Home Turf

Greetings again! Well today, we had a change in weather. It was cloudy and overcast. Kind of surprising really considering how used we have become to the cloudless sunny days! Nevertheless we were told by our driver, Mr. Chedokwa, that even though it may get cloudy it still doesn’t rain in this time of year. Another interesting developement is that we seem to be feeling the chill a little bit more than we used to. Could it be that we are becoming acclimatized to the weather here? If so, you won’t hear us complaining about the summer heat when we get back home
Today Doug and Scott went to the plots. As each team member has taken a turn going to the poorest areas around the Village of Hope we’ve all come back changed. There is really no way to describe the emotions we go through when we see the conditions the people are living in there and the children. The parents leave in the morning at 6am to work the fields and they usually don’t return until around 5pm that night. If it weren’t for the Village of Hope feeding and education program in the plots those children would go without food *all* day! Another sobering reality is the fact that at the moment the Village is only able to go to 4 plots - there are many others with nothing. We’ve already been talking about as a team ways in which we can encourage people to join us in helping fund further plots under the feeding program. We will be leaving some of the extra money behind from what we brought with us to help establish the necessary funding for one more plot.
When Doug went to the plot today he met a 19 month old girl named Veely. She lives with her Aunt because her mother died of AIDS. When she was first discovered at 1 year old she had the body of a 5 month old. She’s just started to walk in the last week or so. Veely was breastfed as a baby so there is a very real possibility that she has AIDS as well. Just one example of the realities we’ve been coming face to face with.
While Doug and Scott were visiting the plots, Alex went to join in with the pre-school class and participated by leading the devotional for the class. Barry and myself went to the Grade 1 and 2 classes. I entertained the children by doing some juggling and then Barry declared Canada day in the classroom and proceeded to give the kids some teaching about Canada. Barry was a great ambassador for Canada and the children learned alot about the different animals in Canada, our Canadian Flag, the seasons in Canada, and some distinctive Canadian sports and activities. We also passed out some keychains that the children of our church made to give out. Unfortunately I didn’t get a picture of that but I can assure you the Zimbawean children absolutley loved them! They wanted to know what the words in the middle of each key chain said and it was fun watching them go “wow”.
Chris, James, and Kevin went right to work at the construction site while waiting for the rest of us to get back from our other activities. It really is amazing seeing how far we’ve come. Doug figures we’ve laid down about 7,000 bricks and figures by our last working day, “Saturday” we will have laid close to, if not succeeding, 10,000 bricks!
Today, I finished fixing two desktop computers in the administration office and cleaned out a virus that was found on them. Then in the afternoon I concentrated on finishing preparing my message for Sunday.
Today we had pizza for supper. Remember the pizza picture I sent along in the update for Sunday? Well pizza then was a maximum of $410,000 for a Hawaiin pizza. Today that same pizza cost over $600,000. In case you aren’t getting how bad inflation is here hopefully that will give you some insight.
Here are some other facts:
- To Dry clean a suit 1 month ago it cost $75,000. Two weeks ago it cost 150,000. Now, it costs 300,000!
- Bread today cost $20,000 per loaf. Mr. Cooledge stocked up today because tomorrow bread may be as much as $60,000
- Bus fare from where we are living right now to where the Village of Hope is would cost $80,000.
- To illustrate how far the Zimbabwe Dollar has fallen - in 1980 the Zimbabwe Dollar = British Pound 1:1. Wow.
- In a lot of cases the wife and children live in rural areas while the husband lives and works in the city. The husand is usuallly away from his family 3 months at a time.
- In Zimbabwe we’ve come across a lot of construction sites where it looks like the partially finished home has been abandoned. In fact as we found out, what’s happened is that people have set out to construct their homes and then the inflation has risen to the point where they can no longer afford to finish the home.
- Finally, I want to include a few stats I took from an article in the local Zimbabwe newspaper, “The Herald” titled, “Family Basket Shoots up to 5.5million” $5.5 million is the cost of living for a family of six for the month of May. The figure was 3.3 million in April. That equals an increase of 65.6%
- Water and Electricity increased by 251%
- Clothing and Footwear rose by 214%
- Transport rose by 150%
- Tea leaves rose by 121%
- Milk rose by 92.2%
- Beef rose by 85.5%
- Bread rose by 76.5%
*TOMORROW*: Alex, Barry, and Gord Cooledge will be interviewed live by CFOS 560AM at 12:45am. Make sure you turn to that on you dial.
Oh, and in case your wondering, “Kutenda kuseni mabassa kwakafa” means. It means Faih without works is dead. How true!
Picture Time: 1. Mr. Canada himself!
2. James on brick detail
3. A look at the progress - we started putting in windows okay.
4. A picture of an overcast day in Zimbabwe.
Blessings everyone!
- Darren Ethier and the Zimbabwe 2007 Team

Hi there folks - it’s getting late and I’m tired and there’s a long day tomorrow but I thought I’d send out this quick update being that I missed yesterday’s due to the power being out and not being able to attain an internet connection. June 18th: - Kevin and James were the first two from the team to go visit the “plots” in the morning. The plots are places where farmhands live on the land that belongs to a farmer. A farmhand makes about 200 Zimbabwean dollars a month. Read that again in light of the Zimbabwe inflation and what I told you earlier about the cost of items. Remember a pizza costing $800,000. In light of that pay you can begin to get a bit of a picture what the plots are like. Each week day, two preschool teachers from the village go to the plots and they get the children started on learning how to read and write in English. They also do a Bible Verse, Pray the Lord’s Prayer, play a game with the chidlen, and then the children get fed a porridge. We will have pictures following Friday. We have been asked to limit the picture taking to one person and only on one day. - We had a full day of work at the Village. Doug worked alongside with the foreman of the construction crew working on the school block to keep everyone busy and make sure everyone had a job to do. Scott and Alex set the bricks and Chris mixed the cement. Kevin, James, and I were kept busy doing odd jobs but most of the time we transported bricks by wheelbarrow from where they had been dropped off to a place more accessible for the brick layers. Barry was helping move the bricks as well but spent some of the day with the Cooledges finalizing arrangments for the project. - We found out that the two missing bags will be in Wednesady morning. - We finished the day tired and beat but happy with what we had accomplished. - We invited the groundskeeper of the house we’re staying in and his family (Mr.Techaon) for dinner with us.
June 19th. - Arrived at the village - Chris and I took our turns going to the plots while the rest of the guys resumed working at the school. - I did some computer work for the Cooledges - In the afternoon Pastor Darren went with Pastor Zowa for a tour of the Bible College and Barry and James did a live interview wth Radio 97.9 “the Beach’ back home. - Another great day at work and we accomplished a lot.
Sorry for the lack of detail and pictures tonight. It’s 12:51am here and I’m getting pretty tired. By the time all the guys check their email, we have supper and have our group meeting it’s gotten pretty late and I’m pretty tired from the day. Twice I’ve had to delete a few lines of one letter as I’ve drifted off to sleep while typing this update!
Thanks for all your prayers and suport, - Darren Ethier and the Zimbabwe 2007 Team.

Hi there folks! Another day has come and gone here in Zimbabwe. Did you know that the Zimbabwean day is nearly always 12hours long? The sun rises at 6am and sets at 6pm (give or take a few minutes). When the sun rises, it’s bright - when the sun sets its dark, almost immediately - the sunrise and sunset don’t last very long. Needless to say it’s pretty interesting for us Canadian folks used to wide varieties of seasonal daylight hours!
Today was a great day. We got a chance to join in with a community building day with men from Hope Community Church and men from the plots who live near the Village. Over 50 men from the community showed up to help get things started on the building of the structure for the third school classroom. By the way, this is what our project for the time we are here will be. We’re hoping to get the walls up and and the roof in place for the classroom in 6 working days. Quite a challenge but one we’re up to trying to meet! Today was an amazing day of getting to know some of the men of the village and contributing to a “human brick passing chain” that moved brick for the walls from where it was piled to a more accesible location surrounding the foundation where the walls are being built on. In Zimbabwe, construction is a bit different from Canada because they use brick for their structural support and steel or timber for the tresses (roof structure). Lumber is not easy to come by and it is much easier to build with brick and mortar. Anyway, we had lots of laughs and fun as we moved the brick from the pile to the foundation and got to know some of the men better.
A funny story: The Zimbabwe men have a new way of describing someone who talks alot thanks to the wonderful observation by Doug. While we were passing brick along one of the men from the area was very vocal in conversation and continually urging us to “hurry” and “two two” which was to get us passing more bricks along at once (sometimes “three three” and “four four”…) All in good fun of course and everyone was laughing. In good humor Doug contributed to the laughter by calling the gentleman “Barry”. The nickname stuck and now Barry is the byword for, “one who talks alot” For those of you who know Barry well…well, you’ll understand!
Following the work day we had a BBQ with the men who worked. Now a Zimbabwean BBQ is much different than the typical Canadian BBQ…frankly, our BBQ’s pale in comparison. When we get back we’ll show you some pictures of the difference but I highly suspect that you’re going to see some of the men build a *real *BBQ in their back yards… The food was delicious. One of the awkward things about the meal was that we got our plates with food and then we looked around for forks and knives…only to discover there were none. The Zimbabwe people eat with their fingers…now how do you think we felt about that? 8 guys from Canada learning that it was OKAY to eat our food with our fingers… And yes, we did wash our hands first hehe.
In our team reflection time tonight back at our house we spent some time talking about the day and what stood out about it. I’m not going to share everything we talked about except to say that it’s obvious that this trip is affecting all of us in a big way. Words really can’t express the emotions we go through as we share with each other about the things the Zimbabwean people go through and yet the incredible resilience and joy they have in the midst of their trials. We also spent time talking about the reality of the economic situation here in Zimbabwe vs. what we know in Canada. For instance, we’ve been purchasing our food each day and this is what it costs:
A small brick of cheese = $330,000 ZD = $4.2 CDN A 6 pack of sausage = $104,000ZD = $1.3 CDN Peanut Butter = $60,000 ZD = $.74 CDN Ketchup = $37,000 ZD = $.46 CDN 10L Juice = $98,400 ZD = $1.21 CDN Cookies = $86,500 ZD = $1.17 CDN
And that was just today. Since the average inflation pushes prices up by 2-3% per day the costs continue to go up! Now translated into Canadian dollars the prices don’t really seem to be all that bad until I throw in the statistic that the avg take home pay for THOSE who work is about $31.50 CDN per MONTH! Not only that but taxes are at $47%! So…much of the things we take for granted at the local supermarket are considered “rich mans’” food here in Zimbabwe. Another sobering reality is the fact that the unemployment rate in Zimbabwe is around 75%. We certainly are challenged as a team by the realities of life for the people of Zimbabwe and amazed by the resourcefulness of the people in surviving.
For this update I thought I’d include a few pictures. Now because of the slow connection they won’t be in a very high resolution because I reduced the size of the file to cut down on transfer time. But I’m sure you’ll enjoy them anyway!
Here’s a brief description of each picture, 1. The team about to leave for the flight from Toronto. 2. The team in front of Westminister Abbey in London England 3. The team’s arrival at the Village of Hope. 4. Here the team is passing out some of the tools that were donations given to us to pass on the Village of Hope. You should have seen the eyes of the Zimbabwe workers when they saw those tools! Especially the cordless drill - they were wanting to try it right away! 5. Here is the “Brick passing chain” I wrote about earlier in the email.
Till next update folks… - Darren and the Zimbabwe 2007 Team