October 24 to October 30

Last Sunday evening we received a call from the Sister Missionaries living in the newly acquired Labone apartment saying that they could not open the outside door.  We went to see what the problem was and it turned out that the inside bolt had jiggled free when the door was closed and dropped into the concrete floor.  I used a screwdriver to lift up the door enough to slide in a hacksaw blade to cut the 1/2" bolt.  It took at least 40 min to cut through it because the blade kept coming loose in the holder.  Even with one of the sisters spelling me off in the cutting procedure, I was soaked with perspiration and my glasses had pools of water in them.

We said farewell to 8 missionaries Monday evening as their missions were over and they left for their homes in different part of Africa.  The next day, 18 new missionaries arrived, 9 of which came from Nigeria.

We attended a district meeting in Ashaiman on Tuesday where we observed some role playing, which was part of the meeting.

  Afterwards we went with the missionaries to the local restaurant where they like to go and had some cheaper Ghanaian food.  

We had chicken and rice. Some of the Elders had banku which is eaten with your hands after thoroughly washing them.

Later in the week we did some supply runs to some of the apartments and repaired some beds that did not have any slats.  We took Fred Aboyge along to help out.  

We gave some new chairs to the missionaries in the Agbogba apartment to replace some broken ones.  No doubt broken due to leaning back.

We often see vehicles that should not be on the road such as a truck that appears to be having a shock absorber problem.

There will be an election during December and we have seen a lot of political parades for the candidates.  They are hoping for a peaceful election and even made mention of it in church a number of times.

  

We attended a Stake Conference in Tema, which is a city located about 20 miles east of Accra.  It was well attended with at least 1000 present.  Note the colourful dresses worn by the women.

As I mentioned previously, I am able to golf every Monday morning and I can also slip off to the driving range Saturdays if we are not going anywhere else.  I met one of the golf instructors at the range, or should say that he made sure he met me!  This is Richard and he gives me a lesson every time I go for the cost of $17/lesson.  He has already taught me some good things - let's see if it helps my game tomorrow!  I can now say that these lessons were no help at all - date of this comment Feb. 12, 2022.

October 17 to October 23

The Mission President thought it would be a good idea to have all the apartments equipped with rain ponchos and a place to hang them when wet.  We considered the alternatives such as the very useless plastic bag or the very hot more durable raincoat, as modeled by the missionaries below, and decided to put the project on hold till stronger ponchos can be found.

We went with  Bishop Fred Aboyge to help pound  hooks in the cinder block walls and distribute ponchos.  After we had done a couple of apartments we received a call from the missionaries saying that the hoods of the ponchos were coming off at the slightest pull.  

 

During the same day we bought a study table for an apartment that only had a very small table.  When the table was set up the missionaries were wondering how they could use it to play "ping pong"!

Some of the apartments are in a sorry state of repair as illustrated by this droopy fan.

 

Never mind, Elder Pace, the mission financial controller, has lots of money to spend on repairs and we are going to do our best to spend it.

On Saturday about 14 Senior Missionaries traveled about 60 miles east of Accra to go down the Volta River to its estuary where it empties into the Atlantic Ocean.  We went onto the long boat which came with a boy with a bleach bottle to bail out the water as it was coming in.  We were not worried because there were some life jackets in the tightly bound white bundle at the front of the boat!

George, who is from this region was our guide and he took us to an island in the river to visit a primitive village where the houses had thatched roofs and mud walls.  Of interest is the merry-go-round which acts as a dynamo to charge batteries to provide some light in the homes.

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The villagers treated us to fresh coconuts.  We drank the milk and some ate the slimy coconut meat which was only about 1/8" thick

 

This big turkey was strutting around causing the American missionaries to consider returning later in November for a Thanksgiving visit.

 

We journeyed 10 miles down the river to a nice beach on the ocean and had some lunch.  There were some very nice homes along the river bank.

This is a pile of oyster shells.

We started our river tour at a launch point where the people were doing a lot of harvesting of fresh water shell fish.  There were a number of real cute children running around.

We went back to Accra to the Alema Court apartments, where a number of senior missionaries live, and cooled down in their very nice pool.  They have a pool party once/month.  We will have to attend the next party.

 

October 10 to October 16

On Tuesday we attended the Ashaiman zone training meeting.  During the break these hungry missionaries went to the nearby chop shop and bought some chicken and rice for $2. 

 Meg and I occasionally enjoyed these meals with them.

  

After the meeting we helped a couple of missionaries move which required four to squeeze into the back of the truck.  Buckle up everyone!

Later in the week we ran some errands with Elder Bell and Elder Michael which went later than expected and we stopped at the very crowded Madina market

  to eat lunch at Peter Pans.

  

  

Elder and Sister Findlay from Kelowna were still in Accra coordinating the wheel chair project.  We stopped by the Stake Centre on the temple grounds to see 4 different types of wheel chairs assembled. 300 wheel chairs come in a container from China and are given out to those that need them. 

Apparently the church is the biggest donator of wheel chairs in the world - the project is a coordination effort between the church, the World Health Organization and the government.  The Findlays have been in numerous countries organizing this project.

Elder Findlay is trying out one of the four different types of chairs that are assembled.   Unfortunately there is never a shortage of needy recipients.

Saturday is our day off and I found time to go to the driving range.  Not a bad range and never crowded

.  The balls have been well used!