From my recent visit to Zimbabwe, I think the highlight was Easter Day at St Francis in Shurugwi. Edwin and I arrived on Holy Saturday with our students from Gweru: Memory, Munyaradzi and Ebenezer, three very nice young people. At St Francis we found Joram, Panashe, Tashinga, Miriam and Willard, and of course the five sisters. Church began at 7 p.m. I confess I bunked that as I knew it would be long. I sat under the stars and drank a couple of beers to celebrate the Resurrection and the wonderful African view of the Milky Way. The young people, having served mass, read lessons, preached and sung, returned at 2 a.m. The Sisters arrived at 5.00 a.m. as I was getting up! They have amazing stamina. I did go to mass in the morning along with the boys who served and sang in the choir. Miriam and Memory, along with a couple of sisters (when they woke up) cooked a magnificent Easter lunch of sadza, rice, pasta, potatoes, chicken, beef, butternut and cabbage.

Seventeen of us sat down to this with plates loaded high and despite the teenage appetites there was still enough left at the end for supper a few hours later. The boys then washed up all the pots, pans and dishes without being asked.

This little group of youngsters are just so nice; polite, energetic, funny and hard working. Some are academically brilliant. Some less so, but they all seem well balanced and are growing up well. I have great hopes for them in the future.

After Shurugwi, of course, the pigs were another highlight. They continue to flourish and we are sending larger numbers to market. As the project grows the chaps are discovering more ways of improving the quality and selling at better prices. It is fascinating learning about this. They have now bought more land so that we can grow soya beans, from which they can make cooking oil to sell locally and soya mash to feed the pigs.

The disaster scenario this year has been the crops. There was much less rain than usual and it came at the wrong times. The maize crop was fine as there is a pump to deliver water. Those who didn’t have water lost everything. On the drive from Harare to Gweru, about 200 miles of good farm land, I didn’t see a single field of maize, and nothing either in dry Shurugwi. Food prices will go up for those who can afford it and there will be nothing for those who can’t. I don’t yet know what impact this will have on Tariro.
On my last day, I paid a visit to Tariro Youth Project, the house in Harare. Two of the girls from St Francis Shurugwi are now living here. Ruvarashe has just started a degree in IT, and Priscilla, having got three As at a level, is soon to start studying at the University of Zimbabwe. They have settled in well and are showing the town kids just how nice and sensible rural kids can be!

All in all, it was a lovely visit, and though the government embarked on another exercise in changing the currency just before I left, creating further economic chaos, I have no doubt Zimbabweans will weather it and our young people will continue to flourish.
I hope you are all as proud as I am to be helping this to happen.

More to come before long!

Nicolas CR