Shortly after Zorash arrived this morning we took the peanuts to the grinding mill and turned them into “PPP” (Peanut Protein Paste). We add powdered whole milk, salt and sugar to the peanuts before we grind it into paste. This is a wonderful protein rich supplement for the children that are severely malnourished. Most of the malnourished children that we see are not actually starving; they are malnourished from lack of protein in their diets. Once they are weaned their mother starts feeding them food from the house but the nutritious parts of the meal are filled with hot pepper and little or no protein. We give the PPP to the mothers and they add it to porridge, rice or whatever the child is eating. They can eat it by the spoonful if they want to. It is the consistency of peanut butter. Zorash called the man that runs the grinding mill so he would have a chance to clean the mill before we got there. When we arrived another lady was in line ahead of us but the owner told her she would have to wait because he needed to grind our peanuts before her wet soybeans or the water would ruin the peanuts. I told the lady that because she let us go ahead of her I would pay for her grinding. She was all smiles when I handed her the money. The husbands are supposed to give the ladies money for the grinding; if she is smart she will not tell her husband that I paid for her grinding but keep the money for a rainy day! There was only one other lady waiting to grind this morning so I paid for her grinding too. After the peanuts are ground the grinder has to be dismantled so that we can reclaim the peanut paste that is stuck in the machine. The ladies and the man grinding were surprised that we put in the milk and sugar; we told them to try the paste and see if they liked it. Oh! My, they thought that it was wonderful. There was still paste in the machine when we got finished; the ladies and the man grinding were quick to use their fingers to get at the rest of the paste. It was just like our kids fighting over who is going to get to lick the cake batter bowl!
Dawuda, the mason, came back this morning and finished the patching job. We also got the books justified and Mr. Iddrisu got the taxes paid.
We left around 12:30 heading to Tamale. We finally got the routing number for the bank so that we could pay Kwabena, the new night watchman’s social security contribution. Please, that has been an ordeal! What was supposed to take 48 hours ended up taking almost 2 weeks! We are spending the night in Tamale. We are in between obligations at the moment so I told Steve that I really wanted to go to Bolgatanga to do some shopping. We decided that since we were spending the night in Tamale we would leave Tamale early in the morning and go to Bolgatanga because we are about 1/3 of the way to Bolgatanga already.
We still have not heard anything from the building planning committee! So we have not been able to start working on building the training center. I can see why no one wants to get a building permit!
Enjoy your day!
In HIS Service,
Steve and Kandie
