Life itself = Work, Family and Pleasure

This last week pretty much everyone Finnish or Zimbabwean has fallen ill, with the exception of Seppo and me. Somehow I had the luck to escape this epidemic and have been trying very hard to ruin Dzikwa in the last few days. No, seriously I have been doing only my share as Oili, who lost her voice was still managing to get more than her workload done! And Simon, Sara and Jenni were lying only half the time in bed that they should have been lying there. Dzikwa somehow inspires a great will and feeling of responsibility to get one's work done. 
Anyway I myself was busy with more health cards, since the measuring device kind of adds something to everyone's pulse and so I am having to recheck many again; this means there is still a lot to do. Then I have been conducting Extra Lessons, even though I should mention that somehow half of the scheduled ones fell away, because of obligations of my students at school or bad management, but instead I always suddenly had a replacement lesson, when somebody else really wanted some help in Maths. This week with the Primaries I have been doing fraction stories with a farmer and his eggs, scale drawing including bearings with the Form 2s and perimeter of circular forms with the Form 1s. Moreover, I have a new job sending emails to all the Sponsors including a photo, an infosheet on their living situation and a interview with the kids. Mostly Copy and Paste work, but as it happens in life, children move, change classes and get new siblings, so we realized that the infosheets were not anymore up-to-date, so I have been correcting a lot of them in the last two weeks

On Friday then the great thing happened and my father has come to visit me for a week. It is simply lovely to embrace a beloved person again. 
The Friday was spent with the introduction of Harare and Dzikwa Centre + of course the Shelter to show him how harmless my life has been the last two months - Oh God I have already spent two months here and there are only three weeks to go :'(
He was very impressed with Dzikwa and made quick friends with Esko and Mikko.

Saturday was a great day, not only because of the fact that my isi(in Finnish Daddy) is here, but also because of our program. In the morning, Seppo, Simon and our family representatives in Zim left to join a breakfast with connoisseurs - meaning a group of local experts in Zimbabwean economics including John Robertson, the most famous expert on economy in Zimbabwe and especially it's inflation rate. The next stop was Doon Estate, a great place for expensive trinkets and mementos, besides being the place where Dzikwa started: Seppo here saw a little boy of eight years playing at a venue, where his mother was performing as a traditional dancer. This child could have been in school preparing for his future as a government official in Bulawayo and so Seppo made this come true by paying his school fees and becoming the first sponsor. And that is how Dzikwa began...
In addition, Doon Estate houses a sculpture garden and they have nice household items in African style, such as cups, carpets and photograph holders made of teak wood, which actually earlier was the "iron" on the railroads. Oh and have I mentioned the owl(size of a real one) which my father bought for himself. The fact that owls are signs for bad luck in Zimbabwe does explain, how a general Doon Estate visitor looks like. After that we still had a peak at the golf course, which was very empty except for the watering gardeners. After this I was happy to return to the simplicity of Dzivara Sekwa. There are far too many ways to waste money, which could nourish a family for a whole year.

The afternoon my father then spent exploring the Forestry and watching the training session of the Culture Club, while I was busy with conducting my theater workshop this time on acting animal characters. And then we still both spent a lot of time with the children. Suddenly my father had eight daughters and me seven sisters plus Tinotenda actually wrote a lovely letter to my father :DDD

The letter cover Tinotenda created for my dad

But the highlight of the day was yet to come: My father and me both share the favorite musical and we are serious fans of Les Miserables!!!!
I have read the book, own the CD, have seen the film and this was my second time to see the Musical versus my father's seventh time. So it was an amazing surprise that the amateur theater of Harare, the Rep, was actually performing a production of the best Musical in the world ever.
That's why we all got to enjoy a rather good evening. The first part was for the fact that these were amateurs rather good, but the second part was simply amazing. Éponine, Jean Valjean and Javert excelled in their solos "On my own", "Bring him home" and "Javert's Suicide". Moreover, the Ensembles were great and I still could laugh about Gavroche and the Thénardiers. The music and the story itself touched me deeply and the end was rather tearful on my behalf. Simon supposedly laughed through the whole performance ;)
Just an amazing day altogether, but nothing compared to the next day...