old emails from africa, part 2 of 2

may 2004, sanyati zimbabwe, africa.

sorry guys but i just had to send that last email out with some of those

thoughts. i’ve had some interesting experiences for sure. just wanted to give

some of you an update of some of the other things i’ve had going on lately.
wednesday night i taught 8 or 10 nursing students who wanted me to help them
study and learn from my textbooks. i prepared a brief lecture on hiv/aids
(patho/phys., modes of transmission, opportunistic diseases, pertinent nursing
diagnoses). the time went well, i actually taught in their one room schoolhouse
with one small chalkboard, slightly different from my lecture halls with yards
and yards of chalkboard, huge powerpoint led projectors, and computer systems
with internet and surround sound(which are extremely good for watching surf
videos and dvds late night after the janitors leave…but i won’t tell you how
many times i’ve, i mean some people, have done that). i was also able to
incorporate, since the hospital’s mission statement includes meeting the
spiritual needs of its patients, aspects of how to meet patients needs in that
area. this allowed me to share the main ideas biblically taught for salvation,
and hence eternal relief and easing of the suffering of many patients. i was
also able to give them materials that the doctor has for the patients to read on
illness and the healing effects (eternally) of a relationship with god. as i
said it went well and i’m helping them learn another useful topic this wednesday
evening as well.
on another note, this thursday night i recieved a knock at my door. it was
chris chirambamwe, a 17 year old whom i had met and played soccer with in the
past two weeks. chris’ mother died when he was young and his father doesn’t seem
to be around, i believe i heard he died some years ago also, but i’m not
completely sure. he currently lives with his stepmother, whome his father had
married after his mother’s death. his stepmother had to go to another town to
take care of her ill mother for at least a week. he came to my flat that night
because, as often can be the case for him, he didn’t have enough food in the
house to eat. so, for the evening, and once or twice since then i’ve been able
to cook him a nice dinner from the food i have and let him hang out with me for
a while. while over at my house i quickly learned that people here aren’t
familiar of the idea of the sandwhich, i pulled out several items from the
refrigerator to make a good ham and cheese sandwhich, placed them on the
counter, and asked him if he would like a sandwhich. he looked at me and said
sure. i said ok, the things are out on the counter, i don’t know how you like it
so i’ll let you make it. well i quickly noticed him simply staring at the
evidently seemingly unrelated items(a loaf of bread, mayonaise, meat, cheese,
mustard, and a knife) with no apparent attempt to make a sandwhich and asked
him, trying not to make him feel stupid, if he’d ever made a sandwhich before,
of course, he said no. what was i thinking, this is a place where the only food
they eat is sadza(made from maize, the same stuff they feed the cows) and
whatever meat they kill, and maybe, if lucky, some vegetables. of course he’s
never even seen a snadwhich before. i quickly demonstrated how he could put meat
and cheese in between two slices of bread with mayonaise and mustard spreaded on
it and then hold it in your hands and eat the wonderful food creation. it was
pretty funny. he loved his first sandwhich.
henry david thoreau once wrote of his boyhood home how he would often put “a
loaf of bread in a sack and hop over the back fence” for a long hike through the
fields. that is similar to what i’ve also been trying to do to keep myself busy
on the days i’m not in the hospital. today actually, i’ve hiked a total of about
5 hours up and down sandy footpaths winding between farmers small coton and
maize fields and then heading off into dense brush and trees, then always,
seeming to end up again in between another farmers small field and a round
hand-made brick house with thatched roof. on one 2 hour trip i walked with
fanta, a 45 year old security guard from the hospital whose home and family i
had visited earlier. we walked and talked through the bush then out onto the
only paved road then back to dirt, after a while coming to a relative’s
homestead (his relative, not mine) where he was supposed to pick up two guinea
pigs for his young son to take care of. he picked his two favorite out of this
horribly dirty pen as i took photographs of the man’s home where his wife
promtly gathered all the herd of their children and plopped them, posing, on the
porch of the house to have a family picture made. i think i’m supposed to mail
the picture from the states to fanta to give to the family when i get home. the
man, as we were leaving, asked me if i could take a picture of him in his
cow-pen with a few cows. i thought to myself, of all the places out here, you
want a picture in that dirty pen with those cows?! but he was definitely
serious, so i took a photograph. a man and his cows. which will be slaughtered
by that smae man sometime in the near future…don’t think he really loves them
all that much.
the last week i’ve also hiked through several other areas for quite some
time. at one point after walking through the dense bush for an hour, and feeling
quite manly and outdoorsman-like for my accomplishment, i’m sure there were some
inward “good job gregg” and “pretty fearless aren’t you” sort of thoughts being
tossed around when i heard a noise from behind me. it was an interesting noise,
almost childish in its tone. i soon looked back down the path behind me and
found a small boy, no older than 7 years old, walking the same exact path that i
had walked for about an hour. what in the world was this small child doing on my
great outdoor hike in the deep dark woods? he was walking home from school. and
walking quite playfully i might add, seeming to just increase the degree of
deflation of my ego by another notch. the kid, his name was peter, was indeed
walking home from school, the same as he does 5 days a week, all by himself, for
well over an hour. shocked me back to some sort of sense on my hike for sure.
well i’ll say goodbye for now. and say thank you for reading and emailing.
things are going well here though very quiet at times, especially in the
seemingly endless night. the place is a little more suited to a quiet married
couple than to a 22 year old single guy, but i make do. the stars are always
plentiful each night and seen happily dancing in the sky for whoever chooses to
lie in the lawn and peer through binoculars up at them.

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