It took us 5 hours to prepare the cow skin and tail. We had to wash and scrub it 3 times Then we had to boil it for 3 hours until it was soft. The cow skin has a very odd smell. Steve passed through and said he felt like he was in a barn! Not funny! It did not smell that bad but after we finished washing it and cutting it into pieces I had to bleach my hands before I could eat my lunch which was not even the cow skin. When all was said and done the skin turned out very nice but it was not soft enough for my liking so when Zorash left I got out the pressure cooker and pressured it for about 30 minutes. We are having the cow skin for supper. There are a number of ways you can prepare it once you get it soft enough to eat. Tonight for supper I floured and deep fried it. It is delicious. It has a very chewy texture but it is very tasty.
Dawda got all the pillar boxes made and the pillars poured today. He said that since it was Friday they were going to close early but they stayed later than they usually do so everyone enjoyed a little extra money for overtime. Red located a generator that he thinks will be big enough to run his welder but it needed to be tuned up. Guess who is paying for the mechanic work? We will also give the owner something for letting us borrow it. We sure hope that it works. Gomda also found one but it too needed to be repaired so we will go with the one that belongs to Red’s friend. When Red left the mission house he was on his way to try it out.
We got word yesterday that one of the children that has been coming to the Child Center was at a big hospital in Accra to have another surgery to repair the burns she received about a year ago. Almost all the women in Ghana cook with wood or charcoal outdoors on the ground. The fires are very low; they might be in a coal pot or sitting on 3 stones on the ground. The little girl had learned to crawl and her mother had water boiling on the fire; the little girl crawled to the fire and used the pot to pull herself up and poured the boiling water all over herself. She has burns to her face, chest, stomach, shoulder and arm. She has had several surgeries over the past year. The doctors were not sure that she would survive the burns. She has so much scar tissue that she can hardly open her hand. The doctors said they would do the operation on her hand as soon as the family can find the money for the operation; the Health Insurance Scheme usually only pays for the bed in these cases. Thanks to your generosity we were able to send the family the money they need for this surgery.
Thank you for all your help.
In His Service,
Steve and Kandie
