Steve had a meeting with the employees this morning before the Child Center opened. He tries to have a meeting a couple times during the year just to catch up with them and let them know things that he is concerned about. The things that always come up are security, tardiness, and money. We always give the workers a snack and something to drink; they seem to really enjoy these times together. Recently there have been some kidnappings of Americans and ex-patriates from other countries in Niger. This country is only about 400 miles away from Ghana. At the moment there are no such threats in Ghana but there are other security issues such as robberies; more things like that are going to come to Ghana, especially our area because Yendi is growing in leaps and bounds! With growth comes problems. Divine, one of the board members for the GNCDC, told the workers that they needed to keep close tabs on their children to make sure that they are not falling in with the wrong group of people; Yendi is overrun with gangs and scammers. He told them that if their young adult child has money and no job they need to be investigating to find out where the money is coming from. At the end of the meeting, we gave each person a gift of personal toiletries. Anti-perspirant is one of my favorite gifts to give the workers. Let’s get real, it is actually a gift for me! Anti-perspirant protects my nose! Ha!
Zorash and I went to the grinding mill this morning and turned the corn and soybeans that we roasted yesterday into weaning mix for the malnourished children. We always add sugar and iodate salt to the grain when we are grinding it. These grinding mills have huge motors that are run by huge 8-inch wide pieces of rubber belts that look like it comes off of a tractor tire. Today the belt kept jumping off the machine! No one but me seemed to realize how dangerous that was! After it jumped off the first time, I made sure I was sitting on the other side of the room! Then one of the helpers stood in front of the motor with a stick holding the belt so it stayed on the pulley! He was so close to that belt that it would have been easy for his shirt to get caught in it! I was a nervous wreck by the time the grinding was done. Zorash tried to tell me that the belt kept jumping off because we added sugar to the corn before we ground it! What in the world? If a grinding mill can turn field corn and soybeans into powder there was no way that it was struggling with sugar crystals! We have been grinding sugar, corn and soybeans for years and never had this problem. The pulley probably needed to be adjusted but no one knew how to adjust it!
Have a great day!
In HIS Service,
Steve, Kandie and Skeeter
The Monkeyshines
Dad loves me! Sometimes I wonder because he gets me in trouble and tattles on me to Mom! But deep down he loves me! This afternoon he caught a grasshopper that was riding on the wiper blade of the green truck. It was alive but they were out at Kulkpeni so Dad took a piece of toilet paper and wrapped the grasshopper up in a neat little package and put it in his shirt pocket. What a nice treat he had for me! The problem is that when he unwrapped the grasshopper to feed it to me the grasshopper was not there! The toilet paper was empty; the grasshopper had done a disappearing act! I did not know that Dad was a magician! How sad, no grasshopper! But it is the thought that counts!
The yard was full of people this morning! It made me very nervous to have all those people hanging around so close to Mom and Dad! I was on my leash on the veranda so there was no way that I could protect them! If I had not been on a leash I would have chased them all away!
Security Guard Skeeter, signing off!
