We spent several hours this morning at the Engineer’s office. Abochi and Red were positively sure that they could get the Engineer to approve our original drawings for the training center but they could not. They were able to get the changes we want to make approved. The trip was much ta-do about nothing! At first Abochi and Red tried to tell us that we did not even need a building permit. The Engineer told us that the officer who gave us permission to start the work and a copy of the building plans was not supposed to give that to us because it had not been signed off by him. Bottom line is the engineer is afraid that he will not get paid if we already have a copy of the plans. We told him that we paid in advance for all the inspection fees and everything connected with the project. He said that we could take the original and make a copy of it so we would know how to start the foundation. It took over an hour for us to get the copies made. After we got the copies made we stuck our heads back in the engineer’s office just to make sure it was ok for us to remove the center pole in the building and put in several secondary poles instead. That change alone will save us a lot of money because we can use rafters instead of making trusses.
Steve has been trying to finish the annual report for the Child Center so we can turn it in to get the license renewed for next year but when he got ready to print the supplement pages this afternoon the printer/scanner would not work. Fortunately we had an extra printer because during the time of Covid we had to print documents no earlier than 24 hours before our flight. We had to fly to Accra to catch the plane more than 24 hours before departure so we went to “Plan B” and bought a printer, made our copies and left the printer in the care of the guy that runs the hotel we stay in. It was waiting for us when we returned. I said all that to say we were happy that it worked when Steve pulled it out of the box this afternoon so hopefully we will not have to make a trip to Tamale to buy a new one!
We got another heavy rain last night; we continue to be surprised by the amount of rain we are getting this late in the season. Some people are complaining that the excess rain has started affecting the foundations of their mud ball houses. Kwabena, the night watchman said that he is going to have to make repairs to his house but he has to wait for the rain to stop first.
Thank you for the love, prayers and support!
In His Service,
Steve and Kandie
