Red came early this morning to start working on my brother Paul’s truck. He will have to drive the truck to Accra to pick up Paul and then drive up to Wa and back to Accra again. He wants to make sure that it is in as good a shape as possible before that long trip. He changed the oil and the filters; he also removed the old diesel from the fuel tank and put in fresh. The vehicle has been sitting since before Covid so it needed a new battery and one of the battery cables had to be replaced. Red did get it started before he went home this evening. He has not driven it yet. He wants to check the belts and a few other things before he takes it out on the road. He is supposed to come back tomorrow.
Zorash had a funeral to attend in the Zabzugu area this morning so she did not come to work. She was only gone ½ a day so this afternoon she went with us to the hospital to check on Adamu and to give her aunt her food money for this week. We also needed Zorash to find out why she left the hospital with Adamu against doctor’s orders knowing that the child needed a blood transfusion. Zorash said that the aunt wanted to go home to take a bath so she just left. She said that she intended to come back after she took her bath but she decided that she would just spend the night. That is not acceptable because Adamu was without her food and she had diarrhea. Diarrhea can be a killer with these very malnourished starving children. The doctors and nurses were not happy either because they did not even know that she had left. Adamu had to have blood not because she has malaria but because her hemoglobin was too low. We are not sure what is causing her hemoglobin to be low because they are giving her a blood tonic that has iron, folic and several of the B vitamins. They were able to give her the blood transfusion yesterday evening. We could tell that Adamu was not feeling very well today. We don’t know if her little excursion caused her to lose weight but it sure did not help her! The nurse in charge said that he is going to call the father to come tomorrow and he is going to threaten him with calling the police and turning the case in for neglect. He said that sometimes that will frighten them into doing the right things to help the child.
Gomda got the old van’s gear/clutch problem fixed; at least we hope it is fixed. They say the third time’s charm. Gomda tried to get the man who sent him the defective part to change it for another one but he would not. Gomda said that he could not with good conscience charge us again for the part but we with good conscience could not let Gomda suffer because someone sold him a defective part. Gomda then tried not to charge us labor. We told him to take his labor money and to share it with his new twin baby girls. He laughed and took the money.
Thank you for all you do for us!
In HIS Service,
Steve and Kandie
Skeeter’s Monkey Business
Does anyone know how I can sign up for food stamps??? There is a food shortage in our area! That is the only way I can explain the strange happening of this morning. Mom took me outside and said that I should be foraging for food! She started looking around for bugs. She spied a grasshopper. She tried to make me look at the grasshopper; I ignored her and the grasshopper. She told me that the grasshopper was “fine chop”! “Fine chop” for who?
She made the grasshopper jump and that was pretty scary! When it jumped I jumped right behind Mom and hid under her dress; there was no way I was going to let that thing get me! Finally Mom caught it. She tried to give it to me; I touched it but it jumped again. Mom chased after it saying something about this one was too good to let get away. Weird woman running around the yard chasing a grasshopper! She caught it again and this time she maimed it so that it could not hop away. She gave it to me and this time I decided to try it. The first thing I did was bite off its head; it was rather crunchy but it tasted pretty good. The problem was that the thing was still moving. I tried to finish killing it by rolling it around on the ground under my hands. When it stopped moving I tried another bite. It was a texture thing! I had to pull the wings out of my mouth because believe me they are not edible! I popped the rest of the grasshopper into my mouth; I chewed on that thing for the next 5 minutes but I finally got it down. If I ever come across another one I believe I can catch it myself!
After I ate the grasshopper Mom decided that I should learn to catch ants. I grabbed at a couple but they did not really interest me; I was still full from the grasshopper! Mom caught a couple and I pretended to eat them. I put them in my mouth but really I did not eat them; I spit them out later. Mom knows because she found one in the fur under my chin. Mom said not to worry because she would find me some big ants to eat. Lucky me!
Happy foraging!
Love Skeeter
