Steve spent almost all day working on the Social Welfare report and it is still not finished. He wrote the actual report several days ago but there are so many documents that have to be included in the report and multiple copies made that it takes a while to get it together, colligated, holes punched and put into a small binder. Fortunately he had last year’s report to look at so it made the hunting and gathering a bit easier.
First thing this morning we took Nazo, several 5 gallon containers of water, herbicide and the sprayer to the back of the property. It rained yesterday so now Nazo can spray. Nazo and Mr. Iddrisu believes that if it does not rain the herbicide will not work. Somehow they think that it has to have rain to activate it. Anyway, Nazo got the area around the building and the electric poles sprayed and he also sprayed around the area that Steve demarcated for the new building. He said that it will take a few days for it to work, then they can burn the grass.
We went to the motor vehicle office to see if the transfer of ownership papers for the motorcycle for Timothy had come from Tamale yet. They had not. The officer said that the lady was supposed to come back today with the documents. Well it was 3:30when we went to check so we knew that we would not be getting the paperwork today; maybe tomorrow.
This morning we had 2 malnourished children come to the Center. One of them was 2 year 8 months and only weighed 5.2 kilo which is 11 ½ pounds. That is extremely low. Another one came with both her mother and her father. She was a thumb sucker. We have found that the thumb sucker and finger suckers have a tendency to have a lower weight than the non-thumb suckers. We figure that it is because thumb suckers comfort themselves and do not signal the mothers that they are hungry. Today 2 new orphans came to the center. One of the orphans was 11 months old so all we did for him was to give them some weaning mix and vitamins. His weight was a little on the low side but really we were not too worried because when a child is that old and has lost his mother and has been weaned abruptly we expect a bit of a setback before they pick up weight again. The other orphan was 5 months old; her mother died en route to the hospital; she was complaining of stomach pain but no one knows what was wrong with her.
Last night we could hear the drumming and gun fire from the palace that is connected with the Damba festival. Nazo said that he left the palace at mid-night but that the drummers and dancers danced until daybreak.
Thank you for your support.
In His Service,
Steve and Kandie
