Sunday, November 5, 2017
Yesterday I took the day
off. Jim and Don Carley and John Blackie
(site monitor) went to check out what they could on one of our older projects
that we will be closing, as soon as all the money clears. It was from before Ebola and had since had
some rehabs if it was ‘our fault’ in the construction, such as deepening a
well. They managed to see 5 of the
projects, 4 wells and 1 spring box development.
All the projects were working, but at one, the chairlady had to lock it
up because the people refuse to pay for it.
She thought that if someone from our church came back to do a little
training, they would listen to that representative, but would not listen to
her. Perhaps we will send John Blackie
back in for a day if they set up a meeting with the community. All of them though are getting clean water
still and most are cooperating and paying for it and keeping them running,
using technicians for repairs, so all in all, a pretty good report, but we have
to see many more. While traveling John Blackie told Jim that even though the
government reported that 1,000 people died in the mud slides a few months ago,
but he said there were about 5,000 killed.
I presume they wouldn’t want to feel guilty about their striping the
hills of trees and their lack of good construction practices for homes on those
hills. Maybe nothing would have helped in those heavy rains this year.
One of the wells that
is working very well and they are collecting money. We had to refurbish this well to deepen
it. Notice the kink in the back? There used to a tree there and they finally
realized that they had to remove it.
Uh…we told them it wouldn’t work, ha, ha.
Here back at the
hotel, I happily washed lots of dirty clothes, which always makes me feel good. I worked on our trip report, adding pictures,
and sending it along to Teerlink’s for their corrections. I read my book, I exercised a bit, and worked
out some problems. The problems were at
first no Internet at all on my laptop, after which a guy came in and hooked me
up in a few seconds, only to discover I was not getting e-mail in or out. I went on the Internet and worked on whatever
they said to do, and after getting nowhere except to get a headache, I finally
gave up and asked for the IT guy at the hotel to come up and help me. Then, for no apparent reason, my e-mail
decided to work again—what? It probably
had nothing to do with I did---who can figure these things out? Oh that’s right, the IT guys…
The spring box—the taps
are still there and working. They had to
put in a retaining wall (right) to keep the rain water away from the site. It works very well.
We called around to get a ride to
church, so the AP’s (young missionaries, Assistants to the Mission President)
picked us up at 8:15. They have an 8:30
AM meeting time. Two wards meet in this
building next to the mission office and home.
Our Sierra Leone friends, Jonathan and Amarachi met us there, having
driven up last night from Kenema, staying with their relative, John Blackie
(Jonathan’s sister’s family).
A sad story, all too common here:
John Blackie bought a piece of property and put a house on it, only to discover
that the person who sold him the property did not own it. The guy that did own it, waited till John had
completed building his house before he claimed it. John went to court and lost, and now has to
pay the guy money for the lot, and a lot more money than it was worth because
the owner knew he had him ‘over a barrel.’
I wish I could say that this rarely happens here but it is fairly common. The only way you can get around this and have
the courts go your way, is to pay the judges a large amount of money, which
others have done if they have it. Then they
would rule in their favor, even if it wasn’t right. So, he is paying off his lot, again…
Church is always hard
for us because even though they tell them to speak English, the women don’t, a
few men do, so most of church is like listening to any other language we don’t
understand. We couldn’t figure out if it
was the American Elder playing the little organ that was playing so slowly, or
the leader was leading it that slow. All
I know is I almost fell asleep singing because after each phrase, the organ
held the note for a long time. Sunday school
and Relief Society is a little more interesting because we can read the lesson
and figure it out. Some are even nice
enough to speak to us in English. It is
always nice to hear the questions, and realize how little they understand the
Gospel, but that there is always some that do to dispel wrong ideas. We found out from John Blackie that two new
Stakes will be formed in just Bo, the city closest to Kenema where Cobinah’s
live. Kenema will remain a District, and
Districts are under the Mission President.
The Stakes report to the Area Presidency. Our Area Presidency here in West Africa is in
Ghana. Jonathan is still the Kenema
District President.
Jim age 4, named after Jim.
After church we drove back to the
hotel with Jonathan and family. In tow
today they had Cynthia, who is Amarachi’s niece, who used to live with them but
is now attending university and living with Amarachi’s older sister because she
lives in Freetown where the college is.
But today we met Amarachi’s sister and we brought Cynthia with us, and
she helped with the little boys. Also
with them was Alberta, who is now 9. She
is the one that they have raised since she was a baby because John Blackie and
his wife had no money to take care of her at the time. Since then John Blackie and is wife have had another
daughter named Amarachi, Jr., and Alberta has spent more time with them, but
recently went back to Jonathan’s again.
John used to have almost 20 people living in his smaller home but now
that he has a little larger home, he only is there with his wife and
daughter. Confused yet? And Jonathan now only has Alberta and their
two boys. Everyone else is living with
other mutual relatives—they come and they go and it is hard to keep track of
where they all are at the moment. There
will be a test at the end of this letter…
Amarachi with niece Cynthia, her brother's daughter.
Jim & Jonathan,
Kenema District President, good friends, good, honest people.
So, as I was saying,
we went back to the hotel where some of them changed clothes and then we ate
pizza on the back patio area and we had brought some Uno Cards and played with
them, along with teaching them how to play ‘War’. Our mistake was not to bring something for
the little boys, but they ran around and ate and made a nice, little mess with
the food. Jim gave the gal more money
for cleanup afterwards. Later we ordered
dinner and then they left to go back to Blackie’s till tomorrow. We all have things to do, but hopefully we
will meet up in the afternoon and maybe go to the beach again. They are departing on Wednesday.
You’d think I could have
consolidated the pictures? Me too….
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