Johan and the rest of the team arrived at my house from South Africa over the weekend. Suddenly my home was full of life with the three extra bodies in the house. It is always so nice to have them all up here. My children love having their Uncle Johan and the guys around. Monday morning, we are all up and ready to go, you can almost feel the buzzing excitement as we start loading up the parcels that are to be delivered. The entire team is checking name lists, loading boxes and finalizing the route to be taken for the day.
With the vehicle loaded we are off to Ralstein Home for the Aged to de liver all the bulk Groceries to the kitchen which makes everyone’s meals. We also dropped off the individual care and “treat” parcels for all the residents. I then popped in to see if I could find anyone and it seemed that they were all hiding from me. They had all gone to have a well-deserved snooze after breakfast, so no nice chit chats for me this morning. From there we were off to Queen Mary, not far at all as they are next to each other. We delivered all the bulk kitchen Groceries and very much like Ralstein Home for the Aged everyone had gone for a snooze so there was no one to see.
As we headed down the road towards Masonic Lodge the streets were busy and there was a real hustle and bustle going on. As we entered Masonic you can see all the pensioners sitting on their verandas enjoying a cup of tea and some conversation with their neighbours. We started unloading all the boxes into their hall from which they will all be later distributed. Some of the pensioners came down to greet us and have a quick conversation. It is always lovely to hear from them and to catch up a little. Here I must say the visit to this home is a little sad as we greatly miss Marie West who always used to be our “go to” person. She had a major stroke, and a few months back moved in with her daughter.
We were then off to our warehouse to drop off the empty boxes collected so far and to load up with full boxes for our next delivery. As we arrived at Garden Park to start with our deliveries you can see some oldies all around having a nice afternoon walk and chit chat. We stopped in at Mr Harvey Forbes and delivered his box filled with necessary groceries and some delicious dried fruit squares which he loved. Next we drove down to Mrs Van Schalkwyk and she was delighted to see us and quickly unpacked her box to see what she had received. As we travelled through Garden Park popping in and chatting to some of our oldies you can hear how tough things have become. The pensioners seem to be feeling the tough times. The cost of day-to-day items in Zimbabwe have become so terribly expensive and most of our pensioners have just learnt to go without some basic necessities. My last visit is to a very special lady Mrs Gill Battis, upon entering the flatlet I could see that she was sleeping again. Over my past few visits I have seen how tired she had become and seems to be sleeping a lot more. My heart is still very sore after learning that a few days after my visit Mrs Battis has gone to rest. I will always remember this absolutely amazing woman who spent her life educating others. Mrs Battis, you will be missed by so many people.
After a good nights sleep I head off to the warehouse to load my boxes for the first deliveries of the day. The sun is out but there is a weird nip in the air, and it is a lot cooler than it was the day before. As we start to load up the boxes for our deliveries to Coronation Cottages I am constantly thinking about my father. Most of you knew him as Hannes Botha but to me he was just Dad. With every trip I do I feel him with me and smiling as he sees all the Pensioners that were so very important to him. He would stand and chat to as many of the pensioners as he could, his trips to Zimbabwe were some of his happiest times.
Our first stop at Coronation Cottages was to the office to drop off all the boxes for the outsiders who collect the boxes on their own. As we move from Cottage to Cottage you get to spend a few minutes chatting to each of the lovely pensioners. As the sun started to peek through the clouds a bit more it began to get warmer, although I am not sure if the warmer feeling was from the sun or from all the lovely hugs I was getting.
As we continue to deliver we are constantly being made aware of how absolutely necessary our boxes are. Many of our pensioners say that they would not be able to survive without them. As we move through Coronation Cottages we continue to hear that a number of our pensioners had passed
away. It is so sad when you realize how many oldies we are losing. We continued delivering throughout Coronation Cottages for the rest of the day, by the time we were finished my heart was beaming. There is so much love to be felt from every story you are told whilst delivering. It was truly a long rewarding day. We got so much done and so much love. I dropped Angela and all the empty boxes off at the warehouse and headed home to cook for the family. The next morning it was a little warmer and the birds were singing as I headout to the warehouse to load up for our long day of deliveries to all the “Bulawayo Outsiders”. This takes us about 2 days to complete as we travel from one corner of Bullies to the other and back again. These are pensioners in their own homes, servants’ quarters, outside rooms and so on. This is always a bit of a heartbreaker for us to see the circumstances some of our Golden Oldies are living in. But as we head out to see each pensioner most of them were in high spirits and over the moon to see us as the ever-ready rumour mill has already spread the news of our impending arrival. Each one of them telling us a little story about how things were going and experiences that they had been having especially with the rapid way the Zimbabwe currency has been losing value and the skyrocketing prices of basics in the shops.
On our very last day we drove out of town to Kinghaven Moth Cottages in Esigodini to deliver the boxes to the pensioners out there as well as a few outsiders. It is such a peaceful looking home being out of town. The pensioners were so very happy to receive their boxes. It is truly such a rewarding feeling to have the opportunity to deal with these pensioners. Each of them has a story to tell you and things to show you. We continued to deliver for the rest of the day from one side of Bulawayo to the next.
I would like to say a very special thank you to one of our weekly donors for their support. Thank you to Sarah Rudman for the continuous support and fresh milk donations on a weekly basis for Barbara Burrell home. Each and every donation that we receive makes a huge impact on our pensioners lives.
We have been lucky enough to receive some nail polish and goodies from our head office in South Africa so that I can treat some of our Granny’s to some special girl time and pretty nails. I will be doing that over the next week or two, maybe some yummy milk tart and manicures.
I look forward to each of these deliveries that we have the honour of being able to do.
Head office South Africa contact details:
Linda Schultz – linda@zpsf.co.za / zpsf@zpsf.onmicrosoft.com (C) 079 6082676
Johan Schultz – johan@zpsf.co.za – 082 4979328
Section 21 Co Reg. 2007/034036/08; NPO Number 096733; Section 18A PBO No 930031642
“Statement Mission: This is a non-profitable Organisation and formed to provide pensioners in Zimbabwe with food and basic medicine networking with relevant bodies and institutions; and in humble gratitude to God Almighty.”
