This morning after our walk we went out to Kpamang to Divine’s village to find out more about the project he has started. The project is far bigger than we could have imagined. We thought he was trying to build a small first aid station where women could come to deliver their babies that would be manned by a nurse. He wants to build a full clinic with male, female, and children’s wards. He wants it to have an operating theater (operating room) laboratory, pharmacy and 3 apartments for the doctors and nurses to live in. What! It is a wonderful idea but not very realistic. The village does not have electricity or running water. There are only 10 houses in the village. Divine has shown his proposal to lots of political people and government offices. He said that they all say they want to support the project but to date he has not had the first commitment for funds nor has he received any promise that if he actually builds the clinic that they will pay to send doctors and nurses to man the clinic. We advised him to have a plan B in case the clinic plan does not take off. If the building is there maybe he could extend the school to include senior high. The clinic is also a “for profit clinic”; if a doctor or nurse does come there, they will charge a large amount to cover their time and trouble for living in that remote village. There is only one place in the village that you can get cell phone service. Divine would love for us to raise money for the project but right now it looks like he needs to do more planning. Divine is very enthusiastic and has already spent a great deal of his own money. He hopes that once he gets support for the project some of his own money will come back to him but that is not usually the way these projects work out. Our advice is to use the blocks that are already molded and start putting up a small normal sized clinic with 3 rooms instead of 14. If it is successful, it can always be enlarged.
We picked up Zorash this afternoon and took her to town so she could help me buy a piece of fabric for my new quilt project. I needed 3 different shades of blue; I already had a light and a dark. It is difficult for some of the vendors to understand what I am looking for. We were lucky today; we found the fabric at the first shop. I have to wash the fabric before I can use it, which is killing me because I feel like it is a waste of water. I will wash it with the blue jeans in case it decides to fade, nothing will be ruined!
While we were out Zorash took us to a new shop. It is across the street from her house. They had a few items that were imported. We bought several things to help support the shop. The shop owner’s elderly mother was in the shop. She called one of her female relatives that lives in Connecticut, in the states, to tell her that there were Americans in the shop. She then put the cell phone on speaker phone as proof that what she said was true! She had us talk to her too! I tell Steve all the time that this is the closest we are ever going to be to being famous! Ha!
Take care and enjoy your Sunday.
In HIS Service,
Steve, Kandie and Skeeter
The Monkeyshines
I was a little put out with the parents today. Normally after their walk they set me free but today they loaded themselves up in the green truck and headed back out! For a moment I thought it was Sunday again! They never came back until 12:00.
The only good part of this morning is that Donkey actually fixed me a bottle of milk which I refused to drink because I am still holding a grudge against him for not feeding me yesterday! But as soon as Mom came back, I drank it for her! That will teach him to forget to feed me!
Mom is feeling much better; she is starting a new project and she let me back into the bedroom. It was like Christmas dragging out all of my old toys and jumping around on the bed! Dad has not yet caught Mom’s cold so maybe I am in the clear too! I was thoroughly enjoying myself when I heard Mom tell Zorash she was coming to her house so they could go shopping! Really, you got to be kidding me! Back to my jail cell I went; they were not gone very long this time and I got back out and helped cook supper!
Don’t mess with monkey-man!
Love Skeeter
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