Diary - Tuesday, December 28, 2004 

Well hello again everyone from Jambiani and all the team at the Wellness Centre. We hope that you are having an enjoyable and not too stressful holiday season and that this upcoming New Year turns out to be a positive and productive one for you and your families in all ways.

As we are still not online from Jambiani I have to delay bringing you the new format for our updates until we can satisfactorily upload pictures. We had been waiting for the company in Dar es Salaam to clear their inventory through customs however they are still experiencing delays so we have opted for another Zanzibar based company who we feel will be able to provide us with similar levels of service and product. We are hoping for two weeks from now. :-)... Inshallah!!

First of all, Pat and I would like to extend a big welcome and thank you to our latest volunteers up at the Centre. Connie Nimmon and Lynn Ketcheson both arrived safe and sound from Victoria, British Columbia, and they have been keeping themselves quite busy providing an array of treatments based on, primarily, the principles of Chinese Medicine. As always, I'm amazed at how trusting the people are here and they have had no difficulty accepting, what for most of them, are new and very unusual treatments. We are seeing some excellent clinical results with some very chronic problems so we and of course all the patients are very grateful.

Connie and Lynn will be with us for about another five weeks, so they still have lots of time to make big differences in people's lives - something they have been doing for the past few weeks. I call their treatment room the "Spaceship" as it must seem that way to the locals when they come in for their session with the smell of moxa and meditation music playing in the background and Lynn with her laser acupuncture probe in hand. Conjures up visions of alien abductions and strange encounters of the third kind. We are indeed grateful for their help.

Of course we have all been shocked with the latest news regarding the recent earthquake. Pat's brother Arne called today and filled us in on some of the details as we had only received bits and pieces of news over the last two days. We in fact did get two very small tidal waves on Sunday afternoon, suspected they were as a result of seismic activity but we certainly didn't realize how massive this quake was until today. We are quite concerned about friends and relatives in Sri Lanka and are hoping to get some news soon. This has been difficult as most forms of communication into and out of the country have been affected in one way or another. We pray everyone is OK and send our most heartfelt condolences to all of those people who have lost loved ones. A difficult time indeed!!

We are quite certain that our container from Canada has now arrived on Zanzibar and we will be confirming that tomorrow when we go into town for our weekly supply trip. As I said, we expect to document the unloading and distribution of this containers contents for our next update so stay tuned for that one. Pat has contacted a number of schools here in Jambiani so we have a good idea as to where much of our portion of this consignment will be heading.

On the funding side, we have been very fortunate to receive a nice contribution from Wild Geese, a Dutch foundation, who have taken on our project in co-operation with Pat's old family friends Mr. Ocke and Norma Schuttevaer. These funds have been earmarked primarily for capital cost improvements which means we can now finish and or commence several projects we have been unable to initiate because of financial restraints. Thank you so much Wild Geese, Ocke and Norma and all of you who have contributed in one way or another to the Jambiani Project. This is really encouraging and we and all of those patients who stand to benefit from the continuation of our work here are most grateful. Thank you!!!!

We continue to remain positive and focused and in fact we are expecting to meet with the new Minister of Health tomorrow so we are hoping this will be a very positive and fruitful encounter, setting the stage for future projects and co-operation between HABS and the Government of Zanzibar.

I am sorry it has taken us so long to get a wireless connection here however I do believe the wait will be worth it and in the very near future we will be able to bring much more detail to our reports and hopefully the new material will be of interest to you.

Have a wonderful New Years everyone and as my dear mother used to say, bless her soul, "remember to take care of one another."

Lot's of love to you all,

Alastair and Pat