Week of 20250706 - Ghana Week 69: SD Card Adapter; Toastmasters; Mission Cookbook; Achiase; Falling Dollar; Cookbook; Bikes; Saltpond; Night Hospital; Simulated People
= Sunday, I got us to church on time. I bore testimony in Twi and English. Because District Relief Society leaders visited, Relief Society and Priesthood met separately as they should have for the second or fourth Sunday, but they did scripture lessons instead of discussing conference talks from their perspectives as women and men. (These groups haven't started doing that yet.)
= Home, Steph fixed food. I blogged, took a long nap, and then focused on mission issues. At 8 when I tried to document apartment issues, I found that my laptop jack for the SD card adapter wouldn't work without holding the adapter while transferring files; blessedly, I had brought a USB device, and it worked for the transfer [whew!] Before midnight, I had finished apartment issues, dishes, and Twi practice (via Quizlet).
= Monday, I was asked to lead the weekly meeting; I did a very bad job (skipping sections of the agenda). I need to be involved with Toastmasters again. I spent the day cleaning up recipes for the GCCM cookbook: making amounts more specific and spelling out a reasonable sequence of actions for each recipe.
= Home after 5, Steph slept on the couch while I had the computer fix system files. I made rice and fried spaghetti and put leftover bean stew over that. At 6:45, we watched Don't Miss This (scripture discussion).
= Tuesday, I worked on the blog and made scrambled egg sandwiches. Steph created a snack tray that we picked at. It rained. We participated in Tower Toastmasters via Internet. Steph created a meal from canned chicken hotdogs (cut up), canned vegetables, and frozen spinach. I positioned a container under a leak by the front door, a new leak.
= Wednesday, we picked up a phone at the office and delivered it to Achiase when we did an apartment inspection there. We bought boiled corn (small but good) and ball floats. I blogged. Steph cooked a small chicken with vegetables in the electric pressure cooker.
= Thursday, we inspected an apartment in Asebu. When we picked up cash from ABSA bank downtown, we found that it has reduced the amount you can pull at once to about what it would have been in the States. My guess: the falling dollar. Ignoring fees, when we arrived, $100 bought 1500 cedis; now it only bought 1040 cedis. Home, I put the cookbook in finished form so Sister Dimmick could solicit new recipes for it. I reviewed scriptures in Twi and English.
= Friday, I picked up bikes at the office, then Steph and I hit the road to inspect an apartment in Saltpond. While there, we swapped bikes and confirmed their electric meter number for Elder Dimmick. At the office, I touched up bike numbers and then at Steph's suggestion wrapped clear packing tape over the duct tape on which I had been writing the numbers. (Bike oil removes "permanent" marker.) I worked at our compound with people who swapped out our generator, showing them how to start it.
= Then we swung by a store near Cape Coast Castle, waited at Pizza City for its largest pizza, and at home watched The Sum of All Fears (very good) and Star Trek - Next Generation until midnight. We relaxed.
= Saturday, I worked on the journal; Steph did medical stuff and tried to find out which Brookbush classes that AFAA [a fitness association] would accept for the Personal Trainer certification. An Elder who was fine yesterday called this evening to say he was feeling worse. We met him at the Cape Coast Teaching Hospital at 7. Steph did the needed running around until 10:30, then we bought him and his companion KFC for supper.
= Then I saw a talk by Elder Bednar, who cautioned against becoming emotionally attached to simulated people, a topic addressed indirectly in Star Trek - Next Generation episodes we had seen recently! Then the doctor who had admitted our patient not many days ago admitted him again: malaria (again). We were clear by 10:30, bought food from KFC for us and for the Elders before it closed at 11, and Steph brought them their food. We were home before midnight.
To church
Wrapped watermelon slices
What animals would you keep in here at night?
I have not seen a boat like this except here: not being towed, not in the water.
Every building needs doorframes. He's added doors and window frames, in case we didn't get the hint that he can build more than doorframes.
Closed-cab KKs look like minions.
Sunday morning football {soccer}
Possibly three; it's hard to be sure from this angle.
Every meeting needs chairs.
Walk five kilometers in her shoes.
The 'tro has passed us and should cut back in soon. The person hanging out the window is the "mate" who tries to get people to ride.
They're mowing with cutlasses.
At least he's near a village.
They can all fit in the taxi.
On our list of places to visit
The big sign for the park has blown away.
Steph's getting help to organize giving out candy.
Items are spread on the ground (or preferably rocks or plants) to dry.
(Used vehicles come from any countries and usually retain their previous labeling and artwork and mix of languages.)
Trust in the Lord - Refrigration and Air Condition Services
Church members meet nearby.
Ɛkɛ nyɛ kwa {It's not in vain}
The three fingers are a nod to Steph's Sunday Snippets, which include three topics.
..
We slice our own bread here. (You can wait for it to be sliced, but what's the point?)
The SD card adapter I had brought with us, in case.
The mission satellite phone isn't working.
Couch not wide enough? Just add a chair (as I have done).
My laptop had balked at login lately; this was one step to try to fix it.
Don't Miss This (scripture discussion)
We ate the rest. Seriously.
(Fried spaghetti and rice, with some other things)
Fried egg on toast with sweet chili sauce
How to keep your cooler from buckling thin-walled water bottles..
Ben McGhee, giving a presentation at Tower Toastmasters
Necessity and imagination..
[The item at bottom right is canned hot dogs made from chicken.]
This leak between the living room and hallway doesn't look like much..
But it has volume that continues after the rain stops.
The "road" from our compound changes shape after a rain.
But now that the ditch below our hill has been covered, neighbors uphill from us can get home.
Some loads are hard to manage.
(Western Union is one-way into Ghana.)
We haven't tried this eatery yet.
(Ramps are rare; steps and other obstacles are everywhere.)
Want to buy a plant? Call the phone number. Locals can probably pay from their phone through MoMo.
He was slow to move over..
We took the shoulder, but we couldn't stay there. See the people ahead?
They stay on one side or the other, not split.
Jehowa Adom {Jehovah's Grace} Enterprise
God Never Fail Enterprise
Store, not open currently
This has the appearance of something you might see in the States.
Polytank for water from the community
The pole is to roast a pig on
A vehicle would not come through this gate now. The drop is steep.
My God is able
Kɔso Bɔ Mpae {Keep Praying}
Agye Nyame {Accepted God}
Nyame Dadaa {God Already} Enterprise
[God has already done it.]
Yes, corn on the cob, boiled, from a lady cooking them in a cauldron outside her house.
Yes, the "broom" is not much more than a foot long. Yes, that's normal here, even for shopkeepers of modern stores.
Unusual. Too far from the road to be a billboard. Not configured to be a wall.
Ball float; I did not wait.
Sɛɛ Medzin Na Ɔwo Gye Wodzin
[I don't know what this means.]
Emmanuel Vulcanizing Centre
[Fancy. Most places beat the tire off and onto the rim with a mallet.]
Not long ago, the neighbor uphill from us paid people to dig a ditch alongside our property. Now, he's filled it in.
Ingredients added to a small chicken in the electric pressure cooker. The whisp of carrot on the green bean can is a reminder that carrots were in the meal as well.
It's getting more difficult to make the right turn to come out of the compound. You climb up, down, and up the sides of the ditch.
We won't be eating at Els Kitchen. They're advertising fufu with bush meat. You don't know what it died of; we joke about a road kill cafe in the States.
Kickstarting the motorcycle at the heart of the KK
Gye Nyame {Accept God, Receive God}
Asebu apartment. The object to the right is a polytank tower laying on its side. Once created, such objects are too big to readily move to re-use elsewhere. (We have one on its side in our compound.)
Gye Ewuradze {Accept the Lord, Receive the Lord}
[I don't know where that business is, but the people here seem to be comfortable with each other.]
They can't both be carrying that object. The only thing I'm sure of is that the lady carrying the baby has the cutlass.
Daakye Asem {Future News}
Football is avidly followed.
FIFA: Fédération Internationale de Football
Real Madrid happens to be a strong team
Seeing the design on the home behind makes me wonder: Did the homeowners have any say about the shops that sprang up in front of them?
Ewuradze bɛhwɛ wo {The Lord will take care of you}
That's not COSTCO on the container, it's COSCO, a shipping company.
Unlike in Accra, motorcyclists in Cape Coast obey red lights.
Seeing this reminds me of U.S. military bases where I attended or provided music for Protestant services. The assumption was if you weren't Catholic or Jewish, you would meet with the Protestants.
[basically Wowwwww!]
Steph's method for sharing with a crowd: cut in half, set face down, slice. (The bagged stuff is frozen for later.)
Yesterday's meal, but with the remaining chicken shredded instead of in whole pieces..
Remove the top. Cut the sides off. Deal with what's left.
I think it's a toilet pit {septic tank} pumper.
I wonder whether they're sorting to build or if they created this lumber with a planer.
Crashes do occur, though for the first few months I don't remember seeing any.
I might call this country a land of many apartments masquerading as mansions.
Nyimpa bi nom nyɛ
[likely...]
Nnipa bi nom nyɛ {Some people don’t drink}
Extended the sides to hold the load.
Imagine loading that 'tro.
Firewood. Usable by pushing the end into the stove bit by bit as the wood burns.
[I can't make out the end of the reference for sure, but it might be..]
1 Thessalonians 5:6 - Therefore let us not sleep, as do others; but let us watch and be sober.
I hope there aren't any low-hanging wires on his route.
The electric company is replacing all postpaid meters with new prepaid meters; these are new.
Their remote is smaller than ours but works OK.
They have one-phase power. We are blessed to have three-phase.
This statue in Saltpond honors founders of the United Gold Coast Convention (UGCC), a political party whose aim was to bring about Ghanaian independence from its British colonizers after the Second World War. -- African American Registry
One of the plaques says the UGCC was founded at Saltpond in 1947.
Seagoing canoes
No one wants to be behind this truck going slowly uphill.
Numbering bicycles. This one, 004, is upside down.
This sign at Pedu Junction is almost invisible. We only noticed it while turning from the south.
Dieu Est Grand {God is Great}
The orange poster features a football champion touting hot pepper to add to meals. The lady in the poster has a snail on her shoulder to sell the idea of "snail power" in the products in the ad.
In 2 Kings 4 when the Shunammite's miracle son died, she told her husband, It shall be well. Then she went to Elisha, who brought him back to life.
[And we know the song: It is well with my soul.]
[likely..]
Sugɔ ka me ho asem {Dreams tell me about myself}
Steph often shops here.
..
Nyame Ne Hene {God and King}
Micah 7:8 - Rejoice not against me, O mine enemy: when I fall, I shall arise; when I sit in darkness, the Lord shall be a light unto me.
Notice carefully the color of the water bottles: they have condensation. These sellers start with cold bottles or pack a little ice in the basin they are carrying.
As we waited at Pizza City for our meal, this big animal strolled by.
The drawing asks people to pass on the left; that doesn't always happen..
Star Trek - Next Generation
I should never have bought this extra pan without a lid to fit it. [reheating pizza]
There was a bug in the mango.
"Bug inspected - Bug approved"
The driver-side low beam works intermittently; it was off for our trip to the hospital this evening.
Activity
I hope there aren't any low-hanging wires on his route.
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