The family of the little girl with the clubbed feet found out that someone in Tamale is making the braces for the small children so we gave them the transport money to go to Tamale and see if they could fit her with braces. The baby is only a couple months old and sometimes if they get the braces early enough and the family is consistent about making the child wear the braces surgery will not be required. This is the family that has the little boy who is missing bones in his elbows. The family called today and said that they were to be fitted with braces / shoes on Thursday. It will be wonderful if they can do all of this from Tamale instead of going all the way to Nsawam which is near Accra.
We got a request letter today from the Balogu-Na; the chief of the area where the Child Center is located. The request was for money to help with tent and chair rental for the upcoming festival. We talked to Zorash and to Mr. Iddrisu and they said that we should do something to help because he is the overlord of the land we are sitting on. Once we got to thinking about it we wondered if we needed to give something to the Ya-Na who is the chief over all the other chiefs and then we thought about the Gundo-Na who is the lady chief who is the overlord of the property on the back side of the mission property. We wondered if we gave to one of the overlords do we need to give to both of them. Well the answer is yes; in fact the Gundo-Na (the lady chief) is higher in rank than the Balogu-Na. We settled on an amount that needed to be given and then just before Mr. Iddrisu went home for the day he said that we should really give something to Papa Zachariah, our old night watchman because now he is a sub chief and will take any problem we have to the Ya-Na. Mr. Iddrisu and Donkey will deliver the gifts to Ya-Na and the sub chiefs tomorrow. Fortunately we do not have to go in person!!!
Amama was back at work this morning. She could not come yesterday because her father was sick and her aunt came to visit so she had to be there to cook and take care of her aunt. She had a lot of work to catch up on because she has not been here since last Wednesday.
A lady came to the Child Center this morning with her 6 month old baby. The baby was fine and his weight was good for his age but the mother wanted us to give her formula to feed the baby. She said that the baby was really big when he was born and he has been losing weight. She showed us a picture of the baby when he was born; he was huge. She said that he weighed over 5 kilos at birth (over 11 pounds). His birth weight makes us wonder if the mom had gestational diabetes. Steve reassured her that his weight was fine and that she should start introducing porridge and other foods. She wanted to know if she could continue to feed him custard powder. Custard powder is an instant pudding mix that does not even have any milk products in it; it is sugar, cornstarch and yellow food coloring. We told her that it was not really food for babies. I bet he liked it! Ha!
Take care and enjoy your day!
In HIS Service,
Steve and Kandie
