Moses Mabe, the church leader from Bakpaba, stopped by for a visit this morning. He has started harvesting his yams and he wanted to share some with us. How sweet is that? The yams were beautiful. These are not sweet potato type yams; these are the West African tropical yams. These yams are anywhere from 12 to 24 inches long and as thick around as my upper arm. They are usually white inside and very starchy. They can be prepared in a number of ways. They can be boiled, fried, or boiled and pounded into Fufu. No matter how they are prepared they are delicious and they are served with either a soup or a stew. The peelings are either ground and turned into Wasawasa (a poor man’s food) or dried and fed to the animals during the dry season. Moses also needed an English Bible for his brother. Steve gave him a little bit of money so he could buy some lunch when he passed through Yendi. He rode his bicycle from his village to the mission house. People are so kind to us!
We remembered that we had not recorded the money that Zorash and Mr. Iddrisu took from the bank while we were in the states. The check book was a mess; part of the expenditures had not been recorded. Zorash came by and we traced back through our texts and found the amounts that were spent. A check book and keeping it balanced is all new to them. Mr. Iddrisu has had to void so many checks because he gets confused when it comes to writing the amount out in words. They will get better the more they have to do it. It does not help anything that Mr. Iddrisu’s cataracts are so bad that he can barely see; especially in low light. He is still on the schedule to get them removed but who knows when the team of Doctors will come to Yendi.
Steve trimmed some of the bushes and we planted some flower seeds in the baptistery that was filled in years ago. I think that it will make a nice planter. One of the reasons that they filled it in was that it attracted snakes and mosquitoes. Even though it had a cover it was always dirty; might as well go to the river.
White flour seems to be scarce in Yendi. Since we have been back we have checked 3 times at the place we normally buy and they have not had any to sell. We went to town twice today looking for flour. We did find some but it was very expensive; we bought it anyway. Next time we are in Tamale we will look for some. We could buy a 100 pound bag of flour but how would we keep the bugs out of it and where would we store it?
Have a great day!
In His Service,
Steve and Kandie
