Off Grid

I am in Bulawayo for the weekend, visiting with Lois and Jo, the BMS couple who are now living in Kevin and Gill's house. This means that I have a reasonable internet connection. So I  have updated this post to add the pictures I orriginally intended t go with it, and will add a couple of other posts while I am here.

Here I am, safe in Zimbabwe, about 50km south of Bulawayo – off road and off grid. Morning Star, the hostel run by Chris and Norma Ferguson, is in the middle of a granite plateau, with long granite outcrops called dwala or whalebacks, and jumbles of rocks that look like gigantic Dartmoor Tors. Between them is a land waiting for the rains to come, which they hopefully will in the next four to six weeks. This year the rains are needed more than ever, as the last we season brought less than normal.

Chris and Norma work on a variety of projects – one of their major commitments is to schools literacy work. Other areas they work with include orphan feeding programmes and AIDS support work. These are supported by various organisations in Europe and the USA. To help them, two gap year volunteers – one from Australia and one from Switzerland; have come to join them. I hope to go with them to help out in the schools, but will also spend some time in Bulawayo with the Baptist Missionaries who had been working alongside Gill and Kevin Jones before they were given home assignment so that Gill could be near her mother.

Although we are off grid, living here is not so different to home – except it is warmer, and the night skies are spectacular. Of course, there are no flush toilets – but the deep pit variety they have here works remarkably well. Hand washing is not on tap, so much as on tip. And electricity is provided by 12V batteries charged each day by solar panels. Cooking is mainly done on a wood stove – although there is a gas oven back-up; and cold storage is provided by ice-boxes – regularly topped up during the weekly visits to Bulawayo. Internet can be a little irregular – although there is a good spot on one of the dwala a few hundred metres from the compound.

During the day I have been able to take  a good walk around the area – to the local village a short way down the dirt road, and across some of the dwala to see the views. It certainly is a beautiful area, and I hope to have a profitable time here.