March news update

We hope you are well and that the weather in the UK is starting to improve by now.

We thought we’d send another update of what is happening here in Zim and what we have been up to.

Situation in Zimbabwe
The economic situation is going rapidly downhill with inflation going crazy and expected to reach 2000% soon. In February prices of many basic goods went up by 300%. For example, just this weekend petrol was $12,000 a litre, and then 4 days later we had to pay $24,000 a litre.

After a relatively quiet period politically things seem to be gaining momentum again in preparation for the 2008 elections. Violence broke out in a couple of the high-density suburbs a few weeks ago when rallies for the opposition was prevented from taking place by the police, even though they had obtained permission to hold it from the High court. More recently curfews have been put in place in the high density suburbs, and we have just heard that the leaders of the opposition parties have been severely beaten by police, but we heard that that has been in the news over there.

CEDAR
Our work with Operation Joseph and CEDAR continues to go well and be very busy. At CEDAR (HIV/AIDS project) we are in the process of introducing a more practical element to the programme to compliment the ongoing home based care and counselling that is currently provided. At the last count we had 2061 families receiving weekly help from volunteers. ARV’s are expensive and not readily available to the average family, so we have introduced herbs to treat the symptoms of AIDS, increase nutrition and boost the immune system. We are still in the early stages of developing this further but testimony’s that have come back so far have been very positive. The families are able to grow herbs easily in their gardens and they are cheap to buy and can be propagated so are sustainable for the long-term.

Operation Joseph
We recently went on a site visit to Murehwa to visit Operation Joseph farmers and see CEDAR in action. The rainfall has not been as good this year, but many of the farmer’s crops are looking pretty good, especially in comparison to those who had not used the conservation farming method. Operation Joseph had also been able to source and sell seed and fertilizers, which also helped them to get higher yields. The number of farmers in the programme has been increased from around 4500, to over 8000, with the introduction of farmer groups that meet locally to train their community, rather than farmers having to walk long distances each week.

Personal news
Apart from work we have been busy organising the house and getting things ready for our baby who arrives in about 5 weeks time. The pregnancy has gone well, and the time has flown by. The due date is 28th April, so we will let you know once baby arrives!

Sean hasn’t been too well recently, he came down with tick bite fever in February, but fortunately the Dr knew what it was straight away and the medication worked quickly. He is now much better.

We have been involved in quite a lot of things at our church as well. Including the start of our Friday evening youth service, which kicked off with a huge Gladiators event, followed by a talk. We had about 500 young people there from some of the boarding schools and other youth groups in the area. Sean is also doing a lot of the communications and media stuff for New Frontiers Zimbabwe, which is quite a big job and there is lots to learn. He has been designing and publishing magazines, producing videos and designing banners and flyers for several different events.

Please keep checking our blog page for more regular news on Zim, what we have been up to and photos. (Internet and phones have been a major problem here recently so please bear with us if it is not updated for a while.)

The phone numbers for one of the cell phone networks was changed last month, our new mobile phone numbers are:

Sean: +263 912 236124
Debbie: +263 912 773908

Thank you for your continued support,

Love
Sean and Debbie