Zimbabwe

The view from my deck at Shumba Shaba lodge. We spent one lovely night here in transit.

2009-07-02T16:49:39Z

leblanc
The view from my deck at Shumba Shaba lodge. We spent one lovely night here in transit.

Ryan Keiith, president of Forgotton Voices sporting the Anthem of Hope gear and chatting with Fibion - pastor of local Free Methodist Church and Program Director for Forgotten Voices in Zimb ...

2009-07-02T16:48:41Z

leblanc
Ryan Keiith, president of Forgotton Voices sporting the Anthem of Hope gear and chatting with Fibion - pastor of local Free Methodist Church and Program Director for Forgotten Voices in Zimb ...

Ryan with Douglas, the director of CLRC - Christian Leadership Resource Center. A group Forgotten Voices supports. They are a resource center for local pastors, but the vision for the organi ...

2009-07-02T16:48:41Z

leblanc
Ryan with Douglas, the director of CLRC - Christian Leadership Resource Center. A group Forgotten Voices supports. They are a resource center for local pastors, but the vision for the organi ...

leblanc's photo

2009-07-02T16:48:41Z

Zimbabwe

The view from my deck at Shumba Shaba lodge. We spent one lovely night here in transit.

Ryan Keiith, president of Forgotton Voices sporting the Anthem of Hope gear and chatting with Fibion - pastor of local Free Methodist Church and Program Director for Forgotten Voices in Zimb ...

Ryan with Douglas, the director of CLRC - Christian Leadership Resource Center. A group Forgotten Voices supports. They are a resource center for local pastors, but the vision for the organi ...

leblanc's photo

Traditional for the country, a bottle or bowl of water is taken to each person and poured over hands into another bowl to wash hands before eating.

I'm in the trunk area of the truck...I spent quite a bit of time back there actually. This is Horace, he is Fibions right hand man at the Free Methodist church in Bulawayo. --darren

Twins that we met and interviewed on video. Their mom passed away and Forgotten voices helps get them through school.

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Steve, Ryan and Darren eating with local pastor James Moyo, in the home he built for his family. Forgotten Voices. Forgotten Voices helped financially. James is a local hero in Zimbabwe that ...

Pastor James and a crew that hangs out at his house. Ryan is showing them a video interview done with James a few years back.

James and his wife are expecting their first child :)

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I drank a coke while we were waiting to pick up matt at the airport (and praying he didn't get busted for smuggling a suitcase of medicine) and when I read the label I realized that the bott ...

Promo pic for Pastor James

Children's church at the Moyo camp.

Mtshabezi (em-cha-bay-zee) is a Brethren in Christ Mission with a large school (850 kids), a hospital and an aids clinic (as well as other things). Forgotten Voices is the main funding for t ...

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Neatness' little brother. He is HIV positive.

Neatness' little siblings.

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I got to play with these kids for a few minutes and they drew me some great artwork in the sand. This is a guinea drawn by a 6 or 7 yr old.

The church service at Mtshabezi. Mostly made up of kids from the boarding school.

A little video after church. This was the first day we got to meet Neatness (far right). She is walking here with her two best friends.

Not sure who this kid is, but he kept showing up everywhere and was pretty cute.

Singing in church,

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Probably the best hour of the trip. It's 4:45am and we have the privilege of being with this family as Neatness wakes up, makes a fire, cooks her siblings breakfast and gets everyone ready f ...

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Finishing up breakfast - which was Sadza (basically, cornmeal in a "cream of wheat" like substance, but hardened enough to have a consistency more like jello so you can eat it with your hand ...

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Neatness'' family is blessed enough to have a hut for a kitchen. Many families only have a fire pit outside with pans nearby.

If you have land, you grow food. No luxury of just buying what you want. These are some large melons...not sure what the name is though.

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They call these the barns - where they throw the food they get from the garden. I suspect the idea is to keep it off the ground to protect from animals.

This is the hut that Neatness lives in. The compound is handful of small huts that house 17 people - Neatness and her extended family. The extended family is the cornerstone of culture in Zi ...

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An interview with neatness.

Neatness cries as she discusses losing her father to AIDS.

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On a very special day the family would eat chicken. Meat isn't part of every meal...or every week.

Neatness' "go-go" (grandmother) shells the peanuts that they grow in their garden.

A local farm on the Mtshabeza mission grounds.

Promo pic for Pastor Fibion

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Promo pic for Ryan

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Neatness, 14 yrs old.

Her school uniform, which she irons each night with a cast iron tool filled with coals from the fire.

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The Mtshabeza mission church. The school uses it for large meetings.

Neatness and her friends

Ryan with Sabanda, the director of the Mtshabezi school. Yes they are holding hands....that's culturally acceptable there. So much so that Ryan forgets and tries to pull that back here in th ...

Obert, he is the 2nd man on the FV staff in Zimbabwe. He heads up the home based care ministry and is effectively who we consider Neatness' local pastor. When driving with Ryan, you will hea ...

Ryan and Obert in front of two very special graves. A young boy named Pedersen used to live here and these are the graves of his sister and his mother. Pedersen and his mother are (outside o ...

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A cave with some ancient markings inside. Hopefully someone someday will be able to tell me what they mean.

Crowded

A normal family homestead - the rural roads are filled with views like this.

Matt enjoying the view at shumba shaba.

Pretty funny how all these rocks are just sitting on top of each other in weird positions.

Inside my bedroom at shumba shaba. Yeah, this night we were really roughing it.

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The view from the Shumba Shaba Lodge internet cafe (and by internet cafe I mean a plastic chair that Denis puts out in this massive rock in the one specific place that he can get 3g connecti ...

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I scaled this rock with a backpack and a tripod bag chasing a monkey...i was scared for my life half way up (i'm not as young as i used to be....or as young as i pretend to be)

The view of the sky from the floor of my balcony. I was lying on my back looking up through the super-wide angle fisheye lens. You can see the white cloudy band through the bottom of the pic ...

Dawn from my room.

The deck on my hut. It's basically built into the rock wall of the cliff. This is obviously with my fisheye lens.

The best part about Africa was not worrying about putting gel in my hair for like 10 days.

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The dining table at Shumba Shaba. We were treated well.

Denis and his daughter.

Fibion, Matt, Steve, Ryan, Darren

Collards and kale are very commonly grown in Zim.