Steve talked to Timothy this afternoon to see if the mason had been able to set the doors and windows on the new rooms. We were pleased that indeed he had come to work but the jury is still out as to whether or not he finished them all. We were supposed to meet the carpenter that is going to put the roof on the building this afternoon but he had not called us by 4:00 so we moved the meeting to tomorrow because it would have been dark by the time the carpenter selected the boards and had them ripped. It gets dark here between 6:00 and 6:30 pm. We almost live on the equator so our days and nights are almost the same length. He is going with us to the lumber yard to select the boards he wants to use for the roof and to have them split into the sizes that he needs. There is no split lumber here; everything comes from the saw mill in 2×8 sizes. If you need 2×4’s or 2×6’s or 2×2’s the lumber company will rip it for you; everything is rough cut. We also can get 1×12’s but they would have to be ripped if you wanted a 1×4 or 1×6. The lumber company does have a planner so we will get them to plan one side of the 1×9 boards that we will be using for trim.
My iron died! Everything here is so cheaply made! I have not had the iron for 2 years yet and we only use it about once a week. I needed the ladies that work at the Child Center to iron the fabric scraps that we got last week; they are 100% cotton and you know how badly that wrinkles; there is no way we can cut the scraps into blocks until it has been pressed. We went to town this morning and bought 2 new irons and we took the broken iron to Mr. Adams, the “fix-it” man. He called late this afternoon to let us know that he had fixed it! I will put one of the new irons back in the box and keep it for a spare.
It is getting close to time for us to renew our resident permit. Steve went on Ghana’s immigration website to see if there were any new requirements. Surprise, surprise they have now decided that applicants have to have a criminal police report, not from Ghana, which we have, but from their country of origin! What in the world! Of course, this new information threw us for a loop! How in the world were we going to do fingerprinting and get a police report from the states when we are not even in the states? We Googled and Googled trying to find a way to do it online or to have Jordan, one of our sons that has power of attorney for us, to get it but it did not seem possible. Steve has the phone number of the immigration officer that helped us get a renewal 3 years ago so he called him. We were not even sure that he still held the same position as he did 3 years ago. God was taking care of us again! The officer was very kind and helpful. He said that we did not have to have the police report; I guess it was because it was a renewal not a fresh application. We did not want the resident visa to expire because we would have had to pay lots of penalties and run the risk of non-renewal.
Take care and have fun!
In HIS Service,
Steve, Kandie and Skeeter
The Monkeyshine
I have been trying to tell you that Mom is a bit nuts! We have some bananas that are starting to go bad; there are only so many bananas that I can eat in a day and besides I am not really fond of a mushy banana! First thing this morning Mom mashed up one of those overripe mushy bananas; mixed some baby cereal with it and tried to get me to eat it off a baby spoon. I have no idea where she got a rubber lined baby spoon from but there it was! I tried to eat the banana but I just wasn’t enjoying it. It was so slippery! I tried to pick it up off the plate but it slipped right out of my hand! I did not like the feeling of the gooey banana on my hand so I wiped it off on the ground and ran away from that nasty dish of bananas. I thought surely Mom would have gotten the message from my negative reaction to the banana cereal but no! When Mom gave me my bottle it was a bit off! There was something just not right about the milk; I thought that maybe the milk had gone “blinky”! That is what Mom calls milk that has begun to sour. Then I realized that she had put the banana cereal in my bottle! Mom was desperate for me to drink that bottle. She told me that she had made me a banana milkshake! What! Who in this world puts baby cereal in a milkshake? Well, it took me several tries to drink half the bottle; not that it tasted so bad but that it was so thick; it would hardly come out of the bottle! Has the woman never heard of using a food blender to prepare a baby’s food?
Someone please send us a “Magic Bullet” blender!
Yes, I watch the commercial when I watch TV!
Love, Skeeter
