The little 11 month old girl that cannot stand or crawl is in Tamale at the hospital. Her mother took her back today; the doctor said that as soon as she deposits the money he will do the surgery. As soon as she called we sent the money through mobile money. The mother does not have a cell phone so we sent the money to a friend or relative’s phone; we hope that the money goes where it is supposed to go! We still do not know what type of surgery that they are doing.
Steve spent a good portion of the afternoon at the hospital in Yendi. The church leader from Nandundo came to the mission house this afternoon with the mother of a very sick 10 year old girl. The little girl needed blood again; she had been in the hospital 2 weeks ago with severe anemia (probably from Malaria) and had been given 3 units of blood. She is in the hospital again with the same problem but the doctor thinks that this time she is septic. Steve talked to the doctor and he was going to try to find someone that would donate the blood so that the family did not have to pay for it because they were also struggling to buy the medicine that the child needs. Steve left enough money for the blood just in case they don’t find a donor; he also left the money for the drugs and some money for food for the 2 ladies that are staying with the child. The child is in the emergency ward; we cannot figure out why she is in the emergency ward unless it is because she is so sick and needs more care than she would get on the ward. They may also be confining her in case she is septic. Thanks so much to those who give us money for the children! We really appreciate the help!
We hired Donkey’s wife and teenage daughter, Fati, to help load and unload the rubble that we are using to fill the soakaway pits at the bath houses. They were very happy to get the work. Donkey’s youngest son, Zimblim, joined the party. He is still in primary school but he was able to move the smaller bits of rubble and to help fill head pans. We paid him too; not as much as the ladies but at least he will have a little money in his pocket. They finished filling all the pits this morning and we still have rubble left over. The rubble came from the cement block wall that fell down last year.
Steve went to the electric company this morning to see if they had any idea when our area would get a new transformer. They said that they were still working on it and that maybe we would get lights this week. We are not holding our breath! The manager told Steve that he was a rich man and that he should just buy more diesel and run his generator! Really! How dumb is that? There are hundreds of people that are without electricity, what are they supposed to do? Tomorrow we will have been without electricity for 2 weeks!
Take care!
In HIS Service,
Steve, Kandie and Skeeter
The Monkeyshines
I had a glorious time running and playing in the back field today while they were working on the soakaway pits! I delighted in jumping in the tall grass and hiding! This grass is really tall; it comes up almost to Mom’s shoulders and when I am in there hiding no one can find me. I am an African Green Monkey. My fur changes color from brown to green so it is easy for me to camouflage myself. The skin on my stomach is blue and my face, hands and feet are black. I have the best unibrow in the world. Some of the hair on my unibrow is so long that it tries to get in my eyes. I have huge round brown eyes; I have no white part around my eyes. I would love to be able to smile when I am happy but I don’t have the facial muscles to be able to smile but I can make ugly faces, show my teeth and raise my eyebrow when I am annoyed so don’t mess with me!!
Mom was in the spare room this afternoon cutting out quilt blocks and I was trying to help her; she said I was more trouble than help! But guess what I found in that room? I found a cup of crayons! How exciting! Did you know that there are wrappers on each of the crayons? My teeth are sharp enough to pull the paper off! I unwrapped every crayon I could find; now Mom knows exactly what color the crayons are! After I unwrapped them I could not help but bite the crayons and eat a little bit of each one. All the crayons tasted the same; you would have thought that the yellow should taste like lemon and the purple should taste like grape. Mom said that she sure was happy that she caught me eating the crayons because she would have been worried when she changed my diaper and my poop was red, green and blue! She is so silly!
What is your favorite color? Mine is Yellow!
Love, Skeeter
