Holidays

Each holiday, most children at MRCH have the opportunity to stay with foster families in the rural areas.  These foster parents are people who have responded to the invitation to care for the orphaned and vulnerable children for a total of three months per year.  The foster families show amazing love and kindness to the children – welcoming them into their lives, homes, and communities.  In addition to this they even send them back to MRCH with gifts and resources for their coming school term.

From the perspective of the Matthew Rusike Children’s Home as an organisation, the short-term transition to and from foster care over the holiday period is run in an effective and thorough way.  Children are diligently handed over to foster parents in the rural areas, with the supervision of a social worker from the Department of Social Welfare.  Interviews are done once the child returns from their foster homes, to ensure that the child has felt safe and well cared for. 

Personally delivering 90 children to four different districts is an impressive effort.  And it should also be noted that the normal van that delivers the children died just before the beginning of the last holiday and an alternative vehicle had to be hired to complete this task.   The home now has no vehicle to transport children, but we are hoping and praying that some solution is found before the Christmas holiday starts.
Anthea

Travel Guides

Last week we went to a campsite in Harare called ‘It’s A Small World’, and we met two Lonely Planet authors from Melbourne! We told them all about Epworth and the balancing rocks because they had no time to go and see them because they were going to Japan after they’d stayed at Small World. They asked us what we were missing about Australia, and I said my friends. They said they were missing Vegemite! I’ve been reading loads of travel guides recently so I can visit all the places that I want to see, but I can only visit them in my imagination, at least, until I’m old enough to visit them. I’ve been reading about Britain, and after a chapter I switch to something else, then I read a chapter and switch, etc., so I’ve read all of Russia, Scotland twice, a bit of Poland, some of France, a portion of Japan, three lines of India (I keep getting distracted, because I like India a lot, so I read a line then say “Hey Dad, Did you go there?” and we end up having a long discussion), quite a lot of Ireland, a few chapters of Iceland, a small amount of Germany and a little bit of Sweden, and I would’ve read a lot more, except we didn’t have any more travel guides. But you don’t want to hear me jabbering on about my last few months’ reading agenda. Dad tried to get me to read the full ‘Around The World In Eighty Days’ by Jules Verne, but every time Phileas Fogg was in any country, I thought “Hmm, that’s interesting,” and started flipping through the travel guides to find that country, and get so distracted I completely forget poor old Phileas Fogg and his adventures around the world in eighty days.

Abbey

Beach Party!

On Saturday Clare had an under-sea party (we miss our island a bit) in the sculpture garden at Harare Gardens. Valentine was allowed to come, which was nice for her because doesn't get out very much. We also took the Razemba family, Tumayi and Coletta, and the Nyamupingidza family. We had a jellyfish pinata, which we made out of a box and lots of coloured-in newspaper. We also played keep the 'fish' (balloon) off the ground, bubble blowing, flip the kipper, octopus eggs, pin the tail on the whale and octopus. We had the best chocolate cake ever because Mum cooked it. The Burlesons arrived after all the games were finished and we were all packed up, but we gave them some left-over cake. I loved the pinata. It was a funny idea to have a beach party in a land-locked country, but one of our guests did manage to swim. Reverend Tadzaushe tried to jump over a massive puddle but he slipped and fell on his bottom!

Abbey

elevision

Yesterday I modified our television so that the sound came out the front instead of heading out the sides (patent pending). Abbey helpfully added a trunk! Maybe we've been here too long...we're starting to see elephants. Bridie calls it an elevision. Abbey calls it a telephant. Clare, wisely, just watches it (we suspect she's afraid it will charge).

Grant

Egg Allergy

Last week I was cooking supper and a happy gaggle of children were watching from the doorway. This is quite common and I love giving the children a taste of this and a sniff of that. I was attempting to construct lentil burgers (I still cook like a hippy) and had added the onion and spices. I needed to add a couple of eggs but I stopped. I couldn’t.

I found it impossible to add eggs to my meal when I knew the children would LOVE an egg in their diet. We find catering a real balancing act. We try to be generous with our groceries but we can’t, and shouldn’t, supply too much. The children’s diets here are very limited and we are trying to expand the variety of foods available by growing a range seedlings and giving them to children and Mama’s to grow in their gardens. It is also a harsh truth that almost all the staff have only recently received their wage for February (all donations would be gratefully received!). This has the effect of radically simplifying everyone’s diet. We want to be sensitive to all of this but we also want our children to have good nutrition (sometimes we smuggle our groceries back to the house at night).

I gave the audience to my cooking show a whiff of the lentil burger mixture then waited until they had run off before adding the eggs.

Grant

In Tents

In the holidays we went to a backpackers called Small World and we got to watch the olympics. At night we slept in the tent. On Friday night we watched a movie up a tree…well not really up a tree but in a fort up in the branches of a tree.

Bridie

Nelson

 

On Tuesday we went to visit Nelson’s house. Nelson has a few children and a nice wife. They all live in a tiny room with no bathroom or kitchen but he was building a toilet. When Nelson was a child he lived at MRCH and he was sponsored by a man in Launceston!

When we were talking to Nelson loads of kids crowded outside trying to see us because I don’t think some of them had seen a white person before. Some looked very scared!  

Clare