Mr. Iddrisu called first thing this morning to let us know that he would be coming late to work today because some sub chief he knew had passed away and today was the day for everyone to go to the family house to pay their respects. He said that he would be coming to work between 9:00 and 10:00 but he never showed up. Sometimes when you go to these functions you get stuck running errands and carrying people from one place to another especially if you have a motorcycle.
This morning Donkey started cutting down one of the big mango trees behind the Child Center. This is one of the trees that had been affected by the fire blight a couple years ago. It is the first tree that we hired the man to climb and cut out the bad branches. It died not because of the fire blight but because the man cut off too many branches; he even cut big branches that had nothing wrong with them. Our neighbor Mr. Oldman was helping him and by the time we realized he did not know what he was doing it was too late. I think that they thought we wanted to take the tree down completely. The tree has struggled for the past 2 years and it finally died. I have read that if you cut off more than 1/3 of the branches of a tree it will die because it does not have enough leaves to sustain it. When the tree trimmer moved to the next trees we watched him like a hawk! The other 4 trees he trimmed are doing well for the moment. Every once in a while a little fire blight will pop up and we quickly cut it out. We did not tell Donkey to cut the tree but evidently his wife needs the firewood. Steve will have to use the chain saw to cut up the big branches and the trunk.
Zorash is feeling better today; Timothy Niligrini has also been sick. He was too sick to go to Bible study last night. Steve called him this morning and he said that he is feeling somebetter and that he will finish taking the malaria medicine tomorrow and is hopeful that will take care of the problem and he will be well enough to travel with us on Sunday to visit the church at Yangpala.
Steve was going to treat me to Banku with slippery okra soup for lunch today. I was excited, my taste buds were ready! But when we got to the chop bar that we buy the Banku from we were disappointed to find out that they had not cooked Banku today; only rice and beans. It was not my lucky day; maybe tomorrow.
Thank you for the love, prayers and support.
In HIS Service,
Steve and Kandie
