Weekly Diary – Week 3

Another busy, fun filled and frustrating week, as they all seem to be. We are never quite sure what will happen next.

It was good to have our first meeting with our committee since arriving back in Zimbabwe and the opportunity to update them.  We shared with them some of the fundraising that had gone on in the UK and our plans for some of the projects and school links.  It was a very encouraging meeting.

Problems with the car slowed us down a bit, as we struggled to get to families and set up projects.  It looks like the timing belt, head gasket and rings have gone and the car is currently being repaired and we are hoping and praying that the bill is not too steep.

But on a positive note all but two families have now started a project.  Two families came and collected goats from us early in the week and another collected 50 chicks & feed.  We had a new large cage made, 2.5m x 1.5m x .5m, which we have lent to the family so they can start their chicken project.  It was interesting as the cage had to be transported 10km and it arrived upside down on top of a car and then was taken from us to the family by cart, pulled by two large cows. Happily it made it in one piece.

Talking of delivery methods, we arranged to meet several families at Wozhele school (about 8km from us) but a central location for the families, so that they could collect their goats.  We had organised with those we were buying the goats from to also bring them along, saving us having to find a way of transporting the 10 goats we needed.  3 goats arrived in a wheel barrow, another 2 on the shoulders of their owners, another still on the back of a guy riding a bicycle and the others were not very inventive as they arrived by just good old walking.  We have some great pictures and will upload them as and when we can sort out a decent internet signal.  It was a lovely feeling seeing happy people walking away with their goats and hopefully the start of a new future.

It was a real privilege to visit the homes of two of our sponsored children and their families to deliver grocery packages, courtesy of kind donations from their sponsors in the UK.  A very big thank you from them and us.

We bought 3 goats for the Trust but sadly one of the goats died, it miscarried and never recovered fully.  We are left with two goats, a stubborn male and an over friendly female.  The female goat is also pretty heavily pregnant and we look forward to see how many kids she has. Edline is very excited about having some goats milk, I’m not so sure!

An error by our bank led to a very stressful few days, as they closed our account for at the moment unknown reasons.  Money that had been paid into the account was not showing and was misplaced.  The bank eventually managed to find the money and are transferring it to our personal account, not at all ideal but at least we can use the money for the purpose it was donated.  Several cheques are having to be rewritten, direct debits set up again and funding providers are having to change their details, all a right pain.  We thank everyone for their understanding as we get the situation sorted.  For now we are using a different account, if you would like the details please email us.

We look forward to what this week brings…