Neither Meri nor Zorash were at work today. Meri had to go to the doctor for her prenatal check up and Zorash was sick. She thinks that she has malaria. She said that she was going to go to the doctor; maybe she will be feeling better tomorrow. If it really is malaria they begin to feel better about 24 hours after they start the medication.
Fortunately Mr. Iddrisu was here today so he helped Steve and me in the Child Center. It was rough when we first opened; the mothers descended upon us in their numbers! There was nothing seriously wrong with most of the babies so we did not have to take too much time with any particular mother. While we were feverously working Nazo down to tell us that Asana, the crippled teenage girl was sitting under the mango tree waiting to greet us. We knew that meant she had a problem that she wanted us to solve. Steve told Nazo to tell her that she would have to wait until we had seen the mothers that were standing in line.
We finally had enough of a lull that we were able to leave the Center and talk to Asana. She said that the school had requested that each student give them 100 Cedis to help build a cement wall around the school. The money was not supposed to be a requirement but the students could not get their grades unless they paid the money. We consider that a forced giving! Asana said that they had 70 Cedis but that her handicapped bicycle needed new tires and if they repaired the bicycle they would have nothing to pay the school. She was happy when Steve gave her all the money she needed to redeem her grades and see if she passed.
By the end of the morning we had seen 59 children in the Child Center. We used almost all the liquid multivitamins and the Tylenol we had packaged. We will have to package them before we can start seeing babies in the morning.
I guess that Nazo’s wife needed firewood because Nazo spent the afternoon hacking on a tree stump that was in the front yard. He had a nice load of firewood on the back of his bicycle when he left the compound this afternoon.
Mr. Iddrisu’s eyes are much better but he still cannot read things that are close to up. He had hoped that the cataract surgery would fix his eyes and he would not need reading glasses. Before we went to the center we got him a pair of reading glasses. We needed him to fill out charts in the Child Center. He was happy that he could read the newspaper.
Thank you for all you do!
In His Service,
Steve and Kandie
