Diary - Thursday, September 1, 2005 

I just checked the date of our last update and I was shocked/amazed that over a month has passed since then. What do they say, time flies when you are having fun. Well, with less than four weeks now before we leave, the time seems to be compressing and our list of "things to do" seems to be expanding. This isn't a new experience for us and it does start to bring us up to speed so to speak and prepare us for our re-insertion into the North American culture we have been away from for this past year.

We've just had a wonderful visit with Dr Pat Preece, his wife Janie and their dear friend Andrew Morrison. These three were here on a fact finding mission to see where they might best be of assistance to the people of this community. They had a very busy schedule while they were here but we did manage to squeak in a couple of dinners. Thanks for that awesome fish curry Mama Janie. :) Their own charity, ZAP, or Zanzibar Aid Project, is dedicated to funding scholarships for local individuals to get training in various vocations, co-ordinating and empowering women to develop small co-operatives so that they can improve their lives and to helping with the provision of health care services. So we had some good opportunities to share ideas and we know that the people of this community are grateful for their presence and we are looking forward to working together in the future. We are very excited about the prospect of receiving a medical specialist here next year and although this is still in the planning stages, all indications are looking good for this to come into fruition.

Pat has been extremely busy with all that she takes on from her regular wound care clinics to the weekly trip to town to get our supplies, her weekly responsibilities as VP of the newly formed Zanzibar Rotary Club and seemingly endless meetings with various government officials looking at our future plans to develop a training center here in Jambiani. It's all good though and we both know that this effort is for the benefit of others who really can use the help.

Our next volunteer, Barb Hunter, is due to arrive next Tuesday, so as usual, we are looking forward to welcoming her to Zanzibar and to Jambiani. We hope she has a wonderful experience even though her stay will be a relatively short one. We'll let Barb fill you in on her impressions after she has had an opportunity to settle in for a couple of weeks.

Next year is shaping up to be action packed with lots of new volunteer practitioners scheduled to arrive and some new building projects to begin including the new Jambiani training center. Also I need to make a correction from our last update. TWECS will not be evaluating 15,000 patients but more like 5,000 at maximum. I'm not certain where that original information came from. Perhaps it was wishful thinking on our part. :-) Our time in Canada will be busy as we focus on fund raising and the restructuring of our board as well as we will be trying to streamline our local Victoria operations so that we have slightly more concrete administrative procedures in place to deal with inquiries and donations and any other matters as they relate to HABS Canadian operations.

We are all well and we look forward to a great reunion with friends and family.

We will post one more update before we leave on September 30th so until then, we send our warm wishes your way and hope that life is treating you gently and that you are with the good energy.

Much love from all of us here in Jambiani.
Alastair and Pat