Yesterday I went with two friends from church, Francine and Hlupe, to a rural area about 2 ½ hours from Mutare. Francine and her husband, Steve, are involved in a farming ministry here, and Francine does other bits of community organizing.
We visited three different Early Childhood Development programs. Chibuwe is a bit hotter and drier than Mutare, so it was still quite warm. Unless it is rainy or cold, the programs meet outside. One had a playground, with a couple of swings and seesaws made out of tires and tree branches . The head counts I got ranged from 39-50 for these sites. Each had one teacher. The children have no materials to speak of, but we saw them do songs and were told about nature lessons in which they pick up leaves and little insects to examine. We were at one site when they had snack time. The children washed hands under cups of water poured from a bucket. Some had bread or peanuts, but many children came with a small bag of chips and a bottle of water flavored with Mazoe, a fruit-flavored syrup sold in stores by the liter. Some children didn't have a snack, and just sat there and watched the others eat.
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| First ECD classroom, with seesaws make of sticks and tires |
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| Hlupe and Francine helping children wash hands before snack time |
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| Better of the classrooms |
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| Some of the ECD children |
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| Snack time |
We also stopped by the local clinic. Two women had delivered babies during the morning. One woman had two older sons, I’d guess about 10 and 12 years, who had brought her to the clinic in a donkey cart and were waiting to take her and the baby home. The other woman was a young mother, still a teenager, who is the granddaughter of someone my friend works with in Chibuwe. She and her mother were preparing to walk 9 km. to their home, so we ended up taking them by car. It probably would’ve taken them most of the afternoon to walk, because the mother was still in pain and could not have walked far without stopping to rest.
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| Delivery Table |
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Delivery Room Equipment
Newborn with Mom and Grandma
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