Could you hear us shouting? Steve finished his continuing education credits for his nursing license renewal! He is so excited to have that behind him. He tried to get on the website that will allow him to pay for the renewal but the server was down. Are we surprised? At least he was able to make a copy of the bill. Monday is a national holiday so there may be no one to get the website up and running until Tuesday. We may have to make another trip to Tamale to physically pay the bill; they also need 2 passport photos and there was no place on the portal to upload them. This is all new to us and obviously new to the people in the Nurses and Midwives Council. We are one step closer to getting his renewal.
At 7:00 this morning the doorbell rang and it was Fati and another girl; Fati is Donkey’s youngest daughter. They came bearing gifts. Amina, Donkey’s wife, had made rice balls with peanut butter soup. They cook the rice until it is almost mush, then they beat it a bit and form it into balls. The peanut butter soup has unsweetened peanut butter, onions, tomatoes, pepper, salt and green leaves. The soup was delicious but rice balls are not one of my favorites. That did not stop us from enjoying the lunch. They gave us 3 huge balls of rice; there was no way we could eat all that rice at one time. I have been thinking of slicing and frying the extra rice ball to see how it tastes fried. There is a very good chance that it will fall apart but if it does not and get a nice crispy crust it might become one of our favorite things. Frying can’t hurt anything!
In turn, as custom dictates we washed the bowl and added a little money to it and a sack full of Lollipops for the kids and sent it back to Donkey’s house with the girls. The reason you add money to the bowl is so that the family will know that you actually received the gift and that you appreciated it. They actually have a name for the thank you gift that you send when someone gives you a gift but I can’t remember what it is.
Kyee, one of the church members from Kulkpeni, stopped by; he needed new tires for his bicycle. Kyee is a very poor man; he works hard; he is estranged from his family; he is almost deaf but he is a faithful member of the church. He rides a bicycle to and from his farm; he lives in Kulkpeni and his farm is somewhere on the outskirts of Yendi. Steve keeps his bicycle tires in good shape. He knows when he needs new ones Steve will give them to him. In turn when he harvests his crops he brings us part of what he produces. He plants both yams and peanuts. He speaks so quietly that you can hardly tell he is saying anything. I am not sure if he speaks so quietly because he cannot hear himself talking or what. He was happy to get the new tires. Steve said that his tires were completely bald!
I finished the quilt top today; well, I almost finished it. I still have to embroider the date, name of the quilt and my name on it but that should not take too long.
Have a good day!
In HIS Service,
Steve, Kandie and Skeeter
The Monkeyshines
I had another new food today; rice balls! What in the world! Mom cut me off a little piece of it without the soup; it did not taste like anything! I tried to throw it on the ground but it stuck to my hand! I did not like that, not one little bit, because I did not want to even put it in my mouth but once it was stuck to my hand I had no choice but to clean my hand by eating it! Not pleasant! As if the first try was not bad enough later in the afternoon Mom decided to see if I wanted another bit! No! I did not! Why would she try to get me to eat something that she said she was not fond of? Saying you are not fond of something is just a polite way of saying, “I don’t like that!” When it comes to my food I do not feel like being polite!
Don’t mess with my food!
Love, Skeeter
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