old emails from africa.

may/june 2004. sanyati zimbabwe.

saving these on here so they don’t get deleted from an old email account.

hey everybody,
this is gregg with an update from zimbabwe. in the last few days i’ve had to
leave sanyati and the hospital and travel three hours south to gweru with one of
the guys i’m with in sanyati. dr. boone and his family have gone to kenya until
the end of the week and william brown had some business to take care of in
gweru. we had thought of me simply staying in sanyati for the week as the only
american in the area but after discussing with dr. boone i found out that it was
a very bad idea. being the only american in the area, especially as a new and
unknown volunteer, is a very bad idea as volunteers in the past have run into
some major problems with some locals trying to steal and cause trouble when they
find out that the existing long-term staff are gone. that fact, combined with
the fact that i don’t have a working phone nor a vehicle with which to leave the
area, is the reason i’m spending most of this week with a missionary family in
gweru, a city(an actual city, haven’t seen one in a while) of about 100,000
people.
coming into gweru gives you an even greater perspective on the true poverty
that is seen in the area of the hospital i’ve been working at. after spending
only several weeks in sanyati it’s quite easy to forget that some people in the
country actually have jobs, some people in the country actually have access to
adequate food(though always overpriced, inflation is at 590% compared to the
1.5% in the u.s.), some fuel stations do have fuel to sell, and some people
actually have the luxury of electricity to light their homes, heat their water,
and cook their food. i’m being quite spoiled here in gweru, the house doesn’t
have insects running wild inside it, there is actually grass in the yard, and
the food is excellent….surely beats my “cooking” at the home in sanyati.
i want to comment on what someone had written me in the last week or so to
help provide some perspective on what goes on in the rural areas as a visiting
missionary. someone had written that it’s great to see that i’m able to work,
teach, travel and even share beliefs unhindered and without trouble, that isn’t
really too true. in the past few emails describing what i’ve been able to do in
the area i’ve definitely left out a few things, probably because i’ve come here
expecting everything that i’ve experienced and try to focus on the positive
aspects of an experience rather than the negative. the truth is that the whole
visit hasn’t exactly been a walk in the park. i’ve told you of hikes taken
through the bush, bike rides down the only tar road in the area, and work in the
hospital but i also haven’t told you that there hasn’t been a single day gone
by, a single hike through the area, bikeride, or shopping experience that i
haven’t experienced some sort of problems. i haven’t told you of the guy that
yelled at me in shona to lie down in front of his two bulls pulling his cart so
that they can trample me, or the guy riding his bike down the same path as i
that turned towrd me, again yelling, and holding up his fist trying to scare me
off the trail. there have been countless times that i am begged for just about
everything that i own by people telling completely false stories fo their lives
to me. for example i talked briefly with a young boy on a trail with his
friends, as i walked about thirty yards away i stopped and took my watch out of
my backpack to check the time, the boy, seeing this, runs up to me again saying
“excuse me again sir, but last week some friends at school stole my only watch
and i no longer have any way to keep time and don’t have money to buy another
one because i’m so very poor. is there any way that you could help me?” i told
him nicely that i was sorry that i couldn’t, i really couldn’t anyway, i only
have one watch and can’t afford to replace it, he walked back to his friends who
promptly laughed out loud with their friend at his false story to get my watch.
there have been countless other times only within a few weeks here. i’ve also
been told by the groundskeeper at the guest house(baba office), who’s lived in
the area his whole life, that many of the people coming to my house are telling
absolute lies about their conditions, the cost of school fees, and their family
life, simply to attempt to get money from me. in fact they will not come to the
house when he is still nearby because they’re afraid he will tell me the truth.
there have been many other occasions where i’ve had to avoid confrontation that
could have brought trouble or harm to me as well. all of this has been an
expected part of the experience due to the impoverished conditions, governmental
struggles, and overall lack of taught values in the society. i read through a
book listing the current most dangerous places for american’s to travel,
zimbabwe was ranked in the top three. to give a little perspective or comparison
to another country that many american’s see as a very dangerous place to visit
and share, china, wasn’t in the book.
through this i’m not trying to sensationalize anything of the area or even
make my trip seem more interesting to anyone reading. but there are many truths
to the danger of the area. another point that i’ll make briefly is the fact that
i don’t share anything of the political situation and actions against certain
peoples in zim even within the last few years. the stories, though completely
true, would appal you. the reasoning simply is that it isn’t safe to share
details of events, involved people, or parties over the phone or our email
connection, for my safety and the safety of those here.
so, given a true description of the area and the events and problems
experienced daily, why would you want to come here in attempt to reach out and
help others in some way? the reasons are countless, the almost cliche’ help the
poor descriptions are not lies. especially in the rural area of sanyati and
other similar areas. there are many people here who truly don’t have enough food
to eat on a regular basis, people here with so little education and so little
money that they don’t identify lifetheatening health conditions or emergency
problems, and when finally treated they don’t have the money to pay for it.(even
though all surgical procedures in sanyati are under $20 u.s.) there are a
countless amount of children here whom haven’t seen there fathers in years(in a
nearby school of 1000 students, over 400 are orphans), many whose mothers have
died of aids. a clinic near the house here in gweru tests its pregnant mothers
for hiv, 57% of all mothers coming through the clinic have tested positive, and
without treatment(which the rural areas don’t get) one out of four children will
contract aids from their mothers, they will die within 3 years. at least 70% of
the patients in our hospital, if tested, would be hiv positive. students cannot
afford their school-books even if their parents can afford the school fees to
the public school (i purchased a friend’s european history-book for him so that
he could study for the next two terms of his 11th grade year, the cost, $5
u.s….his mother couldn’t afford it) the average income for the country comes
to about $450 u.s. per year, 80% of the population is jobless. and the usual
excuse we give that they don’t need a whole lot of money, “because prices are so
low there”, isn’t in any way true, especially with an inflation rate of 590%. if
you are one of the few people with a vehicle it’s a battle to find gasoline,(one
station near sanyati hasn’t had fuel in 3 years, the other station, often once
in several months) and if you do the price is insanely expensive. the stats and
even more powerful, the stories of people i meet daily, go on and on. there is a
class of the rich and powerful, and a majority class of people who are often
living the exact same way that truly “primitive” peoples in the area lived over
1000 years ago. and trust me, living according to your history and ancestors
isn’t in any way adequate or even philosophically acceptable when those ancient
cultures(great zimbabwe) and practices couldn’t feed populations of more than
25,000 people without dying out, and especially unacceptable in a modern age
when we have people with knowledge, materials, and practices that can aid and
help to cure the problems of these impoverished and dying people.
i hope this gives an adequate description of the poverty and troubles that
i’ve found here in zim and can also be found all over the world. the truth is
that what aid workers do here is honestly not very different from aid of people
within the states. giving time here is little different from the time i’ve spent
building houses for single student mothers with habijax, giving time teaching
second-graders each week how to stay fit and healthy in a fast-food world,
folding and packing clothing for needy families with dignity u-wear, helping
teach disabled children, and countless more activities over the years. the truth
is that you can also give time to people in need even within the states. i have
wanted to travel to africa since childhood, since my years of dreaming of being
a wildlife photographer or building home-made balsa wood biplanes with motors
glued to them so they could fly far away(they promptly crashed to the ground
after an exciting 3 second flight), that is why i’ve wanted to come here to work
and experience life, at least for a little while. but the attitude of giving and
helping others in all areas of life physical, mental, and spiritual is not one
that should be confined to a far away world with distant peoples, it should be
an everyday experience, wherever you are.

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