The heavy rains of Nov 2016 to Mar 2017

I would like to brief you all about the effect the very welcome rains this rainy season have had on people at Chatsworth and the surrounding areas. The rains come after one of the worst droughts the region has experienced in its modern history. The rain cycle is almost set to bring a drought every four years. However, the drought just gone was very severe and water became a real life threatening issue for some. Chatsworth itself was not too affected because the dam from which we get water remained able to supply us. For some areas around us, some villagers had to travel very long distances to get drinking water.

The amount of water used in the home has a direct bearing on the health of the family member. The young ones are always the first to be affected. There were signs of malnutrition in the area towards the end of the drought and in a lot of cases, the families needed direct help.

The rains came around November and came in abundance. We wholeheartedly thank God for the rains. They were welcomed by everyone and  I am sure even wild animals were happy to see the rains. Here I am just going to list some of the effects the rains have had. Whether the effects are good or bad is not the issue. I just want to go through with you and look.

1 The shortage of food was acute for many families. The arrival of rains causes many wild plants to grow without anyone labouring. Some of these are part of the human food chain. Of particular note are the following
Wild mushrooms: these come in all shapes and sizes and different nutritional value. This year many people were able to pick some and to dry any surplus for eating during the dry seasons.

Wild vegetables: There are plants whose leaves we pick and eat and these are many different varieties. Next year we may catalogue them. Many families benefit from these and some have high nutritional values.

Wild Berries: Towards the end of the season, many wild berries appear and children pick and eat them. They are not as abundant as they were a few years back. This is because the area's population has increased and there is less and less open space. Still children and some adults pick and each and add to their diet.

Wild fruit: Just before winter and sometimes during winter, the fruit that has developed during the rainy season ripens and can be picked and eaten by many. This year we have seen a wide variety of wild fruit.

These are the good points and I shall add some more later. There are a few bad points.
Water bourne diseases: Children like to play in the water and there amount there has been this year means water flowing for long distances carries with it many health hazards and passes them to people in otherwise clean areas.  Of particular fear this year is Cholera and Typhoid. These have affected many in the country. I will see if I can find the Chatsworth figures from our local clinic.

Misquitoes: As soon as there is an abundance of stagnant water or just cool shade from the trees, mosquitoes start breeding heavily and can affect humans through malaria. Again I will post figures for malaria at Chatsworth.

Creepy Crawlies: The new grass grows fast and becomes a habitat for many small insects and animals. The good ones such as locusts are harvested (if in large numbers) dried, and kept for the dry seasons. Chatsworth area has not seen locust plagues for decades. We occasionally see an increase of locusts and some people go and catch a few, but there have not been enough to harvest. This is a good thing because if they reach plague status, they totally destroy crops.

Snakes: The country has had an increase of lethal snake bites and the health service has issued warnings. I have not heard of any at Chatsworth but i will make inquiries at the clinic. I will also find out if the keep any serum for any types of snakes expected in the area.

Maize Army worm: There is a worm called the army worm and if it arrives in any area, it can destroy the maize crop. This year conditions were good for the army worm to thrive. however, it seem that it arrived a little late and the local farmers saw its effects but could still harvest.

Waterlogged crop fields: There are a lot of local farmers whose crops were simply too waterlogged to thrive and the harvest will be a little less because of it. There are crops that could have been very good, such as rice and maybe sugar cane, but people here tend to grow very little of either due to low expectation of rain.

Tansportation: Road transport was badly affected in many areas and a few people died from accidents caused by poor driving, taking chances, missing bridges, potholes on the roads or other water related cases.

We are now heading for the harvest and I can confirm that there is no money in the country as the banks have run dry. However, we see it as God's providence that this happened now. Had it happened last year when we all depended on shops to buy basic day to day food stuffs, many would not have survived.

This page will grow and I might put pictures of some places around here. For now i hope you appreciate that we are infinitely thankful for the abundance of rain. We will ask the community to attend a Thanks giving Service, maybe during harvest, for the blessings of the rains this year.  Life here is a lot easier when there is an abundance of water.

Call to building a church.

As our community needs increase, we increasingly require a dedicated building from which the Church can serve the community. We currently in the school building over weekends, which means we cannot meet during the week when the school is in session.  Over the years, we have also caused a lot of inconvenience to the school staff who require their classrooms o be arranged according to their work requirements. We meet up with families, including children, some of them very young, and sometimes it is difficult to always control them.

For two years our members have saved up for the necessary materials, but we are nowhere near what we need to start construction. Still, we are excited by the challenge and we hope you will share our excitement with us.

This week we gathered all interested parties and we resolved to put even more effort into our building project. The procedure is that we start by making bricks ourselves. Although there is a lot of labour involved, we minimise on costs by doing it ourselves as members. We estimate that we will need in the region of 6000 standard size bricks, made from over ten metric tonnes of river sand and cement.

The river sand is not allowed to be collected without a permit, and the application for a permit costs 20 USD and may be refused. If it is refused, we need to pay someone who already has a permit to allow us to use theirs.  The nearest rive from which we get get river sand is around 8 km.

We will post pictures of any work being carried out as soon as we get them. In the mean time, a visitor to Chatsworth has promised us several bags of cement on condition we start work before end of October. It maybe that the work we can actually do is limited because the rainy season starts any time after mid October, thus pushing our project work to next May when the dry season starts. There are aspects of the work we can do before the rainy season so we will concentrate on that.

If you can help is with fund raising at all, from wherever you are, please contact us on our Email address. Also suggest what name you would like to be listed by on the published list of those whose donations have been received. We will be updating the total of donations as we progress.  We are reluctant to set a target because there are facilities we desperately need and facilities we can delay if our budget is too low.

Ideally we would like
a large meeting room,
a children's play room,
an admin room,
baby changing room
a Kitchen
a set of toilets

Any building we construct will be based on a plan that allows expansion in the future.

We think that a full building would cost USD 6500. However, it would take us a very long time get that kind of money especially in the current Zimbabwean economic climate. We are grateful for your help.
We were asked to ask the bank if they could allow us to create an account which allows donations to come in through the bank. We are waiting for a response from our church account holders. As soon as we have information we will let you have it.

Meantime please Email us at chatsworthsda@gmail.com 

Building schedule if from July 2018. If you can join us please let us know as quickly as possible. We are asking for builders and helpers from all over the world. You will have a chance to see one of the most beautiful countries on earth, along with its issues that you have read about in newspapers and listened to on radio or TV. You cannot come to Zimbabwe and not see the Victoria Falls from the Zimbabwe side. So in your preparation to come, be advised that the visit to the great place is highly recommended for those who can afford it. Here, most of us have only seen the falls on pictures.
. 

Also please show your friends our blog. 

Employment at Chatsworth

Most of our residents discuss this all the time. How do we as a church understand their concerns and what do we do about it? What can we do about it? Hear the voice of the community on the matter.

The biggest employer at Chatsworth is the government who employ the police, the teachers, the health workers, and the council workers. Without these Chatsworth would not function very well economically. We value the contribution of the government to our economy, but being the government, they only pay low wages and Chatsworth would do well to encourage the private sector to play its part in employing our your people in the area.

The private sector comprises projects more that what might qualify as an industry. The biggest employer is shops. There are several shops each employing one or two shop assistants. (Will give a breakdown of figures later). There are different kinds of shops and most of them are small. They are:

1. The Grocers
2. The Petrol station
3. The Beer hall
4. The Bakery
5. The Supermarket 
6. The Mobile Phone Credit shop

There are other family owned projects such as :

• The grain millers 
• The welders
• The Furniture makers
• Car repairers

There are basic services which are not available at Chatsworth, but these may have to wait for a little while yet. The most obvious of these are: 

1. A bank
2. A Hotel of lodge
3. A Rubbish collector and processor

Everyone who has foresight would like these facilities to be brought to Chatsworth as soon as possible. It would make Chatsworth a little more attractive to both investors and travelers, as well as increase the level of local employment. 

Many of us have wished for some kind of factory to be built here for many years. We do not understand why, with the low wage rates that Chatsworth offers, we have not had any investor considering our place  as a prime location. It has a few good points to it including 

• A good trunk road
• A goods and functional rail road
• Medical facility
• A number of secondary schools supplying a good number of school leavers 
• Tranquil surroundings
• Supply of electricity

The only item missing is housing. However, this would develop very quickly as soon as conditions allow. 

Health provision at Chatsworth

We will discuss health provision at Chatsworth. We are privileged to have an efficient small clinic here. It suffers from the same problems that the whole Zimbabwean health service suffers from but here we have a real community clinic serving a wide area including Chatsworth and its surrounding areas.  We will look at what you can get from such a small clinic and how that makes a difference to local residents.

The clinic currently is trying to increase its capacity and expertise but the government has asked the administrator to feel free to source resources from whomever they can be found. The government itself has no money to fund and aspect of the clinic.

There are no beds at the clinic apart from two reserved for maternity patients. This means that if an emergency arises within the catchment area of the clinic, the patient is referred to larger hospitals within reach. However, there is no ambulance at all in the very large area the clinic looks after. If a vehicle is required, the family of the sick hires a vehicle from anyone with one. The goodwill of those with vehicles has served the area heath provision for years and years. It is unlikely that the situation will change any time soon.

The clinic is very good at providing primary health care. some aspects of this care, such as vaccination, provision of ARVs, etc, are supported by international charities which also provide the infrastructure for storing the necessary medicines. Apart from that the clinic staff are always looking to find resources from private suppliers such as charities, private individuals, organisations, and others. At recent meeting at the clinic, we were all encouraged to support our clinic as best we could. The service is free to all who are ill and so the clinic cannot raise funds directly through charging.

How can you help? 
The clinic lacks some basic health provision items such as
-Surgical gloves,
-Syringes
-Needles
- medical hand tools
- Sterilisers
- etc.

If your place is disposing of any of these when there is nothing essentially wrong with them, If you think we can benefit from them, please Email us with your suggestion.  We are always grateful for any help you can provide.


How does the church help?
The church members, along with other residents help with cleaning the clinic grounds, encouraging residents to keep the area clean to limit the spread of diseases through poor environments.  The church also encourages all to practice safe sex with other residents or visitors, or to seek help where needed.

The church also encourages all people to read their Bibles for themselves instead of being told what the Bible says. This has come from the fact that some preachers are encouraging their listeners to stop taking regular medication such as ARVs and seek deliverance from the pastors. This has led to many people in the area losing their lives unnecessarily. We encourage all to continue taking their prescribed medication and reporting to the clinic as directed. We also encourage anyone experiencing a conflict in their minds, to seek help at the clinic first and then elsewhere if unhappy. As a church, we do not believe that our God wants us to die prematurely.

The church offers confidential counselling and referral to suitably qualified professional where necessary. For those unsure of whether or not to visit the clinic, the church elders will accompany them to the clinic, and help them get the excellent service the staff always offer.  We are happy to work with the clinic staff.

DIET and Nutrition:
The church believes in each member of the community taking charge of their well-being based on a clear understanding of all their dietary needs, exercise,  use of water, and adequate sleep. To this end we regularly hold seminars to show community members what constitutes a balanced diet and what the body needs.

The food shortages during this year (2016)'s drought have meant that the health of children and elderly are directly affected. We have solicited the help of supplementary foods manufacturers
http://www.epap.co.za/  of South Africa (who now have an office and supply depot in Bulawayo) to help us with supplies at affordable rates.  We have used their products in the area in the last two droughts and found them to be very helpful in improving general health of those in risk groups.

The provision of EPAP is currently led by the ladies group at our sister church at Elmwood, 10 km south of here. They have longer experience of it than we do so we take advice from them. They are trying to establish a permanent work relationship with the suppliers. Meetings are arranged for the later part of this year.

We also invite people of renown to come and speak to the community on specialised health topics.

We hope that the community at large will continue to support its clinic and that those who can support our clinic with material goods and equipment, will feel free to do so.

This clinic is an absolutely essential facility in our community and the staff are totally dedicated to their work. The church is proud to be part of the community health program.

Recipes for Chatsworth dishes

We would like to give short lists of dishes as you might find at Chatsworth. The following are dishes we will develop over the next few weeks. If you would like  to see the outline of one listed dish, but the dish is way down the list, please let us know and we will push it up the list for you.

Also please try to pronounce the names correctly so that when you visit us, you can ask us to make you the dish. We look forward to you participating in this exercise. Note that we have to find specialists community members to assist in compiling this page, so we may be some time. Also please keep reading the updates as  the recipes with be refined as the get reviewed by those in the know. We will try to put pictures of some of the items used.

Dish	Main ingredient	Recipe	Caution
How to make sadza	Boiling water in deep saucepan Maize meal	Ingridients Maize meal Water  Boil water in a deep saucepan or pot.  Add a little maize meal and stir with a wooden twirler till mixture is thin and runny paste. All time to cook (5 min) Add more meal and mix with a wooden stick. Mix till mixture is thick enough to mould with fingers.  Serve with a relish such as veg or beef stew.	If you have not had Sadza before or you have not had it recently, do not eat a lot of it at a time to start off with. Sadza when cooked properly is very good to eat.
How to make tea
How to cook chicken
How to cook beef
How to fry vegetables
How to cook mutakura	Cow beans, Round nuts, peanuts, other type beans/nuts	Choose the type of bean Soak in clean water overnight Place in large pot Pour water at 4 times volume of beeans Add small amount of salt Boil till beans go soft That is Mutakura Serve as a side dish
How to cook mungai	Maize kernels
How to make mashazhare	Maize kernels with skins taken off.
How to make nhopi	Special water melon. This water melon cannot be eaten raw.
How to make rupiza	Split cow beans with skins taken off, a bit like lentils.
How to make peanut butter at home
How to make mashakada
How to make mufushwa
How to cook dried mushrooms
How to cook cow brains
How to boil sweet potatoes
How to cook pumpkins
Preparing pumpkin seeds
How to cook pumpkin leaves
How to cook bean plant leaves
How to cook fresh wild mushrooms

Chatsworth foods and diet

On a normal day a normal family will have breakfast, lunch and supper.

1 Breakfast is made up of bread with a good layer of margarine.

Tea with milk and a lot of sugar (say 4 or 5 teaspoonfuls)

Maybe some porridge made from maize meal

2 Lunch is usually at just gone midday and comprises

1. Sadza, which is a staple of this part of the world.
2. Fried vegetables
3. A bit of meat.
4. A drink of water or some kind of juice.

3 Supper :

Is usually the same as lunch except that it is at about 7 or 8 in the evening.

In between people have snacks of maybe sweet potatoes, wild fruit, domestic fruit, boiled maize cobs, roasted maize cobs, popcorn, boiled round nuts, boiled cow beans, boiled maize kernels, etc. depending on the season. Sometimes people can snack on bread, crisps or sweets from the shop, but this only happens for a few days after pay day for those that work.

Those who can afford can occasionally have boiled rice or potatoes either as a side dish or as a main meal.

Zimbabweans never used to eat a lot of meat till recently. Most people now have chicken and beef as part of their diet. This, with the fact that we fry a lot in our cooking, and we use margarine a lot, means we consume a lot of fats on any given day. This is a huge health issue which is difficult to solve. The community views the use of cooking oils and meat as a sign of good health and affluence. It would be ineffective to try to wean people off fats.

I started by saying "On a normal day..." so what happens on a non-normal day? Well there are some days when things happen differently, such as when the family gets a visitor, when there is a family gathering or when there is a funeral of some other significant event. 

On these days the family feeds on sadza and meat based relish. The meat usually comes from a chicken, a goat, a sheep or a cow. People in Zimbabwe do not eat lamb. They wait till the animal is fully grown before eating it. 

The church, along with health practitioners, preach the gospel of fats reduction. We say people can still fry their vegetables but use less oil and more water, use a thinner layer of margarine on their bread and eat less meat. This saves money and improves health, both of which are good for the family. 

At church organised meetings, we tend to exclude meat from the menu, but we take our time cooking as best we can. We usually have people asking for recipes on some of our cooking. 

We also do cooking demonstrations to prove that food retains its taste even without lots of fats in it. The best way to approach this issue is to convince the ladies, as it is them that do the cooking. Once they fully understand the benefits, changes will start happening.

The problem is that some of us who are supposed to inform the others are not fully informed either. We do not have the full facts or the right presentations to show others. We have partial information and that slows down the information machine and makes us prone to some contradictions.

We would like some of you professionals out there to help us when you have time. One of the things we need to encourage is the eating of raw foods such as vegetable salads and fruit salads. These are nearly totally unknown here. People cook most of the available foods

We are going to publish a range of recipes for several different dishes as you would find them at Chatsworth and in the surrounding areas. You can try them where you are and see if you like them. You can also let us know your experiences as you try them. 

I have started collecting recipes and photos of the finished dishes and will publish them here in late as soon as is possible. Access to the Internet is a challenge: Bear with us. 
____________________________________________________________________________

The weather at Chatsworth

Here we will be reporting on the weather just so our visitors can have an idea before they come We start today and report maybe once per day. We do not have thermometers, rain gauges, barometers or such like so we cannot predict anything or tell you about figures. However, we can describe and show you pictures for you to further describe for yourself. A picture says a thousand words, we are told.

OK today 22/11/2014

Misty morning at Chatsworth. Picture shows the bush to the north of the shops by the petrol station. 

Even Chatsworth can be misty on some selected mornings. The weather website
http://www.accuweather.com/en/zw/chatsworth/354719/hourly-weather-forecast/354719
Says the temperature is 29 degrees Centigrade today at its highest  and will be 14 degrees at its lowest tonight. Well we have no way of verifying that, other than to say its hot today.

The weather in November  is warm and humid. The rainy season has started. We will update you tomorrow.

In 2016, an international charity installed a weather station at a school 12 km south of Chatsworth. We hope to to get data from the school and track our weather a little more professionally.

Not sure yet how to record weather data on a blog but we will talk to the school.

Transportation round Chatsworth

The main mode of transport is walking. People walk for miles upon miles and think nothing of it. There are some types of mechanised transport system but they are for a privileges few who can afford it. The roads are not maintained  and can be dangerous, especially in the rainy season like October to March, when rivers are flowing.

Buses
Here we will discuss some modes of transport and their impact on our community. The first are buses.

This bus is going north to Harare 250 km away.

Buses come from the rural areas around Chatsworth and pass through en route to some or other destination far away. This road is considered very good within Chatsworth itself. Just on the outskirts of Chatsworth, the road is very poorly maintained causing bus maintenance to be costly and fares to be high. Sometimes a route may not have a bus for days or weeks while parts are being sourced. 

By transport law, a passenger vehicle is not allowed to mix people and their goods. This means a bus must either have a roof rack or a trailer. Towing a trailer on these roads is near impossible, so best option is to use a roof rack. You can see a pile of goods on the bus. Getting these items on to such a height is an art in itself. Tourists find it fascinating to watch. 

Some of these buses are older than the country, that is they are from the pre-independence era. Others have been imported to Zimbabwe since 1980 but come from countries where they had come to the end of their economic service life. The main suppliers of buses are the UK, Europe, Japan, and South Africa. 

This bus was seen at Njiva Village on its way to Chatsworth 9 km north.
Driver was told off for speeding
Here they are loading items on the roof rack. 

The Train: 

These train carriages are as old as time itself. 

The train passes Chatsworth going from Gweru to Masvingo and back twice per week. The carriages were made in the 1940s and have not been refurbished since. Its a real life experience riding on the train on this line. If you have a good bicycle, you can ride it much faster than this train. It take 12 hours to travel from Gweru to Mazvingo on a good day. The distance is 184 km/115 miles. Its 2.5 hours by car on a bad day. 

Gweru to Mavingo by train.

By Car:

Till recently you could catch a lift from drivers and be able to travel to almost anywhere where cars go regularly, but the police have clamped down on the practice because of poor driving by motorists. This was claiming many lives from what police describe as accidents. They are not real accidents. They are just results of incompetent driving, which the government is not too bothered about. It is possible to drive for many years without having taken an official driving test. This puts many drivers and their passengers at risk of death. Chatsworth has had its fair share of grief from these events. Its not advisable to catch a lift from car drivers unless you know them well.

This car is for sale. Of you want it, Email us pronto. We will arrange shipping. Most of its parts are there.
Put this magnificent machine in the hands of a young driver and you have chaos in the community. 

Some cars are several times older than their drivers. Other cars are left parked for decades and are assigned other duties while the owners are looking for parts

This pickup is currently serving as a chicken run, but if a few months you may hitch a lift on it on the road. 

Once a vehicle reaches this well known tropical state of Zimbabwe, it stops deteriorating and the only items on it we worry about are the paint, the moving parts, and any part affected by accidents. We can look after most other items and keep the vehicle on the roads. Rusting takes place very slowly here.

Traffic Police making sure drivers comply with Road Safety Guidelines and Rules
At Chatsworth Turn-off  8 km from Chatsworth itself.  Thank you police from Chatsworth. 

We have shown old cars only. We will put pictures of much newer cars later. Sometimes we see newer cars passing through and we don't know where they are coming from or going to. That is much like where you live, is it not? Strangers drive through your village and all you remember about them is their fancy cars. Some do not think Chatsworth is worthy of their stopping. We need to change that.

Ox Drawn carts:

Its common to see ox drawn carts with people in them. This is a fairly risky means of travel as the animals can be easily frightened and go out of control. However, risk is only worth a thought if there are options to choose from. In most cases the choice is between walking and riding a cart. If the distance is considerable, then riding a cart seems a fair choice.

We will bring you pictures of such carts but only those that pass by our Chatsworth.  We are just playing a waiting game at the moment.

Bicycles:
In days gone by each household could afford a bicycle. These days bicycles peddle at USD100 or more. That is way above an acceptable level of expenditure for one item for someone living here. So you find fewer and fewer households can afford bicycles. We also used to be able to go next door and borrow one for an immediate journey. Because of the economic climate, the bicycle owner now know that if something goes wrong with their bicycle, it will cost money to repair. For that reason you go next door to beg the owner to let you borrow it but pay him for allowing you. Now if you damaged it in any way before, you will not not be allowed to borrow again.

Again we will bring you some pictures of local bicycles. Its not because you have not seen a picture of a bicycle before, but you have not seen one of a bicycle from Chatsworth. They are special in that they belong to members of our community.

We shall update these pages as we get pictures for you

Our Very Own Chatsworth

Rubwerumwe
When you approach Chatsworth from most directions,
this is the first natural landmark you see. 

Zimbabwe is no longer describable as a jungle or even bush. Chatsworth is urban but far from a town. When you approach Chatsworth from most directions, the first natural land mark you see is Rubwerumwe, a single pillar of stone rising from a nearby hill with a precariously sitting stone on top of it. Rubwerumwe (Single Stone) was there long before Chatsworth was a twinkle in it's dad's eye. I have often thought the site of this stone should be utilised for recreation of some sort. Its an amazing place.

Recently we have had the new Communication tower, the most technological installation at Chatsworth. It has taken over as the most prominent landmark. We are proud to have it and we are thankful to the telecoms companies for considering Chatsworth as a suitable location for this tower. For us it is a new chapter in our lives as we are now able to connect with the outside world a little more efficiently using mobile phones, the only phones worth having in Zimbabwe. The land lines are almost a thing of the past.

New Telecoms Tower
A welcome development

The new tower means we are able to communicate with anyone anywhere on earth. This was not possible before the tower was installed. Those fortunate enough to own a cell phone can help the rest of the community on different levels of communication. This blog in only possible because of this tower.

Sometimes the electricity supply is affected by what they supplier calls LOAD SHADING, and affect all our lives from lighting, to cooking, to communication, to water supply. However, we are still thankful for the tower, however many hours it works per given day.

You can see this tower from a long distance away and it gives confidence that you have arrived at Chatsworth. At night there is a sentinel light on top of the tower, marking the presence of Chatsworth and its residence under the tower's jurisdiction. It is a reminder to us of the generation of change. Under this generation changes in global communication have and are taking place and Chatsworth is able to belong to all of us, who advocate progress. We are able to take part in our own progress with help and advice from you all.

 Once you arrive, one of the original buildings is this, the first supermarket at Chatsworth, built by the Morabhai Family, originally of Indian heritage. It served as a supermarket till business was disrupted by the war of independence and the supermarket closed in the mid 1970s. The buildng was never used again as a supermarket ut was bought by the Golden Spiderweb company, which was a knitwear enterprise employing hundreds of people in the area and using the building as their factory. This was the only time we had a functional factory in Chatsworth, and it was a golden time for employment. The building is in need of new paint and possibly new future.  If you stand at the bottom right corner of the picture and look past the building on the right, you see the Police Station at the end of that path, and the Post Office building on you right, directly opposite the GSW building.

If you stand on the bottm left of the picture, and turn left, you walk along 200 metres north, then another 200 metres west, then another 200 metres South, and 200 metres back to where you started, you will hve walked round the town centre of Chatsworth. You will have seen

The Police station
The Post Office
The 8 Shops
The Petrol Station
The Railway Station
All the Road and Rail exits from Chatsworth

The supewrmarket. 

The supermarket is a well valued building and business. It is one of the original buildings at Chatsworth, and was build as a supermarket.

If you walk in front of the building, past the parked truck, you cross the dust street and get to the Golden SpiderWeb building and past that to the Police Station.

To the left of this arre three more shops and a petrol station.


Chatsworth is a small hamlet of less than 4000 people but it is growing  and has many social, educational, health, and spiritual needs which we all work together, sometimes in a co-ordinated manner, to cater for. The churches are some of the providers of social and spiritual gatherings. The main religion here is Christianity, accounting for around 60% of the belief systems.  The next biggest belief system is the indigenous ancestral worship based, which looks up to generations of family elders long dead, and accepts that their spirits take care of the living. You also find some traces of Islam and also some who mix all these to form a singular multi-faith belief system taping into all possibilities.

Christianity is split into a number of sub groups some worshipping on Friday, some on Saturday and some on Sunday. Faith issues are generally accepted to be of the heart and according to personal convictions. There is never any animosity or ridicule between people of different faiths. Indeed some people belong to different faith groups at different stages in their lives. Also, it is common to find different members of the same family belonging to different faith groups without any friction at all.

Most groups work for the community interests and take part in the general goings on. Its at weddings and funerals that you find most of these groups working together to create a successful events. The owners of the event choose which church they want to lead out in the event.

There is a small clinic which has dedicated nursing staff who work as nurses and as doctors. It is very rare that a doctor visits. The nearest government hospital is in Masvingo 70km away, and it does not have enough doctors itself so cannot afford to loan out any to rural clinics. Chatsworth clinit is one of the better clinics in the country and is a welcome facility to our community.

There is very little employment at Chatsworth and most families rely on running small business projects. The biggest employer is the government who employ police officers, teachers and health workers, in that order of numbers.

Living at Chatsworth is very cheap compared to living in the city. Rent for a two bedroomed house is a low as  USD35.00 per month. However, that is a very difficult amount of money for a family to raise at Chatsworth.

Electricity and water supplies are both erratic, sometimes missing for days. This makes it hard to do business based on either of these two.

The council does not collect rubbish and it is left to each resident to clean up around their houses or business properties. It is not surprising that the little town is dirty most of the time. The health workers and community leaders work together to encourage cleaning up.

There is no banking facility so people need to go to Gutu, about 35 km to the east or to Masvingo, about 60 km to the south.

Chatsworth is easily accessibly by road or rail. A train passes by once per day going north and once going south. By road you can arrive from north, south, east, or west. Many also arrive via small bush paths either on foot or on bicycles.

Chatsworth is alive and well and very interesting to anyone who is passing, who stops and looks at us. In this context, our Church, the Seventh-day Adventist Church operates, with 11 adult members, 7 regular visitors and more than ten children. Our main work is to:
1 Support families in their spiritual well being.
2 Support families in their family life needs, parenting, childcare, schooling, etc
3 Support families in their Dieting, designing balanced diets and sourcing different foods locally.
4 Working with other support groups to improve health and welfare.
5 Working with our former residents now living elsewhere to help train our young people.
6 Ensuring that any work in Chatsworth is offered to our people where possible. This includes building and farm labour in nearby farms.
7 To raise awareness of any threats to health, such as contaminants, potential diseases, sexual health, etc. For this we work with other interested parties.
8 Working with government and other organisations and encouraging community members to attend meeting about subjects of interest.
9 Preach the health message to the whole community.

All of us are volunteers and have to balance these activities with our own need to work and raise enough money to care for our families.

We thank you for your support, wherever you are. We have really benefited from support from those who have visited us and understood how a small help can do wonders. We need tools, skills books, manuals, suggestions, and where possible, profitable projects we can take part in to increase both employment (whether part time or full time) and welfare, especially of our children and young people.

Make Chatsworth a "Must Visit" place for your lifetime. We have no famous sites for you to see, but we still think Chatsworth is worthy of your visit. To visit Chatsworth in person, Email us on chatsworthsda@gmail.com  and we will prepare a nice welcome for you. 
Come and have a look and bring your friends with you.  

Show your friends this blog. We thank you.