Meri came back to work this morning. She has been out for 2 weeks. She is feeling much better. She has a little girl that is about 8 months that she brings to work every day. Meri can barely get any work done for tending to the baby. The Ghanaian women breastfeed all day long; none of these babies are on a schedule. We bought a baby walker for her so Meri could put her down in a clean place. She usually puts her on a piece of cloth but she can wiggle and roll right off of it. This morning she was wallowing around on the ground under the mango tree; that place is covered with bat poop but no one seems to mind. Speaking of no one minding; I thought I was going to have a heart attack yesterday during morning worship. Steve pointed to a little girl that was about 1 year old (she could take a few steps but then she would fall down) someone had given her a butcher knife to play with. She was sitting on the ground playing with the knife; every once in a while she would put the point into her mouth. No one took it away from her; no one seemed to know that it was a dangerous thing to be playing with. Fortunately she got tired of playing with it and toddled off to play with some of the other children.
Steve, Zorash and I spent the morning and a portion of the afternoon working on the annual returns for the people that work in the Child Center. Four of the workers are illiterate so there is no way they can fill out their own forms even though this is their personal annual return. It is a government requirement. Even though some cannot read they have all learned to make a sign for their names! So we no longer use the stamp pad for thumb prints.
The ladies got the corn and soybeans washed and dried this morning. In a few days we will roast it and then take it to the grinding mill to turn into weaning mix.
Mr. Iddrisu and Nazo continued to haul stones out of the back field. They made 6 trips today and then they made a trip to Zorash’s house; she is borrowing the big 4 foot square water container that we use for building projects. The lady that came to stay with them until after she delivered her baby had the baby and they are making preparations for the naming ceremony; they will have to buy a container of water so they will have enough for cooking and for all the visitors to take baths. The Daka River out by Kulkpeni that Yendi gets her city water from has dried up and divided. There is no water in the pipes coming to Yendi. Everyone is having to buy water and go to far places to find water. We are desperately in need of rain but it might be a while before it comes. We are fortunate; we still have a good supply of water that we harvested last year during the rainy season.
Thank you for the prayers.
In His Service,
Steve and Kandie
