forgotten emails from africa #1

i completely forgot about a few old emails that i sent from africa back in 2004. i remembered them on my hotmail account today and thought i would post them here for my future reference before they get deleted from hotmail. although they’ve managed to stay on there for 6 years now, so maybe i’ll never lose them anyways. for those who don’t know, i spent 2 months as a volunteer missionary in africa in 2004. zimbabwe specifically, in southern africa. i flew over by myself to volunteer in a missionary-run “hospital” in a very rural area of the country and spent 2 months working/living there.

“hey everybody, it’s 8:30 pm zim time saturday night. just wanted to tell you
that after 4 days of travel i’ve finally arrrived at the complex in sanyati.
i’ve spent about 24 hours flying on three separate flights from j-ville to
harare with about 15 minutes of sleep in the first 30 hours of the trip…i
definitely can’t sleep on planes. i exchanged money at the airport before
leaving for the city, an exchange rate of $1 US for $5200 ZIM, i can pridefully
say that i have now joined the ranks of the very rich millionaire, 1.6
approximately at the moment. i had to spend two nights at a guest house in
harare because i wasn’t able to get a bus ticket for the next city until
saturday morning. the house was actually pretty nice, part of a large complex
of missionaries’ houses covering a full city block. i didn’t get to do much in
harare because the area i was in wasn’t safe enough to walk around, the complex
is completely surrounded by a 7 foot tall concrete fence, with solid iron gates
and another foot of electrical wiring on top to deter thieves with 10,000 volts
constantly running through them, there are also at least two hired guards
watching the gates and property at all times…the worst of new york city’s got
nothing on this place. this morning i finally boarded a very nice bus for a two
hour trip to kadoma, a small city in the south of harare, where i was met by
someone from the sanyati mission to buy food at the grocery store(a very
interesting experience), we also helped a worker of william’s find a single bag
of concrete with which he is beginning to build a home, it took us to a
comparatively bad area of the small town where we pulled into a driveway behind
some buildings and a young boy quickly yelled out in the shona language “white
people! white people!”(i’m not kidding at all here) the guy selling the bag of
concrete wanted to charge $60,000 for the bag simply because we(two white guys)
were there helping but soon lowered the price to a slightly high $4,000. we then
drove another hour down some extremely shotty roads to sanyati. the drive was
definitely eye opening with many cylindrical huts with thatched roofs lining the
roads and fields. i can’t say i was actually looking in particular for nowhere,
but i’m absolutely sure i’m now in the middle of it. it’s pretty crazy out here,
definitely safer than in the city though, we still have to lock everyhting and
watch our belongings all the time. i’ve settled into my large two bedroom flat
that is actually very nice to stay in, and have already played soccer with dr.
boone, william(another missionary), and what ended up being 25 children between
ages 7 and 20. i’m gonna run now, i’m extremely tired from the travel and have
to finish unpacking my things. tomorrow i’ll probably go to a small church out
here and play some more games with the kids in the afternoon, then monday
morning head over to the hospital(100 yards) to begin some work, we’ve got a
surgeon her euntil thursday so we’ll be finishing up any needed surgical
procedures in the first few days. i hope all of you are doing well and i’ll
email again later. if you’d like to email me sometime you’re all welcome to, the
address for me here is pboone@healthnet.zw, please don’t send any attachments or
pictures as we don’t have true internet, and as the title of the email simply
write ‘gregg m.’, so that we will know that it is mine. all of you are welcome
to email me if you’d like and i would definitely like to hear from you since
absolutely nothing except for my clif bars and granola bars are anything like
home.

talk with you guys later,
gregg”

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