Meri did not come to work today, not because her son was still sick but because her “rival”, the first wife of her husband, had a baby. She had to have a C-section and when another wife in the family has a new baby the other wife/wives have to do double duty and do all the cooking, fetching of fire wood and caring for everyone’s children. Does not sound like fun to me!
We decided to cook the weaning mix for the Child Center today even though Meri was not at work. We got up early so we could have the fires started when the ladies came to work. It was difficult to get the firewood to burn today because we have had so much rain that all the twigs and firewood are damp. Steve finally dumped a little diesel fuel on the fires to get them going. Jack and I helped Amama and Zorash cook the grain; actually mostly I fanned the fire trying to keep the wood burning. The ladies had to work overtime today to get all the grain cooked but they were well compensated for their trouble. While we were cooking the grain Mr. Iddrisu and Steve ran the Child Center. Shortly after 11:00 Mr. Iddrisu came out where we were cooking the grain and told me that they needed help. We were surprised that so many mothers came today because it was a dark grey day. At the end of the morning 52 babies had come through the Center.
Steve made several trips to town this afternoon to get the supplies he needed to run the pipe from the cistern to the poly tank. He could not find any couplers for the pipe so I heated the ends of long sticks of pipe on the gas stove and used another piece of pipe to “bell” out the end and make a coupler on the end of pipe. It worked like a charm. We got 90% of the pipe laid this afternoon. We had to stop working because we ran out of daylight. The next thing we have to do is prime the pump and test for leaks and flush the dirt out of the pipe. Maybe if all goes well we will be able to finish it tomorrow.
Jack and Nazo drove the motor king to the lumber yard and had boards ripped and planed. He started making a chair for Timothy Niligrini this afternoon. Mr. Iddrisu asked if he was going to make the same type chair he had made for him. When Jack told him he was going to make a design in the back of Timothy’s chair Mr. Iddrisu got his nose out of joint and said that Timothy’s chair would be better than his. The workers are just like children!
Take care and have a great day!
In His Service,
Steve and Kandie, Jack
