When Red came to work on my brother Paul truck today it would not move; the clutch had locked up. Red dismantled it and went to town to a mechanic to see if they could fix it. He said that they might have to order up something from Tamale to fix it. It must not have been an easy fix because he never returned.
The intersex child reported to the hospital today; the surgery will be on Wednesday. Hopefully all will go well; the father found out today that the surgery is going to be 6,500 Cedis (650 dollars) which is an astronomical amount of money for the family to be able to find especially since the father’s family has rejected the child as a non-human that needs to be killed. Of course we will help with the cost. The father said that he had a 4ft metal water container that he was willing to sell to help with the cost of the surgery. We don’t really need a water container because we already have 3 but we are now the proud owners of another one. We told the father that if he was willing to sell the water container we would pay for the surgery. He was more than happy with the arrangement.
Steve said that a set of twins came to the Child Center this morning and they were both severely malnourished. He said the little boy was in worse shape than the girl. They were 1 ½ years old. He said that the boy was in about the same shape as Adamu. He loaded them up with everything in our arsenal. Part of the reason we are seeing so many malnourished children right now is because food is scarce; food is scarce because we are at the end of the dry season and the new crops have not come in yet. Most people have eaten up the surplus food they had left from last year’s harvest. We see more malnourished children among the Dagombas, this is Mr. Iddrisu, Donkey, Meri, Amama and Zorash’s tribe because they live in town. The Konkombas are farmers; they are poor but at least they have food for their families.
Steve had a very stinky job today. He cleaned out the small septic tank that holds the grey water from the bathroom sink. There are no fill lines on the septic tank; this is just a cement box with a cement lid that the grey water runs into. Every once in a while the bathroom sink gets sluggish and we know that the septic tank needs to be emptied. This time it was full of roots which added to the sluggishness because the roots were trying to grow up through the drain pipes. He dipped the water out with a plastic gallon container that we taped to a small pole. When he could no longer dip with the container we put a small tin can on a stick and got the rest. We then had to snake out the drain pipe. Thank goodness it will be several years before we have to do that job again!
Steve started working on the Social Welfare report for the Child Centre. The Center year runs from June 1st to May 31st but we do not turn in the report until November. The dates got messed up the year they lost our report. They said they could not post date the license so they gave us a new date but with the same physical year dates.
Have a great day!
In HIS Service,
Steve and Kandie
Skeeter’s Monkey Business
You know I am a clever monkey! I figured out how to get out from under that laundry basket they call a cage. After I got out they started weighting the basket down so I could not pick it up. Well, today they put me under the basket while they were outside emptying the septic tank but they forgot to put the weight on the basket. They did not know that I was loose in the house while they were outside working. I was a good boy and I did not tear up anything. I was distressed and all I wanted to do was figure out how to get out the front door so I could be with them. I did figure out how to push the back screen door open today and let myself outside. I had to because Dad left me behind when he went to the Child Center and I could see him walking down the sidewalk. I hate to be left alone! I am a very social creature! I suffer from “Separation Anxiety”!
Mom took my bottle out to Donkey again this morning. I only drank part of the bottle because I am never very hungry that early in the morning but after I ate I climbed up in Donkey’s lap and tried to bite the buttons off his shirt. He did not think that was a very good idea but I thought that it was great fun!
Anyone know a good psychiatrist?
Love Skeeter
