As soon as we finished our walk this morning we started pulling up the paver blocks on the sidewalk that leads to the Child Center. We are going to raise the sidewalk because every time it rains the dirt/sand from the yard covers the sidewalk. We hope that raising the sidewalk will take care of the problem. We are going to have the mason build a form and fill it with cement then we are going to embed the pavers in the wet cement. The pavers are set in a certain design and when we were talking to the mason yesterday about the project he seemed confused about the pattern. It was difficult for him to see the design so we told him that we would pull the pavers up and set them to the side so he would know how to put them into the wet cement. The sidewalk is about 150 feet long. It took us 3 hours to dig and set up the pavers in the correct pattern. We staggered each set of patterns so the design could be seen easier. We have no idea whether or not the mason will be able to see the pattern and put them in the proper order. We had to chisel excess cement off many of the pavers. By the time we were finished we were exhausted! Not a job we want to repeat! Normal people would have just cast a new sidewalk on top of the old one; but then we have never claimed to be normal! Ha!
We saw Zorash this morning when we went for our walk; she was going to the grinding mill to grind soybeans into a paste so she could make soybean kabobs. Usually when she makes soybean kabobs she makes some for us. In turn we provide the oil to fry the soybean in and the Epsom salt that causes the soybean milk to coagulate. After she finished at the grinding mill she stopped by the mission house and picked up the oil and Epsom salt. She calledaround noon to let us know she had finished the process and that we could stop by and pick up some; we are having them for supper tonight.
The architect called this morning and wanted us to come to his office to check out the plans for the training center. He had made the thing with 2 roofs; the upper roof was just for show; it had no purpose; it even had glass windows. What! We are trying to save money and putting on 2 roofs is not the way to do it. We told him that all the second roof was going to do was give the birds and bats a place to roost and they would be pooping all over everything! He also put flower beds all around the building; I am not going to plant flowers down there and have to haul water to keep them alive. He also put pavers all around the building; not happening! The real problem is that he used the plans our son Aaron drew for us as the base for his design and he had to add froo-froo stuff to it so that it would not be an exact duplicate of what we turned in. We told him to remove the second roof and to get rid of the flower beds and paver bricks. He said that he really wanted to leave the flower beds and pavers to make the design beautiful. We will not use them if they are there or not.
Thank you for all you do for us and for the people in Ghana.
In HIS Service,
Steve and Kandie
