Life in Ghana

Yesterday was a day of utility problems.  Evidently, Saturday night KM heard water splashing, but thought it was rain.  Sunday morning, I heard and thought the same.  However, after going to church and returning to the house, when I heard the same sound and knew that it wasn’t raining I decided to investigate.  We have what’s called a polytank on the roof of the house, with a metal staircase going to the roof.  The polytank is full of water pumped from the city and gravity fed into the house for showers, toilets, washer, etc.  When I looked up the polytank was overflowing.  Great!  I looked around for a valve to shut off, but seeing nothing I again had to call Bro. Luther.  He came to the rescue with a plumber’s apprentice, who quickly was able to fix the problem.  Charlie showed me where the valve was, so now I know how to turn it off if there’s another problem, but he also explained that the valve in the tank is like that of a toilet floater.  When the tank is full, the float valve indicates the water should stop being pumped. 

We’ve been advised that any time we are away from the house, someone should be here standing guard.  However, it’s not been easy finding guards, and several times we’ve had to leave the place unattended.  I keep asking the Lord to put His guards around the place for us, and the verses in Psalms about Him being our defense have really come alive to me. 

Sunday morning, Charlie brought us a guard, and we went to church.  Before the guard, Richard, left in the afternoon, we told him to return at 4:15 pm, giving us enough time to go catch a taxi to get to the evening church service at 5 pm.  Richard never showed.  His phone was shut off.  I called Charlie again, but he couldn’t find Richard either.  KM and I decided to pray and ask the Lord to watch over the place, and we went to church.  When we returned home all was well, but Richard shows up at the gate looking for his pay.  He says he came back at 5 pm, but that we didn’t answer.  KM was stern with him, we paid him for the am service and hopefully he’ll come back next Saturday so we can go on visitation. 

About 2 am Monday morning, I was awakened by being hot, and everything was still.  No electricity.  The A/C was off (there’s a small one in my bedroom that will cool the room down to 85F), and the ceiling fan was still.  Something seemed strange, though.  The street lights were on.  Hummm.  We were told there are 2 meters through which we receive electricity.  Electricity works on a pre-pay system here – you pay ahead on a card, then when you get home you insert the card into the meter and the credit is added.  The landlord told us he knew the one meter ran most of the house, but he did not know what ran off the other.  When I got up, I could see one of the outlets down the hall had a light on, and I could here the fan in KM’s room.  So now we know what the other meter runs!  We moved the refrigerator to this working outlet and went back to bed.  KM was able to go back to sleep, but I was too hot.  Occasionally, I would drop off, but mostly I stayed awake and thought about Mary Slessor, a missionary to this area in the 1800s.  I could hear coconuts falling out of the tree in the yard, and birds screeching, and I wondered how in the world did she, by herself, come and live as a missionary here.  I am in awe.  All day the electricity has been off and on.  PTL, right now it’s on, and I hope to go to bed and sleep all night with the A/C. 

Besides that, we find out the floater valve in the polytank isn’t fixed after all.  Now it’s not receiving water from the city.