The Yendi notes today are coming courtesy of Perry Martin (1st trip to Ghana).
This morning started with a hearty breakfast prepared by Kandie and Steve. After breakfast we got ready to receive the mothers and infants at the clinic. I met Zorash and Meri who help Steve and Kandie in the clinic. Meri had her little girl (Nazia) with her that is so cute. Zorash has a great personality; she would tease Jack all morning to keep things entertaining throughout the morning. She kept telling Jack that she wanted to meet his wife (Jack is 18yrs and single) so that she could tell her how to straighten him out. It was all done in great humor with both Jack and Zorash giving and taking to/from each other.
Rusty and I were assigned the duty of packaging vitamin C tablets into bags for distribution to the mothers. The tablets come in 1000 tablet bottles and have to be put in bags with 8 tablets in each bag. The bags are too big for just 8 tablets so to make the bags go further you have to tie the bags such that you can get two bags out of one bag. I learned from Zorash that there is a “Bill Irby” penalty if you use an entire bag for only one dosage. The penalty is that you have to package 10 bottles (10,000 tablets). It seems Bill may have had a few problems with tying knots in bags. Go figure.
The clinic saw 69 babies this morning. I was amazed at the efficiency of the operation (that’s the engineer in me coming out) as well as the tenderness and caring shown by Steve, Kandie and the staff. There were two babies that I worry about in particular and ask for your prayers for them. One had symptoms similar to polio but Steve believes that there is some kind of brain damage that is causing the problems. And the other baby’s head was growing faster than normal which may an indication of fluid on the brain.
Once we finished in clinic Kandie had lunch prepared for us. We had fish stew and fried yams. Both were firsts for me and both were delicious.
After lunch Steve, Rusty, Jack, Iddrisu and I went to visit the leper colony that is nearby. Three lepers currently live there but only one older gentleman was there today. The other two were away somewhere but would be back. We visited for awhile and the older gentleman was appreciative of the visit as well as the gifts that we left with them. The gifts were hats, t-shirts, walking canes and some food.
After leaving the colony we returned Iddrisu to the house so he could work with Kandie to prepare for Steve and Kandie’s departure in a couple of weeks. We then went with Steve to run some errands around town. Steve had to pay the water bill as well pre-pay for some electricity. Next we went to the Yendi market to get some eggs. As we walked through the market we were meeting all kinds of people who knew Steve and Kandie. It is obvious that both Steve and Kandie are well liked and respected by the Yendi people.
We almost made it back to the house when Steve remembered that he needed to order the bread to feed the attendees of the seminar that starts next week. So with Iddrisu busy with Kandie we got Nazo to come along to interpret for him at the bakers. Steve orders 180 loaves for Thursday and 180 loaves for Friday, which is a lot of bread!! The baker uses charcoal ovens to cook the bread which she showed us. It was 90 degrees plus outside and a lot warmer by those ovens. Needless to say we didn’t hang around them too long (momma didn’t raise no fool).
Returned to the house where Rusty and I spent some time preparing our lessons for the seminar. Kandie fed us fried chicken, green beans, mashed potatoes with gravy for dinner. My strategy is to pack a little extra on as an insurance policy in case I have another incident like I had in Guyana. Can never be too safe!!
It’s getting late so I will close for now. I am going to practice tying knots so that I beat the “Irby threshold”.
Thanks to every one of you that support this work and keep the Ghana churches in your prayers.
In Christian Love
Steve, Kandie, Jack, Rusty & Perry
