The guys we hired this morning to help Donkey and Mr. Iddrisu were surprised when we showed them how to dip the boards! They usually use a knapsack sprayer and have to flip every board several times to get all the sides. They were also surprised at how quickly we were able to dip the boards. The men we hired were used to moving boards; they would pick up 4= 2×3 at a time and dip them all at once. They were expecting to have to work all day and part of tomorrow to get all the boards treated. We were finished this morning in less than 3 hours! Abochi’s brother, who is going to do the roofing for us, showed up at 10:30 to check on the men and their progress. The look on his face when we told them they had already finished and had gone home was priceless! He said that he and the crew would be here first thing in the morning to start roofing. Mr. Oldman, our neighbor, was having a hard time understanding how we were going to “dip” the lumber and he wanted to see the process. We called him this morning after we had been working for about an hour and told him that if he wanted to see the process he needed to come on over. He was amazed at how fast it was to dip the boards too. We are so happy to get moving on the project again. We are afraid that we may still be working on the training center during the seminar which will make things a bit difficult. The seminar is only 2 weeks from today.
After the guys finished the lumber we sent them home; we wanted them to go home and take a bath to wash off all the chemicals that they slopped on themselves. We gave all the men long red rubber gloves. They are not used to wearing gloves and one of the guys stuck his whole hand into the trough of poison and it filled up his glove. Instead of taking off the glove and rinsing it out and washing his hand he held his hand up in the air and the chemical ran out of his glove, down his arm and into his shirt. It is a wonder they are not all dead.
The chemical we are using is Dursban; a chemical that is no longer readily available in the states because it is dangerous. When we finished for the day Donkey asked if he could have some of the chemical. We asked him what he wanted to do with it and he said that he wanted to put it on his freshly shelled corn to keep the bugs from eating the corn. This is the corn he harvested for his family to eat; this is not feed for animals. We told him that we would not give him any of the chemical because it was poison and should never come in contact with food items because it was dangerous. Mr. Iddrisu then asked if he could have some; we asked him what he was going to use it on. He said that his chickens have mites and that he was going to dip his chickens in the chemical to kill the mites. Please! He said that he was going to come back after he had his bath and collect the poison water out of the trough we were dipping the boards in. Steve warned them to be careful with it because it was designed to kill.
Thank you for all you do for us and for the work. Continue to pray for us! Keep our friend Floyd in your prayers as he prepares for surgery.
In HIS Service,
Steve and Kandie
