First thing this morning Steve took the green truck to Gomda, the mechanic; in turn he took it to the auto electrician. The auto electrician pronounced the fan motor dead. He is going to contact his people in Tamale and see if they have one that will work. The truck is 28 years old; it is a wonder that it is still with us! We love that truck; it has been good to us! But I like it better when the air conditioning is working! Ha!
This morning we distributed 87 sets of clothes to the moms for their children. We got some sad news; Matinu died. Matinu was one of the very severely malnourished baby’s that we were able to save. He was one of our greatest success stories. His mother died when he was an infant and he was given to his crazy grandmother. She had nothing in her house to eat for herself much less the means to feed an infant. By the time his father brought him to the Center he was in terrible shape. We found out that the grandmother was eating the food that we sent for Matinu. We finally had to get Social Welfare involved in the case and eventually we were able to get him out of the hands of his crazy grandmother and into the hands of his normal grandmother. It took months to make the change; after that he began to thrive. Matinu died about a week ago. We are not sure how old Matinu was when he passed away but he had to be in his late teens. No one knows what caused him to die but they said that his stomach and whole body were swollen which makes us think that it might have been a liver problem or hepatitis. Of course, the family did not take him to the hospital; they took him for local treatment; the Juju (traditional medicine man) said that he was poisoned and said that he could treat him. It is so sad! It is amazing that the people will take a patient to the Juju for treatment and the treatment fails yet when the next family member falls sick, they will repeat the same mistake and take them for local treatment! What happened to learning from your mistakes?
Abochi, the carpenter, stopped by for a visit this afternoon and Mr. Oldman, our neighbor, came to see us yesterday. Greeting people is so important here in Ghana.
Please keep us and the work in your prayers!
In HIS Service,
Steve, Kandie and Skeeter
The Monkeyshines
Dad cleaned my cage late this afternoon! You know what that means don’t you? It means that I am going to get another bath! Dad uses a power washer to clean the cage and Mom likes to wait until the cage has dried completely before she gives me a bath because everything is wet and she says that if I play in the wet areas of the cage I will start to smell like a “wet dog”! There is that “dirty” word again! Why do they keep referring to me as a dog; don’t they realize that I am part human?
I decided that I was not going to drink my morning bottle today! Mr. Iddrisu offered me one which I flatly refused! Then Mom tried to coax me into drinking one; she even made me a fresh bottle but I declined her offer too. You know how Moms are; as soon as you don’t eat, they think that you are sick! I wasn’t sick, I was just being ornery! Do you know what the good thing about not drinking the bottle was? Mom started dragging out the treats because she was worried! Now that was a win- win situation for me! I did finally break down and I drank 2 bottles this afternoon just to make Mom happy!
You will be very proud of me. I have not had to go in that time out cage! Nope, not even one single time!
When Mom’s happy everybody’s happy!
Love, Skeeter
