Zorash told us that the nutritional officer came to the Child Center yesterday; she is a very nice lady and is very concerned about the severely malnourished children. She had to come to the Center because her cell phone had a fault and she lost Zorash’s phone number. She had a case that she wanted to know if we could help with. Both of the malnourished child’s parents have HIV. They suspect that the child also has HIV because it is doing so poorly weight wise. The parents lost an older child that they suspect also died from HIV. Many times, the adults with HIV will not tell anyone that they have it and they do not like to take the necessary precautions to keep from spreading it. The father of this child just took a new wife. How annoying is that; you know they will want to have children. Having children here in Ghana is the main reason people get married. I am not sure how many wives he has but we know that he has at least 2. We have not seen the child yet; we do not know if it is a boy or a girl. The child is still in the hospital in the nutritional unit. We will do what we can to help.
We had a hard time getting the corn roaster to work this morning. It ran fine but the LP gas was leaking out. At one point it POOFED and singed part of Steve’s arm hair off. Steve got out the small air compressor and blew all the dust out of it and it worked much better. We will have to have Red take a look at it before we roast grain again but we got what we needed done for today.
Yesterday, we went to the motor vehicle office here in Yendi because they had made a mistake on my brother Paul’s date for renewal. The booklet said that it was to be renewed in August but the sticker that they gave us to put on the vehicle said that it was due March 11, 2026. The officer looked at the booklet and said to renew it in August but when Steve showed him a picture of the renewal sticker he was confused. He said that there was obviously a mistake. He looked back over the past renewal dates and they were all in March. He said that we would have to pay a penalty for it being late! What? That does not seem fair when the mistake was not ours. We told him to do whatever needed to be done to correct the mistake and that we needed to do it quickly because this was our last week in Yendi. We paid him extra money to go over to Tamale to the main office and see what could be done to get the sticker renewed. He called several times today needing additional information. We will have to wait until tomorrow to see if he was successful or not.
The mother of one of the children that we sent down to Nsawam a couple years ago to have his club feet repaired called Zorash and said that his feet had begun to club again. His case was so severe that he was unable to walk. Zorash asked the mother if he was still wearing the special shoes. She said that he wears them to school but takes them off as soon as he gets home and does not sleep in them either. She told Zorash that she did not know that they could club again. The mother is going to take him back to Nsawam and see how much it is going to cost to work on his feet again. What a waste of time and money! The older they get the harder it is to correct the feet.
Thank you for the love, prayers and support.
In HIS Service,
Steve, Kandie and Skeeter
The Monkeyshines
Red was here all day putting the finishing touches on my new condo! He brought a new helper who was not quite as worthless as the first one he brought but almost. He talked on his cell phone a lot but the biggest problem was that he was a Konkomba and Red is a Dagomba; he had a hard time understanding what Red was trying to tell him to do.
The first thing they did was put a 1×12 shelf all around the top of the condo. This gives me a place to sit and watch the world go by. Then they hung a new tire swing. They hung up the hammock that Mom made; it is so nice, it is red and white striped. Dad attached one of my favorite stuffed animals (an opossum) to the hammock so that when I get in it, I won’t be lonely. I have loved the opossum so much that it is missing one of his eyes but I don’t care; I love him anyway!
Red made me a new “tiny” house to sleep in. Dad and Mom put a wooden floor in the tiny house so I do not have to sit on the metal floor which could be either hot or cold depending upon the temperature.
They also attached my old jail cell to the new condo. To enter and exit the new condo I have to crawl through the sleeping quarters in my jail cell. They opened the sleeping quarters into the new condo.
After Red left, the parents put me back in my jail cell. Mom climbed the ladder to show me how to get from the jail cell to the new condo. I was a little apprehensive but I finally figured it out. I was enjoying playing in the new condo until it was bedtime. Once it got dark I could not like the new condo. Mom came to my rescue and took me out of the condo and put me back in jail. I felt more secure in jail.
Tomorrow I will be braver and explore more!
Love, Skeeter
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