out to spend the night and attend our celebration party put on by the electrical company, ZESA. The electrical company spent all day trucking people in for the ceremony. All night long we heard singing and drums as people partied! We didn’t sleep much!

The celebrations finally started about 11 a.m. with dramas and poems from several schools around. There were also a drill team made up of ZESA workers from Chinhoyi and a flag team from Chinhoyi, a police band, singers and dancers! It was very entertaining. They had put up 4 big canopy tents (each held over 500 people) and a VIP tent and stage! And 2 huge tents for the VIPs to eat in after the ceremony. There had to be 20,000 people present! They had set up on the airstrip. There were many political leaders present and the Minister of Mines and Energy was the special guest speaker. The President was suppose to come but he was in Italy for the UN Hunger meeting! At the end of all the speeches (about 3:30 p.m.) they went and official unveiled a plaque and “turned on the lights!”

Then when I got back to the hospital I found our 24-hour electricity had been off for 2 hours and we still don’t know when it is coming back! Oh well, it was nice while it lasted! In fact we just heard that when they turned the lights on “officially” for the program, it was actually connected a generator because there was a problem somewhere! Ha! Typical for life in Zimbabwe!

We had to run our generator from 6-9 p.m. and then the lights went off! We all joked it was just a publicity scam! It finally came back on again just before we were to turn our generator on at 11:00 a.m. this morning—so we are back on electricity! It is so quiet—we can’t tell the lights are on. We are used to hearing the generator and hearing the lights are on! Four of us enjoyed watching the Italy vs. Mexico World Cup game during lunch today on TV!

Life is so different--it will take a while to get used too!

I had to do a delivery this week and a C/Section in the middle of the night--so it was strange getting up and going to the hospital and seeing lights everywhere without having to call and have the generator started. It's harder for me to get back to sleep after being called out now, since the lights are on I can't function in my "half-awake" state!

Have started molding bricks for a new building at Chidamoyo--AIDS Education and Counseling Building. Funds have been raised by Chidamoyo Trust--U.K.! We are excited about the possibilities for the use of this building.

We are in the process of paying half of the Makonde Christian Hospital off and hope to have it all completed by the end of July. We are seeking more funding because they raised the price on us.

Even though many bad things are happening, God always gives us good things to encourage us and keep us going!

Love, Kathy