Utilities

 15/3/11

Today was an absolutely lovely day.  The Luthers took us to Busua Beach, about an hour from here.  Actually, the road was in good condition, although there were many broken down vehicles along the side.  In town here the roads are terrible – partially paved with large potholes.  The driving isn’t too crazy, but I definitely prefer to wear a seat belt.

Anyhow, about the beach.  It was very beautifully kept with flowers and coconut trees.  The beach itself has no litter or broken bottles or anything like that. On shore, beyond the perimeter of the resort, trash is scattered all over, but what you see from the shoreline is an island in the distance with two lone palm trees.  There are fishing boats ashore, but it is considered bad luck to fish on Tuesdays, so none of them were out in the water today.  There are showers to rinse after being in the ocean, swimming pools at the resort, and very nice bathroom and changing facilities.  Very clean, and the landscaping is kept well.   One does not have to be a guest at the resort to use these grounds, but if you use the swimming pools you pay 4 cedis, or about $2.50, for adults and 2 cedis for children.  The Consfords were supposed to come, but their vehicle is once more broken down, so they sent their two boys with us.  All the children played in the little pool, and we had lunch by the playground under the coconut trees.  The resort staff was coming to the trees, knocking down a coconut, opening it and drinking the milk.  That’s some kind of lunch break!

Upon returning to the house we realized that the water to this area has been shut off for some reason.  Our worker, Isaac, went to our neighbors to ask if they had water since we weren’t sure that the problem wasn’t with our polytank valve.  They, too, are without water.  Charlie looked inside the tank and told us we have about a day’s worth of water left.  Praise the Lord, there is a well on the property, and Isaac filled our bathtub with several gallons of water from the well.  We will dip from this to flush toilets, take showers, and get water for filtering.  They say the rainy season begins in April or May, although I’m not sure that the problem with the city water has anything to do with a lack of water to this area.

17/3/11

Tuesday night, just before midnight, the electricity went off again, and again just the power on the one meter.  Thankfully, the fridge remains on the other outlet.  We really couldn’t figure out what the problem was until I looked at the receipt and saw a tariff for 40 cedi, and that only 10 cedi credit had been added to our meter.  Charlie explained it to me, and basically the water company increased the rate on paper last year, then found out in reality the rate increase was never put into effect.  When the company realized the error they retro charged everyone for that increase that didn’t happen, and they divvied it up over three payments.  We were billed for our landlords power usage from last year and were not given the credit we paid.  Finally it made sense!  PTL, Charlie took us down, we put another 100 cedi on the meter and voila!  We have electricity!  Happy day!

The awesome thing is that in the afternoon a big, black storm cloud came up, and while it didn’t rain here we could smell the rain, and the temps dropped 3 degrees Celsius.  Believe it or not, 86F is much more comfortable than 92F.  All night the temps stayed lower, and I even had goose bumps sitting under the ceiling fan in church.  I bought a stand fan to replace the A/C because we simply can’t afford to run it.  

We are having to pay for 2 households right now.  In order to keep the house (where all are belongings are stored) in Ivory Coast, we have to pay for that in addition to this house.  There is an Ivorian staying in the house to watch it and feed the dog.  That’s some house sitting job! If a missionary wants their house when they return to the field from furlough, they have to pay for it during the time their gone. 

We remain without city water, but our worker carried several buckets of water to the washer last night so we could do a load of laundry.  His name is Isaac, he doesn’t speak too much English, and he’s very quiet.  Maybe those 2 facts are related.  J  Unlike any of the other workers I’ve met, he is always on time or early, yet he doesn’t wear a watch.  He pays a lot of attention to detail, and takes great care that everything looks nice when he’s finished.  There isn’t a lawn mower here so he takes a machete and cuts the grass that way.  He always cleans up the mangos and coconuts that fall, he sweeps outside and sweeps and mops inside.  He does go to church in his village, but I could not understand the name or type of church he said.  I’ve been told he has a black belt in tae kwon do, and that he gives lessons. 

PTL, Kristine seems to like to cook.  I won’t starve after all!  I’m always glad to do the dishes if someone will feed me.  She made a teriyaki-type chicken last night with brown rice and baby carrots.  Wow!  That was good.  Tonight we’re having some kind of Mexican style chicken, with tortillas and guacamole.  She brought a tortilla maker because there aren’t a lot of tortillas in West Africa.  Although the funny thing is, the chicken is Tyson brand.  Who would have thunk there’d be Tyson chicken in Ghana!

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. 

Laundry time

 

The landlord says the wash machine works, except that it doesn’t shut off the water.  So you have watch it and manually shut it off.  Okay, that’s easy enough.  But when you start things up the water just trickles.  I’m not standing there for 3 hours while it fills – I’ll just do that manually, too.  So, five 7 gallon buckets later, the washer is full and you listen for the rinse cycle, in order to do the same thing over.  Oh, but he forgets to tell you when the washer dumps the water, the system has been jury-rigged and the water goes all over the floor instead of out through the pipe.  Then when it gets to the rinse cycle it just quits all together.  Well, I’ve done everything else manually, why not rinse it manually, too.  So I slosh all the clothes around for a while and try to get it to spin it out.  That’s not happening either, except manually.  So, just like Grandma, I start wringing everything out by hand, hang the clothes on an indoor line so the flies don’t lay eggs in the clothes, and begin manually emptying the water from the machine.  When it finally gets low enough the spin cycle works and pumps all the remaining water onto the floor.  So now I mop the floor and pick up all the dead roaches and other critters that were under the machine.  One load of clothes completed after 3 hours of manual labor.  Can’t wait for the other 2 loads tomorrow!

But somehow, the Lord gave grace to say, “Thank you, Lord. You knew I needed this for some reason.”

It's the real Becky Pope!

This time it’s me.  We don’t have the best connection, but I’m learning to write things out and paste it! 

Our trip from Accra to Takoradi was uneventful, but I understand why they prefer not to drive at night.  The highway is in great condition – beats a lot of the roads I’ve been on in the States!  However, anything and everything is on that road – for example, pedestrians carrying a building and waving palm branches to indicate that vehicles should pass around them.

The house we are staying in is one that another missionary lives in, except they’re on furlough.  The Harmattan season just passed.  That’s when the winds from the northeast blow the sands from the Sahara desert to the coast.  You can guess what everything looks like!  It reminded me of the red dirt in Georgia. 

The last few days have been setting up house and cleaning.  Today the worker that does the yard came, and I’m praising the Lord he also is responsible to sweep and mop the house.  We only had bleach so it smells like a hospital in here now, instead of a dry, dusty attic.  I even got to put my clothes away today. 
My favorite part of the day is the cold shower I take twice a day.  Glory does that feel good!  I do get to sleep in the room with the A/C for 3 months before we swap out.  Then it will be Kristine’s turn. But I’ve been told that will be the rainy season, and people actually sleep with blankets.  Wow!  That’s a glorious thought. 

Tomorrow I hope to get a phone.  I can call the States for about 10 cents a minute.  Still hoping to get skype working.  An IT guy is supposed to come to check on the internet. 

Okay – it’s my favorite time of the day!  Thanks for praying for me.  I’ll do my best to keep up with the blog.

Alive and Well!

Hi All - Tracey here again with a quick update.  Actually, I'm just going to paste an excerpt from her letter today.  She'll write again as soon as she is able. 

We just got internet today, and it's not working too great. There is
supposed to be someone in the church that can help us, but so far we
can't get skype, and the service is very slow. We paid for 512/128; that was quite expensive, but we were hoping for better service. Anyhow, Kristine and I are getting settled into the house. It's an African style house, but the master bedroom has A/C, and KM said I can have it for the first 3 months, then we'll trade.
The Luthers have been fantastic - taking us around and helping us to
get things set up/ bought, etc. The Consfords have helped where they
can, but their car is broken down. I think it got fixed today.
I've seen a lot of American food stuff, but anything western is
expensive. I'll do my best to keep up with you all, but we have to play around
for a while to improve things. The Luthers have an internet stick and
that seems to work okay for them. But, I've been told Skype simply
doesn't work here. :(  I need your prayers - it's stinking hot
- God's giving strength.  :-)

First Leg Completed - Land Travel to Takoradi Now Underway!

Hi All,

This is Tracey usurping Becky's blog.  Really, she asked me to post an update for you all.  Becky called about 30 minutes ago having arrived safely in Accra, Ghanna and reunited with both her team and her belongings!  She was not even stopped at customs, and she did not have to pay anything on that end for customs or duties.  Praise the Lord! 

The team had originally planned to spend tonight in Accra before heading out to Takoradi, but since she and Kristine came in two days later than originally planned, they have now decided to make the trip to Takoradi yet today.  It is about a 4 hour trip.  Their concern was that it is not usually safe to travel at night, so please be especially in prayer that their way would be clear, and they would safely arrive yet this evening. 

As soon as Becky is able, I'm sure she'll post her own update, but I wanted to at least let you all know what I know and to ask for you to continue to bring her before the Lord for traveling mercies.  She clearly knew that folks were praying for her, and that the Lord has already intervened in her behalf thus far.

Thanks for your prayers and friendship to her.  God Bless!

Lights, camera, action! Take two!

Okay, so I'm not in Ghana this morning.  I'm still in Pennsylvania.  Thunderstorms and tornado watches delayed both Kristine's flight out of Atlanta, and my flight out of PA, and our arrival time to Dulles Airport in Washington was too late to make the connection.  Thankfully, I was easily rebooked to Wednesday, March 2 - same flight schedule.  However, Kristine didn't get that kind of assistance.  Please pray that we will be able to get on the same flight, or at least the same day, so the folks picking us up don't have to wait forever in Accra. 
On a more serious note, I ask your prayers for Mrs. Joyce Todd, a missionary that has fallen and broken her femur.  She has been taken to a hospital in Ivory Coast, and is scheduled to have surgery March 2.  Bro. Johnnie Todd (her late husband) played a significant role in discipling Dr. Kadio, the doctor with whom I will work.
Also, please pray for Dave Smith, a volunteer on a construction/mission trip to Uganda.  While helping to replace the roof on the orphanage he fell 20 feet onto concrete.  He has head and shoulder injuries and will be flown to the capitol, Kampala, today.