Weekend

Another Sunday evening in Harare... the weekend went by really quickly. Friday night I went to the shops with a friend (an officer) from work. It was so depressing. Each time she picked up an item, she looked at the price, and then had to put back because it was too expensive (things like soap, laundry soap, milk, etc.) There were so many things left on the shelf beside the check-out counter - obviously by people who realized they couldn't afford what they had intended to buy (or maybe because the price had gone up while they were in the shop!) Inflation is insane. Actually, all the workers at THQ have been meeting this week and trying to negotiate for a transport allowance. The lowest paid worker at our office gets about $1/month. This isn't Nike - this is The Salvation Army! The Salvation Army gets money from the UK, but all of the value gets lost in the fixed exchange rate.

Saturday John ran 50km. He's crazy. He came back looking all relaxed - "I picked up some bananas at the market on the way home" - as if he'd just been on a light jog. I guess being addicted to running is better than being addicted to illegal drugs... He's actually keeping a secret blog about running but I wouldn't tell you that the link is: http://shumbamcalister.blogspot.com because he doesn't want anyone to know about it (thinks it would be too pretentious!) I didn't run 50km on Saturday, but I did make a recording in a studio of some piano music. There aren't too many pianists in Zim these days, so I was recording some accompaniments to choral music so that a certain church choir can play my CD and sing along with it. Listening to myself (edited by a machine to cut out my mistakes!) was actually kind of a thrill, and made all those many, many long hours of practice as a child seem sort of worthwhile (my mom - who doubled as my piano teacher - used to only give us allowance if we practiced - it was a good incentive!)

John and I head to Murehwa tomorrow for a week. It's the second installment of the Zimbabwe School of Youth Leadership. If you're the praying type, please pray about it. Many students are phoning saying they don't know if they'll make it because transport costs are out of this world. We're also struggling to make our funds stretch to feed 25 people for a week (you can only fast so many days...) We're really hoping that it is a good time. We've got our bucket ready (for bathing) and 5 litres of boiled water (for drinking), so we should be fine.