Today is a national holiday. It is Ghana’s Independence Day. Usually the government spends thousands of dollars to sponsor the marching parades but this year due to the extreme heat the president decided to scale it down and have an indoor celebration. During last year’s celebration the uniformed officers who had to stand for hours in the heat were fainting and falling out. Steve read an article that said the government saved 19 million GH Cedis ($1.22 million) by making the changes they did. The schools still had the smaller marching completions so the children enjoyed their day off from school.
Both Amama and Zorash came to work today; Amama was paying back a day that she missed earlier in the week and we paid Zorash extra to open the Child Center. We needed it to be open because Thursday is a busy day for the Child Center; many of the orphans come on Thursday to get formula. Those that came today were given extra to cover them for the next 3 weeks. The workers will begin their annual leave on Tuesday of next week and the Child Center will be closed for 3 weeks. We have to make sure the caregivers have enough formula to carry the children through until we open again.
Aboochi, the carpenter, called and said that the new shipment of lumber had come to Yendi. He said that he was going to choose the lumber and have it cut into various sizes and delivered this afternoon. Well, the afternoon is gone but maybe they will deliver it this evening; if not it should be here tomorrow. We called Donkey and asked him to organize some men to remove the old thatch from the rooms. Hopefully they will come tomorrow. Steve worked in the hot sun leveling the trench Donkey dug the other day for dipping the lumber. It was high in the middle and was running down hill. Donkey obviously does not have the “straight eye”! Abochi said they would start the work as soon as the thatch was off.
Divine, the evangelist and guy that is helping with the church documents stopped by last night to pick up some of the accounts. While he was here he told us that the village of Kpamang was in the process of digging a pit for the children to poop in. We are all about some sanitation so we made a donation to the poop pit fund! Divine was very happy with the money; they are going to use it to buy the rebar and cement to make the cover for the pit.
Thank you for the love, prayers and support.
In HIS Service,
Steve, Kandie and Skeeter
The Monkeyshines
I figured out how to pull the wet wipes out of the wipe container today! What grand fun that was! Of course I got in a little bit of trouble but not much because I did not destroy the wet wipes and Mom was able to stuff them back in the container! She was a little annoyed that I pulled off the tab that seals the inside of the container so they don’t dry out. She said that she would just pour a little water in the container to re-wet them if they got too dry.
I also tore a hole in one of my dry packets of snacks. Mom usually opens the bag and lets me reach in and pick what I want to nibble on but lots of that stuff is inedible! Oh, My! I hit pay dirt today when I tore open the bag; everything came rolling out. I started filling my pouches with the select morsels and throwing the stuff I did not want on the floor. Mom was not happy at all! Maybe she will stop putting in the stuff I don’t like and just give me the good stuff!
This morning we played outside running from the apartment to the main house and back; it is amazing how much stuff the parents moved from place to place; it did not make any sense to me but it was fun all the same!
No Weird Food Allowed!
Love, Skeeter
