Day 58 - My own little world

Our day began in typical style. Alex sprung out of bed at some ridiculous hour of the morning, while Jonno and I crawled out of bed a little later.

Jonno and Alex in their matching outfits

After breakfast we continued watching our new favourite show "Fringe", which we got for around $3 a season. Episode 10 was a cliffhanger so we were all too keen for the next episode...but after some searching it turns out we were missing that episode (maybe that's why it was so cheap). Jonno wasn't happy. Actually none of us were...But Jonno was motivated enough to grab the car keys and head back to videoworld and demand our missing episode. Alex went with him to bolster the attack, while I stayed home and did some work on my sermon for Sunday. They left telling me they would be back soon but I knew that wouldn't be the case. Nothing in Zim is as simple as going down to the video shop to pick up a missing episode from a TV series. Turns out I was right. They were gone for a good hour and things didn't plan out the way they intended. They went to the video shop and told them the situation. The video shop made a few calls and sent Jonno and Alex to some guys house. This guy does all the downloading of the TV series for the video shop. When Alex and Jonno got home they spoke as if they were lucky to escape this guys house. Unfortunately for them their trip to the video guys house was a pointless one because his hard drive was in for repair and he was expecting it back later this afternoon.

The water supply

The typical house in this community

Once the boys had finally gotten home and we had debriefed on their experience we headed to the church where we were meeting up with a crew of people who were taking us out to Trenance. We had made a deal with our American friend Elyse that we would go to the area where she worked if she came with us to Willow Park. Trenance is an area about 20mins outside of Bulawayo where around 350 families live. This was a real eye opening experience. Everyone living there are essentially squatters. It is government land and they could be pushed out at any time. Their living conditions are nothing short of heartbreaking. They have one source of water (see picture) that this whole community relies on. It is a broken mains pipe that flows a continuous supply of water. This water is not clean and if it makes one person sick in generally spreads like wildfire throughout the community. People do their washing in this water as well as walk a long distance to access it. Their housing conditions were no better. Corrugated iron and asbestos sheets was the extent of the four walled shacks that were spread across kilometres of land. These houses are far from watertight and are often being blown over in storms and heavy wind because they have no solid foundation. We had the privilege of meeting some of the locals at their homes. One woman who we met was still smiling despite losing her son last week to HIV aids. These people are also incredibly poor meaning that a lot of the children in this community don't attend school. We played some games with the kids while some others held a church service for the mothers in the community hall. There is a committed crew from the Baptist church who go out and minister to these people every week and they do a great job.

Playing with the kids

Once home we had to head back to the video guy. Alex refused so I went with Jonno to see if it was as bad as they were making it out to be. We were stuck there for a good 2 hours but don't worry, we survived.

After seeing what I saw today at Trenance built on everything else from the trip I couldn't help but feel incredibly selfish and ungrateful for the life that I have been given. I don't want to waste the life I've been given and I don't want to take it for granted. Most importantly I don't want to live in my own little world living for myself. These lyrics from Matthew West's song 'My Own Little World' seemed pretty relevant for me after today.

"Father, break my heart for what breaks yours. Give me open hands and open doors. Put your light in my eyes and let me see, that my own little world is not about me."

Thanks for reading!

Andy