Today’s Yendi Notes are being produced by John Colgan.
We ate breakfast an hour early today so we could get the pig pieces out of the freezer and over to Kulkpeni early in the day. The pieces filled 6 Rubbermaid totes, which we placed into the back of the pickup truck and I drove them over with both Steves and Kandie along for the journey. When we delivered our load the processing commenced with Tichak carving and hacking the large pieces into small pieces with large knives. (I forgot to get any pictures!)
We headed back and manned the Child Development center until noon. I was recording and filing while Steve Carr portioned out glucose. After we closed up both the Steves and I headed into town to a local restaurant, picked up lunch for the evangelists, who had arrived at the seminar site today to make preparations for tomorrow, and took it out to them. We drove back to the house and most of us ate some take out we had gotten at the restaurant earlier. Steve Taylor had a rice dish, while Kandie and I each had an order of Banku, which is a large slightly fermented corn meal mush ball in a spicy soup with okra and various bits of goat. (Fermented like sourdough bread, not like intoxicating spirits) There was an order of Banku for Steve Carr as well, but he decided he would have a light lunch of just some watermelon instead. The soup was quite good even though the goat was a bit tough and I finished all mine, but I only ate about half of the corn meal ball as it was HUGE.
Shortly thereafter, I was tasked with taking several people from the mission house to Kulkpeni in the pickup. I had three in the extended cab with me and stopped to pick up one in the bed along the way. On the road just outside of Yendi there is a police checkpoint. Previously we had always rolled through slowly and waved at the officer, who smiled and waved back without rising from his chair, but not this time. He saw me coming and rose from his chair and he wasn’t smiling. He signaled for me to stop and my mind was racing. I had with me all the proper documents required to allow me to drive over here, and at least one of my passengers spoke broken English if I needed a translator, but I was a bit uneasy. He approached my window and said (In English) that he had a female officer who needed a ride to Tamale and wanted to know if we could take her. What a relief! I politely explained that I was not going to Tamale (45 miles away) but would be willing to take her to Kulkpeni (5 miles away). He politely declined my offer and waved us through the checkpoint. I drove on to the seminar site at the church building and dropped off my passengers, then headed back to the house.
Steve Carr and I spent the afternoon tweaking our lessons to better fit the anticipated audience now that we have had some limited exposure to their culture and have a better idea of what might be of most benefit to them. I don’t know about Steve, but I have never been a “Keynote” speaker before and the pressure, admittedly self-induced, is on.
Steve Taylor and Kandie made a trip to get some supplies for the evangelists’ dinner and didn’t come back until shortly after dark. We know they avoid driving here after dark as it is enough of a challenge in broad daylight, so we were beginning to get concerned when they came driving up to the gate. They parked the van and paused just long enough to tell us of some odd noises and smells the van had been making, along with being difficult to start before they headed in to start dinner cooking. Steve Carr and I started looking over the van engine, which is accessed by raising the front passenger seat. All appeared operational, if a bit corroded, so I started it up to hear, see and smell it for myself. It was a bit odd, but kind of handy as I was in the driver’s seat and revving the engine up as I looked over at it just at my right elbow. We couldn’t detect any problems, which is good as we anticipate needing the van to shuttle people from town out to the site frequently tomorrow as attendees arrive on public transport.
We buttoned the van back up, and it was only a few minutes until dinner was served. In that short time Kandie had made a Rice-a-roni type dish (from scratch), lightly boiled cabbage, and fried chicken with sliced mango for dessert. The chicken was coated with Coolee-Coolee before frying. Coolee-Coolee is a peanut product produced from the dry powder left behind when all the oil is extracted from ground roasted peanuts. It has a little pepper and other spices in it and is popular with all ages over here. Everything was delicious once again.
Tomorrow and the Seminar will soon be upon us. Keep us in your prayers.
In His Service,
Steve and Kandie
John Colgan and Steve Carr
