I’ve been on holiday, so blogging wasn’t high on the list of priorities. That’s the excuse; here are one or two thoughts that didn’t involve much effort, but are still relevant.

I blogged about the Jacarandas in ‘Today’ and on Oct 20th Tracy Dunn commented, “…like those jacarandas of my childhood. They are very old now, and I wonder how long Jacarandas live.” Good news Tracy, I was walking along Chinaman again this morning, and some community-minded people are planting tiny Jacaranda saplings, each barely 50cm high, between each of the ancient trees all along Chinaman. A positive contribution for future generations!

This reminded me of a proposal for Zimbabwe tree planting day, which will be in early December this year. We have now opened the new clinic at Caledonia Farm (more about that soon), and I commented to our team about how desolate a place it seems – all the trees have been cut down, and there’s nothing but a lonely isolated clinic on top of a dusty hill. “Let’s plant trees on Zimbabwe tree planting day,” someone said. So plans are still sketchy, but the team’s little private initiative is to plant 50 trees around the perimeter of the new clinic compound. Hopefully in 50 years time, patients of the clinic with a more positive future will be sitting in the shade of Jacarandas planted by the nurses and doctors of MSF in 2011. I’ll keep you updated.

Thinking about special days, it will be World Aids Day soon, an especially poignant day for Zimbabwe. We’re hoping to do something special to note the passing of this day, and the hope for a better future for all people living positively with HIV in Zimbabwe and across the world. Watch this space.

Finally, we went to bed as usual last night. I woke up this morning with an older woman. Happy Birthday, Sarwat; age comes to all of us, and you wear it better than me – stay positive!