Pam and Larry's Little Adventure

We are coming home next Monday evening, November 7, 2011.  We were scheduled to be on our mission until April of 2012 but somethings have come up that necessitate us coming home now.

Since our last post we have been traveling a good bit and had even more planned.  We spent a week in Rwanda training the new country directors there.  Rwanda bills itself as the jewel of Africa and they are not wrong.  It is one of the prettiest countries we visited and it is the cleanest, neatest country we have visited.  There is  a good sense of vibrancy in the attitude of the people and they are some of the most hard-working people we have ever seen.

They farm by hand al the way up the mountains and some of the slopes are so steep I didn’t see how they kept the fields from sliding down.  They grow almost every kind of food you would think of including bananas, sugar cane, potatoes, peas, beans, fruit trees of various types, tea, coffee, and a good many other things that don’t come to mind right now.

While there we also took advantage of the opportunity to visit the mountain gorillas.  We spent an hour walking among a family of 16 without the least bit of fear or concern.  They just seemed to be the gentlest animals.  We saw them eating and playing.  A mother with twins and several young ones playing in the vines.  It was a great experience.

We were home from Rwanda for a week and then went to Uganda.  We trained our new couple there and got to visit the head waters of the Nile River where it comes out of Lake Victoria.  We had flown from Joburg to Entebbe on a 4+ hour flight and while there we were told that the Nile runs 4,000 miles to the Mediterranean Sea in Egypt.  That gives you some idea of how big Africa really is.

While in Uganda Pam started being very dizzy, so much so that she had to hold on to something to avoid falling and she was extremely tired.  We attributed it to the fact that we had been working 10 hour days for the last few months and that she was just worn out.  When we go back to Joburg she went to the doctor and they said it was low blood pressure from taking malaria medication for so long.  Two days later her legs began to swell so she went back to the doctor and the doctor put her in the hospital with what the doctor thought might be congestive heart failure.  It turned out to actually be anemia from a loss of blood through internal bleeding we think.  They gave her a transfusion of two pints of blood and her hemoglobin got up to 10.  It should be about 13 and it was 6.5 when she went into the hospital.  Her platelet count was so low they could not do any type of invasive test for fear of causing additional bleeding.  After two times in the hospital they came last Tuesday and said that the tentative diagnosis was multiple myeloma, a type of bone marrow cancer.  We had planned on staying to treat the possible bleeding ulcer, but with this condition we decided along with the Area Presidency, to come home now.  Since then the doctors have indicated that they think it is an 80% chance of myeloma, but it might be something called MGUS which is less serious and non cancerous.  We have now committed to go home so we will leave next Monday and be home on Tuesday.

We have had a wonderful mission for almost 18 months.  We have visited the following countries.  South Africa, Swaziland, Madagascar, Kenya, Ethiopia, Uganda, Rwanda, Democratic Republic of the Congo, and Zimbabwe.  Madagascar and DRC twice each.  We were scheduled for DRC, Mozambique, Zimbabwe, and Ethiopia but maybe another time.  We have supervised the humanitarian work in all of those countries as well as Namibia, Lesotho, Zambia, Republic of the Congo, Cameroon, Tanzania, Burundi, Sudan, Somalia, Angola, and  Mauritius.  We have about 175 projects going at all times including clean water, sanitation, neonatal resuscitation training, wheelchairs, emergency response, immunizations, and vision projects.  We are currently working in at least seven refugee camps.  We are just starting on home gardening food initiatives, and we do other local type projects of many types.  It is a great thing to help those less fortunate by helping them to help themselves.  Our programs are not designed to just give things, but to develop the talents and skills of the people so they can help lift themselves out of poverty.  Every water project requires labor from the beneficiaries and the project is turned over to their water committee that we have helped them start and have trained.  This lets them be in charge of their destiny.

It is also gratifying to know that all of the funds that are donated to the Church humanitarian fund are spent on projects.  All administrative costs are paid for by the Church through other funds.  We see a lot of other NGOs that have large staff of employees and when we partner with them they try to have us pay for their administrative costs, but we try to avoid this by requiring that our part of the partnership must be spent on things for the beneficiaries and not on admin costs.

The Africa Southeast Area is the largest humanitarian program in the Church and it has a multimillion dollar budget with no paid employees just for humanitarian work.  We have the finance office, legal office, and the welfare manager, but those employees also function in all the other areas of the Church and are not paid out of humanitarian funds.  So 100% of humanitarian funds go to the beneficiaries.  All of the missionary couples pay their own personal expenses and their humanitarian expenses are paid out of the general funds of the Church.

We hope to add some pictures to this post, but it will have to be after we get home.

 

It has been some time since we made a post about what is happening here in Africa in our humanitarian work.  I thought I would update you a little about some of our projects and work.  By the way, remember if it is in italics, it is Larry writing so forgive the grammar and spelling.  As my dad would say “Its a small, small mind that can’t think of more than one way to spell a word”.

We spend our days reviewing projects and in the last week or so we have approved a number of new projects here.  We have a project now on the review board that would provide cast material for about 350 children in the Congo who have club feet.  If they can get treated before age 2 with casts the problem is fairly easy to correct, but if the treatment is much later it can require surgery which almost none of the families can afford.  The clinic in Kinshasa has run out of money and cast material so we are going to supply them for a while until they get more funding from the government.  There seems to be a high incidence of this problem in some parts of Africa.

We have also set up a program of sewing training in the Congo.  We are purchasing 120 sewing machines that will be scattered around the city of Kinshasa and some in Brazzaville.  Sewing classes will be taught to those who wish to learn.  They will then have a chance to get a job in a sewing shop or if they can raise the $75 to buy their own machine they can start their own business.  Now that may seem a small amount but it can be very hard to save that amount so not all will be able to go into business for themselves.  It is interesting to find that the women of the DRC get a new dress for every important event they attend.  Cloth is very inexpensive and very colorful.  It is fun to see all of the different styles in any large group.

In Namibia we are setting up an NRT (neonatal resuscitation training) program again this year.  Almost 1 out of 6 babies born there die before age 1.  We have done several of these in a good many of the countries.  We actually train nurses, midwives, doctors to use the equipment and then we provide each with a set of the equipment when the training is over.  They then go into the country side to work and teach others.

We also have an emergency response project in Namibia for some extensive flooding that has occurred there.  We have sent in blankets, hygiene kits, newborn kits so far.  Our country directors are there this week to assess what else we need to provide.  As in flooding elsewhere the flood causes the lost of homes, crops, cooking utensils, clothes, and other items.  It also wreaks havoc with food supplies.  We will probably send in several large trucks of supplies to help.

We are working on a problem in Kenya and Ethiopia.  There are thousands of refugees from Somalia in refugee camps in Kenya and Ethiopia.  They are starving, without shelter, without water.  They would normally not have this problem, but there is a very severe drought in the Horn of Africa and all the crops are dead or dying.  We have already provided the funding, tanks, and pumps for a problem in Ethiopia where the government was trying to truck in water to a drought stricken area, but the distance was so far and the travel time so long they couldn’t do nearly enough.  There was a well much closer but it lacked the capacity to supply the trucks and its own community.  We are providing the storage tank and the pumps to allow for water to both.

I assume most of you would be unaware of the fact that the country of Uganda is actually made up of two kingdoms, Uganda and Buganda.  Buganda covers about 2/3 of the country.  We did a project there for the teenage girls in which we supplied sewing machines to two school districts and some start-up material to teach them some specialized sewing skills.  It seems that teenage girl absenteeism was 20% to 25% in these two school districts because the girls had no way to take care of themselves during their menstrual cycle.  So they just stayed home.   We taught them how to make reusable pads and hygiene training to help.  We also did some new latrines with water in one of the stalls just for girls.  Our country directors went back several months later and with a total of 47 schools in the  two districts teenage girl absenteeism has dropped to less than 1 day over a three-month period of time.  That is going to enable these girls to graduate rather than drop out of school and that will be a life changing difference for them and their families.  The queen of Buganda has now asked if we can do the same type of program throughout the whole kingdom.   We are going to do two more school districts right now and then see if the government can help with some logistical support.

In Rwanda and Uganda there are still tens of thousands of refugees from DRC, Sudan, Rwanda and other places in refugee camps.  The camps are run by the United Nations High Command on Refugees.  The American Red Cross helps with a lot of things.  We are entering into a project in three of the camps to provide water and latrines.  In one camp we are building 29 latrines with 20 stalls in each one.  We are also doing a wheelchair project in one camp, a vision project in another camp where we will send in doctors to treat people who need eye surgery.  We are also doing a dental project for the children in another camp.

We had a dentist in the US who was able to convince the dental school in Canada to donate 21 dental chairs with all the equipment that they were replacing so it is being brought into Rwanda to set up a more complete dental training program throughout the country.  Five will be in Kigali in the national school with the other 18 installed throughout the country for dental students and their teachers to be able to reach the villages in their training. 

We have about 150-175 projects open at all times.  As old projects end, we close them, but we constantly have new ones being started.  That means that we approve about 6-10 projects a month.  We recently approved a project in Madagascar for doing spring capture water systems in about 25 villages in 7 fokotanies (county) in three communes (state).  The directors decided to break the work into 8 different parts with a different contractor for each one.  That means we then have to have contracts with the communes, fokotanies, contractors, hygiene trainers, site monitors for each part of the project.  I am not sure how many contracts were involved, but it was about 30 or so.  Each of these must then be submitted to the contract attorney in Michigan (yes Michigan) for preparation, sent back for changes, reviewed again in Michigan, sent to the area finance office, sent back for changes and finally approved.  Of course most of this is done via email but it takes time and requires much patience (of course all of you who know me know that is one of my strong suits) in dealing with such things as changing the wording from “Elder and Sister”  to “Elder or Sister” since the first would mean that both would have to be contacted by the contractor for a final decision on some topic.  I just about blew a gasket but changed it.

After a project is started we monitor the payment of bills.  Each bill must be approved by two different budget stewards before treasury can send the money.  Since we work in about 15 different countries we work in 15 different currencies.  Now the approval limits of different people is set in dollars so every payment request that comes in must be converted to US dollars to see who needs to sign then get the signatures and off to treasury to submit for payment.  Each payment request must be accompanied by an appropriate invoice from the vendor.  These come with the payment request half the time and so we have to get them from the country director or sometimes they send them in separate email so we have to find them and match them up.  All in a days work.

The days in the office can get to seem like a job, but when we go out into the field with our country directors to train and look at projects we get the payback.  To see the difference we make to those who may have been walking 1 to 20 kilometers (half mile to 12 miles) to get water out of a ditch or a polluted lake is a great feeling.  We were visiting a project in Ethiopia and a group of men walked up to us.  They had heard that we might be coming to that area that day so they had walked 15 km in case they could meet with us.  Most were in their 50s or 60s.  There are no real roads just across the mountain trails.  They asked if we could go with them to see their situation.  Well, there were 8-10 of them and we could not take them in the truck so their leader rode on a motorcycle that our contractor had over to their area.  Their families were walking 20 km to dip water out of a lake and then carry it back.  That is about 12 miles.  Now water is the responsibility of the women and children in these societies so that means the children miss school on days they have to get water.  We looked at the project and we could not do it within the guidelines we have, but I suggested we just add it to the other project we had been inspecting and I would talk HQ into providing the extra money.  You have to know how to work the system.  We are now doing that little addition for about 3500 people who will now have water at their school (with showers) and clean water for them and they will only have to walk about 2 km. 

We do all sorts of projects in many countries.  We are humbled by the people who have so little by our standards but are happy and joyful for what they do have.  It reminds me not to complain so much about my trivial trials.

   

  I know most of you think that all we do is sight-seeing and riding various animals.  Not true!!  We do, however, try to ride a few animals.  In March we held a Country Directors’ Conference here in Johannesburg.  Our country director couples flew in from all over the Africa Southeast Area for 4 days of training.  We had Short Term Specialist come from California to discuss wheelchair projects and Matt Heaps flew in from Salt Lake City to discuss clean water projects.  We also had security, human resources,  area legal advisor,  and finance people from our Area Office along with Larry and I and Bro. Elks our, Area Welfare Manager,  make presentations.  It was a lot of work to put the conference together,but we feel it was very successful and we had a lot of positive feedback from our couples.

     April 24th we hopped on a South African Airlines flight to Nairobi, Kenya.  We were met by the tour company that arranged our Safari to the Masai Mara in Kenya.  We spent the night in Nairobi and the next morning boarded a small plane and flew about an hour to the Mara where we landed on a gravel airstrip and were whisk away by a safari vehicle to the Royal Mara Lodge on the banks of the Mara River.  There we had lunch and were introduced to several resident pods of hippos before we were taken to our “tents”.  Tents is an understatement.  They were quite luxurious accommodations.  The “tents”  18’x36′ and built on raised platforms.  The floors were hardwood and each tent had a deck with table and chairs and lounge chairs and looked out on the Mara River.  We had in tent bathrooms and a bed that measured 7 and 1/2 feet square.  Each morning at 6:00 am we were brought hot chocolate, cookies (biscuits as they were called) and bananas.  We left for a morning game drive at 6:30 and returned for breakfast about 9:00.  We had lunch and then went on an afternoon game drive that lasted until dark.  We also were treated to a night game drive and a daytime walking safari.

     While at the Lodge we were always accompanied by armed guards because there were no fences around the camp and game was free to come and go as it pleased.  Night time was particurlarly dangerous because the hippos came out of the river to graze by our tents and they are the animal that kills more people in Africa than any other.  Lions and other predators are also likely to wander into the camp so we were grateful for our guards.  We could hear the hippos grazing by our tents at night and they made quite a splash when they returned to the river before sun-up in the morning.  We could also hear hyena in the night.  We had monkeys and baboons and eland in the camp.

     One day we had lunch on the savanna.  The lodge took cooking equipment and cooks, tables and chairs and guests and armed guards to picnic under the shade of a large tree out on the savanna.  We were served a 5 course lunch while we watched the animals.  Hyenas circled us and baboons came to watch us eat.  We saw cape buffalo, giraffe, wildebeests, warthogs, baboon, jackal and lots of other antelope and zebra while we sat and ate.  Pretty cool experience.

     We also got to visit a Masai Boma or small village.  The Masai Tribe are pastoral people and have large herds of cattle and some sheep and goats.  We went into the village which consisted of 10 or 12 mud and cow dung huts built around the boma or cattle pen.  At night the cattle are brought in to the boma for safety from lions and so the middle of the village is cow dung.  We sang and danced in the cow dung with the women and children.  Rather, I sang and danced and Larry took pictures.  After the singing and dancing we went into one of the houses.  There was a big room for the sheep to stay at night, another for calves and the family area that consisted of a small kitchen area and a sleeping area on one side for mother and children and one on the other side for the father.  It was small, very small, but they spend most of their time outside.  After the home tour the women brought out their crafts for sale.  We, of course, bought some things that we will never use and will probably never see the light of day when we get home but we did our bit for the local economy.

    This visit wasn’t all work, we did get an idea for a clean water project from the owner of the lodge and presented it to the Tuttles, our country director couple in Kenya.  They may have to make a visit and were offered free accommodations at the lodge by the owner.  Poor things.

     After 3 days that seemed as though they were out of  a National Geographic Special we returned to Nairobi to start to work.  We stayed at the Serena Hotel in Nairobi, this is the hotel Pres. Obama stays in when he is in Kenya.  It is very nice.  We worked with the Tuttles training, visiting possible project sites and gave them advice about how to develop their projects and then we did a little touristing also.  We went to the Karen Blixen Coffee Plantation, she wrote the book OUT OF AFRICA  that  was made into a movie with Robert Redford and Meryl Streep.

  We toured the plantation and had lunch at the site of the overseers home.  We then went to the factory were Kazuri beads and pottery is made.  Kazuri is a Swahili word that means something small and beautiful.  This company was started to give women in the villages that surround Nairobi employment.  The products are made from clay found near Mt. Kenya and are all hand made.  Necklaces made from these beads sell for $70 in the US.  Of course, we made a few purchases.  Again, just to help the local economy.

     Next, we flew to Addis Abba, Ethiopia to visit with our country director couple in Ethiopia, the O’Crowleys.  The O’Crowleys have been in Ethiopia for over a year and  are quite experienced at their job so we didn’t have much training to do.  We did visit several villages where projects were in progress and saw the results of our efforts as clean water was brought to people.  We were in one village observing the villagers dig trenches for the waterlines as their contribution to the project, when we were approached by the chairman and elders from a village 15 kilometers away.  These men had heard that we might be visiting the area that day and walked the 15 kilometers from their village to ask us to bring clean water to them.  This is a very arid region and the women of the village walk 15 kilometers to one way every day to dip water from a lake for their household use.  We are working on doing that project now.  We took two days to visit projects in this area.  Driving down the roads on the way to and from this visit we came upon herds of cattle, sheep, goats, donkeys and camels in the middle of a busy highway.  None of them seemed disturbed by our presence and took their own sweet time about clearing the road so we could pass.  We did come upon an accident.  A van had collided with a donkey cart.  The donkey was dead at the side of the road and Ican’t imagine the cart driver escaped without injury if he did live.  The van was in very bad shape but we didn’t see the driver of that vehicle either. 

     Addis Abba is a study in contrast between the ancient and modern.  In the median of an 8 lane highway through the middle of town is a sheep market.  Sheep are offered for sale and taken to homes and slaughtered then their hides are returned to the market.  Donkey carts were everywhere as well as herds of sheep and goats and donkeys.  There was a lot of construction with big modern building going up but the constructions methods were rather primitive.  I’m sure Larry will include pictures of the scaffolding used in this construction.  There is no OSHA in Ethiopia!

 

     We are back in Johannesburg trying to catch up on our work and maybe get a little ahead because Wednesday of next week we fly to Kinshasa, Democratic Republic of Congo to train another new country director couple for 4 days, then 1 day back in Johannesburg and we fly to Harare, Zimbabwe to visit our country director couple, the Beans.  Life right now is a little hectic but we are truly enjoying our mission and wish you could have the wonderful experiences we are having.  Just a thought, we will be needing 5 couples to replace those we have going home from the humanitarian department here in the next few months.  We would  love to have you here in Africa with us to share our adventures and our blessings.  THINK ABOUT IT.  Pam and Larry

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In South Africa we do not go on vacation, we go on holiday.  Of course I’m not sure you are supposed to “go on holiday” as a missionary, but, when we had our initial interview with President Koelliker he encouraged us to “see Africa” while we were here.  So it is not so much a vacation as “seeing Africa”.  Anyway,  we took 10 days to enjoy the south of South Africa.  During the last two weeks of December and the first two weeks of January Jo’burg goes on holiday.  The Area Office, where we work, is essentially shut down  during this time.  Most of the couples can take some time for a holiday during this time so we did so.  You have to get permission and we were able to spend a great time on holiday.  When you see the video, if you will play it twice you will get a better viewing the second time. 

Monday we flew to Port Elizabeth and met the other couple we were going to travel with.  They are the Robinsons and we rented a car and had their car for the week.  Pam and I stayed with the LaPrays Monday and Tuesday night.  They are from Williamson just outside of Beaumont, TX and know Pam’s dad from his days as the institute director at Lamar Univ.  We had a great time visiting with them and stayed up past 1 a.m. Monday.  We got to bed earlier the next night. 

Tuesday we went to the beach, that is the beach on the INDIAN OCEAN, and collected shells and watched dolphins frolic.  We explored Port Elizabeth and wended our way through the holiday crowds.  We visited a Volkswagen manufacturing plant and museum.  Volkswagen has been manufactured in South Africa almost as long as there has been Volkswagen.  On our way to the plant we went by the area where the local young men spend several weeks in the bush living in a shelter of their own making, as they are tutored in becoming a man.  This is also where they are circumcised.  They are supposed to live off the land while there, but I had my doubts when I saw some of them leaving the  Shoprite supermarket right across the road from them.

Wednesday, Dec. 29th, was a foggy and drizzly day while we drove South Africa’s famous Garden Route to George.  We stopped at Stone River Bridge and took a scenic walk then to Tsitsikamma National Park where we watched bungee jumping from a 410 meter bridge.  At first we couldn’t see the jumpers just hear them scream as they took off.  Then the fog  cleared and we watched them take the plunge, glad it was them and not me.  This route is really beautiful lush and tropical looking but temperate in climate.  We spent the night in a town called George and next morning went to visit an ostrich farm.

The ostrich farm was very interesting and we were learning a lot about the biggest bird in the world.

and HOLD ON.  The last point I figured was a given.  I climbed up the fence, sat on the ostrich, wrapped my legs around him, locked my feet in front of his chest,  grabbed a wing in each hand and (up to this point the ostrich had a bag over his head so he wouldn’t be afraid of me), at this point the guide pointed out to me that if I wanted the ostrich to stop all I had to do was pull back on his neck, it functioned as a brake.  I checked and both feet were occupied keeping me seated,  both hands were full of wing and I wasn’t quite sure how I was to apply the brake when they took the bag off his head and he took off.  Well, I’ll let the video tell the rest of the story.  But, I now have a certificate that attests to the fact that I indeed did ride an ostrich, there are also witnesses to the event and they will swear I rode the creature if they can stop laughing long enough.

After the ostrich adventure we went to the southern most point of Africa, Cape Agulhas.  This is the point where the Indian and Atlantic Oceans meet.  We climbed to the top of a light house and the view was spectacular.  Just the first of the breathtaking views we were to see on this trip.  We played in the tidal pools for a while and then on to Cape Town.

Cape Town was beautiful and scenic.  We took a trip to Simon’s Beach to see the  penguins.  They were nesting and in all stages of raising their families.  Some were building nests, some were sitting on eggs, some had hatched chicks and some chicks were molting their chick feathers and getting their adult plumage.  They were really interesting and extremely attentive parents.  We also went to the Cape of Good Hope, you know the one you read about in history books in junior high school.  I never thought I’d actually be there.

    We went to Robben Island where Nelson Mandela was kept as a prisoner for 18 years.  The tour of the prison is given by former inmates who were political prisoners during apartheid.  It was quite a sobering experience.  Also while in Cape Town we visited an aquarium,  rode the cable car up Table Mountain and spent an hour exploring the top of it.  We attended church on Sunday and drove through the beautiful wine country.  Larry kept moaning about all the effort being put into growing wine grapes when they could be growing grapes to eat.  We visited Stellenbosch and toured 4 homes build by early Dutch East India Company settlers.

On Tuesday we visited the famous Kirstenbosch Botanical Gardens and then finished a bus tour of the city.  It was very hot, over 100 and we were tired when we got to the waterfront for dinner.  When we went to get on the bus to return to our car, we found we had missed the last bus and had to get a taxi.  We did, we got the car and couldn’t wait to get back to the Bed and Breakfast.  Wednesday we flew back to Johannesburg, exhausted but grateful for the experience. 

Since we have been back in the office we have been swamped with work and are finally getting it under control.  We have had several new projects approved by the Area Presidency and are in the process of getting several others ready for their approval.  We are really enjoying our work and love to see the results of the projects in the lives of the people here in Africa.  It is amazing to see water get to villages where they haven’t had it before,  to see vision centers set up, hospitals get water that haven’t had clean reliable water before, people get wheelchairs who have had to crawl on the ground to get around, and all the other things the humanitarian efforts of the church do here.

Last Wednesday we packed our gear and borrowed the Area Office van, the manual transmission one, recruited 3 other couples to share our adventure and headed for the North West Province of South Africa near the Botswana border and a place called the Madikwe Game Reserve.  We, being such adventurous souls, decided to forgo the 5 star lodges in favor of a bush camp.  We drove 5 hours and arrived at the Reserve where we parked our car at the admission office (no private cars in the reserve) and were picked up in a safari vehicle and taken to the bush camp.  This camp has no electricity or running water so the sisters had made a pact that since we couldn’t use curling iron, etc. we would also forgo make-up.  The men went along with this decision as they actually had no say in the matter. 

We were shown around the camp. 

We had lunch and then left for an evening game drive.  We immediately saw the back half of a brown hyena, a new species for us.  We saw a lot of the animals we had already seen but we got our first sighting of the very endangered black rhino.  I thought it would be difficult to tell them from the white rhino, we’ve seen a lot of these, but it was easy to tell the difference.  White rhinos eat grass and are grazers, black rhinos eat leaves and are called browsers.  There’s your biology lesson for the day.

We also came upon two male lions sleeping under a tree.  We drove up and parked within 15 feet of them,  one just looked at us and turned over and went back to sleep. 

After dark we paid them another visit.  They got up and walked around moved to another location and laid back down again.  They weren’t very interested in us.  One of the people in our party dropped a glasses case close to the lions and no one was brave enough to get out of the vehicle and retrieve it.  Hard to understand I know.

We also saw white rhino and several species of birds, hornbill, european roller.  When we got back to camp we had supper and went to bed right away.  We were very tired and had to get up early in the morning.

The next morning the ranger got us up at 4:45 and we left for a game drive at 5:15

 Almost the first thing we saw in the morning was a herd of elephants with a very young baby elephant, maybe a week or so old.  We got to watch them for a good 20 minutes right next to the road we were parked on.  We then went off of the roads and went through the back country on trails for a couple of hours.  We got to see

 wildebeest,

springbok antelope, jackals

, zebra, and giraffe on these trails.  Since we hadn’t seen either jackals or springbok we were pleasantly surprised.  Then we got to see a herd of giraffe up close as they browsed on the tops of trees.  They are very graceful and fun to watch.  I never realized they had so many variations of color and markings before.  About this time we stopped for some hot chocolate and saw some very big lion tracks (spoor) on the road we were traveling.  After we finished the hot chocolate the driver seemed to really get in a hurry to go somewhere else.  I even commented that he seemed to be ready to end the drive.  A few minutes later we found out why he was hurrying.  Some other driver had found a pride of lions near a trail  and had called him to come. 

 We got to park the truck right in the middle of the resting pride.

  They got up and moved around some but other than just looking at us seemed to be unconcerned about us being there.  We must have spent 30 minutes there just watching them.  It was 3 males and 4 females.  It was almost surreal to realize that we were just hanging out with a pride of wild lions.  Everyone says that the lions don’t see us individually, but as part of the safari vehicle and thus have no interest in attacking us.  They also say that if you get out of the vehicle the lions look at you as prey.  I was just wondering if “all” the lions had gotten the memo that we were part of the vehicle.

Later we saw baboons, warthogs, a steenbok, and some more giraffes and elephants. 

 Three of the giraffe had found a bush that seemed to be just the ticket for scratching their stomachs.  I was able to get a picture of them lined up waiting their turn to scratch themselves. 

When we got back to camp we had breakfast of boerwurst and a bush omelet of eggs, ham, onions, and corn.  After breakfast we had a chance to use the shower.  It was really quite nice and refreshing.

  We then left for home.

This morning, Christmas day, we had breakfast with all of the area office missionary couples, 18 couples in total, and Elder Watson and his wife of the area presidency.  We had egg casserole, bacon, rolls, fruit and juice.  We then sang Christmas carols and someone read the story of the Savior’s birth from Luke as the rest of us hummed Silent Night.  It was really touching.  Then Sis Watson told of her visit to a branch of the church in northern South Africa last week.  She decided  to visit the children’s Primary.  After sharing time was over the Primary president asked some of the children what they looked forward to most this Christmas.  One little girl said that she was going to get a piece of cake, the next one said he was happy to know that after they ate he would get his own cupcake, and the third child said that she was just really happy that the family would have food this Christmas.  It made all of us thankful for our bountiful blessings and grateful to be here to help serve the people of Africa.  Pam and I were especially thankful we are helping in the humanitarian work here.  After that story all of the grandmas and grandpas had tears in their eyes as we thought of our grandchildren back home in the United States.

We got to skype with all of our children and grandchildren this afternoon.  A good Christmas.  We miss being home, but know we are engaged in a work of greater good.

We wish all of  our family and friends a “MERRY CHRISTMAS” and a “HAPPY NEW YEAR”.  Thanks for all of your support and prayers.  We are well and happy.

If this post seems a bit disjointed it is because just I went to publish it the internet went down and I lost some of the text and pictures.  I have tried to re-create it as best I could.

I know the title of this entry sounds a little negative.  Let me explain.  We recently returned from 6 days in Madagascar.  Now, while Madagascar is a beautiful island nation, it isn’t the same level of civilization as Johannesburg and certainly not as the USA.  Ok, I’m spoiled, 6 days was good for me.  When we arrived at the airport in Johannesburg Larry said,  “It’s good to be home.”  We just looked at each other and laughed because we never thought we’d call Johannesburg home, but we do.  We are much more comfortable about moving about town.  We almost know where we are going and how to get there.  We even try new stuff now and then.  For instance,  tomorrow we leave for Madikwe Game Preserve to spend one night and two days.  We are going with 3 other couples in one of the Area vans.  It is a stick shift.  You think, ok not so hard almost everyone can drive a manual transmission.  However, keep in mind that the steering wheel in vehicles in South Africa are on the right (or wrong side of  the vehicle)  it depends on your point of view.  So, you are shifting with your left instead of your right hand.  That coupled with all of the other issues in driving on the left side of the road present some interesting challenges.  While at Madikwe we have chosen to stay in the bush camp.  That is raised tents off the ground about a meter to discourage visits by nighttime critters.  You are not allowed to leave the tents at night because of the likelihood of an up close and personal encounter with one of these nocturnal animals.  We will go on an evening and morning game drive and return home (see I said it again).  After Christmas we are flying to Port Elizabeth on the southern coast of Africa,  the Cape of Good Hope, and renting a car to do the Garden Route to Cape Town.  We are going with 3 other couples and are really looking forward to seeing this part of South Africa.  We will report. 

Now to bring you up to date on our activities.  When last you heard from us we were worried because we had lost country director couples in South Africa, Kenya and our couple in the Congo were going home.  I am thrilled to announce that the Nielsen’s from Griddley, CA have arrived in South Africa to take over as country directors and have hit the ground running.  We were relieved to turn over the responsabilities in this country to them.  A new couple has been announced for the DRC and a couple is coming to Kenya.   All three of these couples requested to serve Humanitarian Missions in Africa, bless their little hearts.  We love them for it.  The Godfrey’s, who’s place we took, have come to Kenya to cover that country until the new couple arrives in February.  That has been a real blessing as there have been some problems with our water projects in that country.  I mean problems besides that elephants sometimes step on the borehole pumps and ruin the wells.  What can you do?  Everybody has their problems.

Our branch,  Soshanguve Branch, had a temple day in November.  The whole branch came, youth, young adults, primary kids, adults with and without temple recommends.  In order not to be late for the taxi’s to pick them up the branch president got permission for all of them to spend the night at the chapel.  They then left at 4:30 am to get to Johannesburg by 6:30.  Larry and I were dressed in our white clothes to greet them as they entered the temple.  We did 3 baptismal sessions;  youth, young adults, and recent converts.  The priesthood brethern in the branch provided all the priesthood for those 3 baptismal sessions.   Seven people, 5 sisters and 2 brothers,  received their own endowments and other endowed members of the branch attended the session with them.  There were 24 people on that session and that is all the endowment room holds.  Larry and I officiated at that session and it was very special.  The primary children who came played on the temple grounds while those adults without recommends tended to them.  It was a wonderful day and we feel very privileged to have been a part of it.  For those of our faithful readers who are not members of the church I know this experience doesn’t mean much to you and I was reticent to write about it, but it has been such a special and spiritual experience for us that I just had to include it and I beg your indulgence and patience with me.

I mentioned our Madagascar trip.   It was exciting and informative and just a little bit scary.  The political situation in Madagascar is far from stable which is true in many African countries.  We receive security updates every day about the different countries in Africa and for several weeks before our trip the situation in Madagascar was in turmoil.  There was an attempted coup and several political demonstrations that shut down parts of the city and on several occasion closed the airport or the road to the airport which effectively closed the airport.  So, we boarded the plane in Johannesburg not really knowing if we could land in Antananarivo, the capital city of Madagascar, or not.  We did.  Now we didn’t know if we would be able to get to the airport when it was time to leave in 6 days time.  But, we were at least there.  Elder and Sister Ridges, our country director missionary couple, met us at the airport and our Madagascar Adventure began.  I will not include all the boring details but our time there was taken up with visiting water projects in the hills or rather mountains of the island, and it is all mountains with little valleys where the villagers do terrace farming.

   From the air it is breathtaking and up close it isn’t much different.  The island is beautiful when you get away from the city and out in the country.  The roads to the villages are interesting.  Because of the tremendous amounts of rainfall and the Zebu (local cattle) cart

 transportation what passes for roads are questionable.  They didn’t even look or feel like roads.  After bouncing over such terrain all day I was so sore all I wanted to do was soak in a hot bath.  I couldn’t even do that because our doctor who looks after the missionaries here in SA told me I couldn’t bathe in the countries we visit because of concerns about the water.  So a hot shower had to suffice.  When the roads became impassable we parked the truck and walked.

  We hiked up and down mountains, across the dikes of rice paddies, through ravines and down cliff faces.  We, actually I, didn’t hike down the cliff face, I let Larry go the last few meters down that cliff with the other men and waited for them at the top.  On our last day of site visits I gave up about halfway to the spring and rested in the shade while they continued to the spring capture site.  I enjoyed the shade and the view of rice paddies and fields being worked by hand and Zebu.

  It looked like really, really hard work.  We visited villages and saw the water stations and hand wash stations our projects had built.  We visited schools where we saw the same thing.

  The children sang to us and we visited their classrooms where there was one teacher and 40 or 50 students.  The students were perfectly behaved.  At one school the children showed us how they washed their hands at the wash station we had built and then sang the Malagasey national anthem.  While walking to that school I saw the biggest spider I’ve ever seen.  It looked like the banana spiders we have at home but was about 5 times bigger that the biggest one I’ve ever seen in Louisiana. 

We had lunch prepared for us by villagers and by the daughter of the mayor of one of the Communes we did a water project for.  At his house we had the most delicious fois gras (liver pate) made of duck liver.  He owns the company that makes it and used to process the ducks on the first floor of his house.  I was glad he had moved the duck processing operation to the backyard by the time we visited his home.

We visited a small park in one Commune where wild lemurs would come when called and you could feed them out of your hand.  I had a handful of peanuts and one of the lemurs came and grabbed my thumb with one of his hands and my little finger with the other so I could not get away and then ate all the peanuts and let me go.  He had no use for me if my hand was not full of peanuts.

  We got to hold and handle a boa constrictor as well as a large chameleon and get close to  a little red frog that became poisonious if it died.  It was alive and we didn’t touch it. 

Our visit was very instructive.  All water projects in Madagascar are spring capture because there are so many springs in the mountains.  The villager dig all the trenches for the piping system themselves by hand as their contribution to the project because we insist that the beneficiaries of the projects contribute to it.  This is miles and miles of trenches with each project.  Spring sites are not easy to get to as evidenced by our miles and miles of hiking to get to them but all materials are taken in by hand.  Bags of cement are carried on the workers heads to the site.  These are not easy projects but they are so beneficial to the villages.  Where we have done clean water projects childhood diarrhea has all but been eradicated, while in neighboring villages where the children still get the water from muddy streams it is remains a serious problem.  Children are relieved from fetching the water and no longer have to take a day off school when it is their turn to get water for their families.  Getting water for the family is the children’s responsibility in the villages. 

I will end this entry here and turn it over to Larry so he can post pictures and add anything he wants to say.  We are really loving the work we do and we love seeing the results of the projects in the various countries.  We are hoping to attend a wheelchair training session soon and we’ll tell you all about it.

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Yes, I know it has been a while since we updated our blog.  I’d plead too busy or some other excuse but none of you would believe me so I’ll just say sorry about that.  We continue to have adventures great and small in Africa.  The only one involving an animal this time is a chameleon we saw at one of the projects we visited in the Democratic Republic of Congo.  We were in a settlement where we were drilling boreholes (wells) for a source of water for the people.  A little boy and several of his friends were following us around and I noticed they had a plastic bucket with something in it.  They were smiling like they had a great secret.  I asked to look in the bucket.  They gave it to me and I guess they thought I’d be frightened.  There was a chameleon in the bucket!  I was thrilled!  I reached in and picked it up.  They backed off, none of them had been brave enough to pick the thing up.  It wrapped it’s tail around my finger and looked around.  It then proceeded to take a stroll up my arm and onto my other hand.  Everyone was suitably impressed.

We will get back to the Congo later, for now we will go in more or less chronological order.  I (pam) am teaching 3 keyboarding classes each Sunday to members of our Soshanguve Branch.  I get to attend Sacrament Meeting and then I teach for the rest of the meeting block.  One of my students comes an hour before church, that makes about 6 and a half hours of church and driving to get to and from church each Sunday.  A few weeks ago at church our Branch President, Pres. Marumo, asked us if we would help with the expense and building of a dwelling for one of the sisters in the branch who had just been kicked out of her house.  The next Saturday we picked up Pres. Marumo and the Jacob, the young men’s president and the sister in question.  We were glad we had said yes when we realized that the sister was one of Larry’s Temple Preparation Students and is scheduled to go to the temple next month.  We went to the building supply store and bought sheets of tin, wood and  nails.  We then proceeded to an area that is a neighborhood of small plots of land, each with at least one tin shack on it.  Water comes from a tap in the yard.  Some of the shacks have electricity but most do not.  Outhouses are the sanitary facilities and some of the residents even have their own.  Most are communal.  The poles for the frame of the shack were up and some of the tin was on the sides.  Larry and Jacob climbed on the roof and nailed up roof supports and tin.  We then helped with some of the other parts of the building.  It is going to have two rooms, a dirt floor and two windows and a door.  Faith (that is the sister’s name) was hoping to move in  on the following  Tuesday.  She was so excited to have her own home for her 6 year old son and her.

Right after the first part of October the most beautiful thing happens here.  The Jacaranda Trees bloom.  They are lavender and the flowers come out before foilage, like our Japanese Magnolia trees.  They look like lavender clouds floating over the city and there are thousands of them.  We will  include pictures in this blog, but they really have to be seen to be appreciated.  When the blossoms fall it looks like we have had a purple snow storm.  Streets and sidewalks are covered in lavender.  Just beautiful!

On to the Democratic Republic of the Congo, hereafter refered to as the DRC.  This was our first trip out of South Africa.  Everyone kept telling us that they hoped our first trip would not be to the DRC but to an easy country like Kenya.  Never ones to do it the easy way when the harder way was available, we went to the DRC.  Now there was a good reason for this.  Our Country Director Couple is going home in Dec. and there was no new couple to replace them so Larry and I are going to have to take care of the projects in progress in that country.  We went there to find out what we were going to have to do.

 

We landed,  the airport is an adventure, definitely 3rd world.  We were lucky because Antoine met us at the airport.  He speaks no English except “Welcome to Kinshasha”.  Kinshasha being the capital city of the DRC.  He retrieved our bags and took them past (not through) customs.  He then took us to the Moody’s truck.  The Moodys are our Country Directors in DRC.  We immediately visited a project in the “City of Hope”.  These people, several thousand, had been relocated by the government when the government decided it wanted the land they lived on.  They were just taken and left at this location with nothing.  The church donated tarps for shelter and a year or more later many of their dwellings are built out of these tarps.  Our project drilled wells for water and gave them slabs to build their latrines and did sanitation and hygiene training with the people.  As a result it was the cleanest area we visited.  Most of the Kinshasha area looks like someone blew up a garbage dump.  There is no provision for trash disposal in this city of 12 to 14 million people.  You just have to see it to believe it.

We then visited another water project, this area too was relatively clean because of the hygiene training that accompanies our water projects.  One woman was outside washing when we passed and gave us a big thumbs up.  The people really appreciate access to clean water.  We passed one of our agricultural projects near the airport that the people have expanded into a commercial enterprise because they grew more than they could eat.  They export produce to Belgium because they are near the airport and can get their produce to market easily.  Transportation is a big problem in the DRC.  Then we went to our hotel.  We visited many projects:  sewing schools, a carpentry and metal works apprenticeship program, an orphanage that would break your heart and more clean water projects.  We visited with some of the organizations we partner with in our projects also.

  We also visited a Neonatal Resuscitation Training session with Dr. Ngoy in the St. Joseph hospital.  The church provides the equipment and literature for these training sessions.  The church also sent Dr. Ngoy to the United States for specialized training in this field of medicine.  St. Joseph’s delivers about 450 babies a month and he is the head of obstetrics. 

We were invited to attend the first ceremony of the wedding process in that country by the groom who works at the mission office and is a return missionary.  This ceremony is called the “dot” (pronounced dote) and is where the bargaining for the bride is conducted.  Men have to buy their wives from the wives family in the tribal culture of Africa.  We were invited to witness the actual bargaining.  The bride and groom cannot attend this session.  Representatives of the groom-in this case his uncle and his Stake President- and representatives of the bride-her uncle and brother in law-conduct the actual negotiations.  Both of her parents had previously presented lists of what they wanted to the groom.  He acquired what he could afford and his representatives present this to the parents of the bride and try to explain that this was all he could afford.  In this case the father wanted 10 cases of beer (he’s not a member of the church), the groom could only afford 5 cases of beer.  Dad wanted 10 cases of cold drinks, the groom could only afford 5 cases.  Dad wanted new shoes, shirt, suit, socks and a few odds and ends.  The groom provided these and his representatives presented them to the uncle and brother in law.  The bride’s mom wanted 8 bolts of fabric for new dresses, she got 4.  She wanted scarves, jewlery, a watch,  a cooking pot, rice, salt , sugar, a large kitchen bowl, and a suitcase.  She also wanted a goat but settled for some money.  These things were presented an accepted.  Then the real bargaining began.  The family wanted $1500 ( all money was US dollars, none of this congolese franc stuff).  The groom offered $400.  The family finally settled on $400 that night,  $100 the next day and $300 to be paid by the first of December.

We had an interpreter ( a counselor in the Stake Presidency) who told us what was happening as all participants spoke the tribal language.  It was very interesting and we were honored to be allowed to see this process.

 

This event takes place at the home of the bride.  Her home was in a neighborhood where the truck we rode in almost scraped the sides of the buildings as we drove down the streets.  I don’t know how Elder Moody negotiated the turns but he did.  We managed to get in and out without doing much damage to property or the lives or limbs of the people who live there.

We took a couple of walks along the banks of the Congo River in the evenings and it was beautiful.  While we were walking one evening a woman walked up to me asked about our name badges.  She asked if I recognized her from the airport.  I realized she and the family she works for were in front of us in the passport line at the airport.  She is Pakistani but a Christian and was looking for a Christian service in English.  She said all she had been able to find were in French or Latin.  Sis. Moody was with me and she said our service was in French but we had a Sunday School class taught in English.  We gave her the information about how to get to the church and I hope to follow up to see if she came.

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I can’t believe I hear thunder outside.  It hasn’t rained here since Easter and certainly not since we have been here.  The air is very hazy, not just here in Johannesburg, but throughout the Gauteng Provence.  It is hazy because Africa burns in the winter.  There is no rain so everything is very dry and fires are started usuallyaccidently, sometimes on purpose to burn away the tall dry grass and control fire conditions.  It doesn’t matter where we go around  or when, there is always fire somewhere making the air hazy and smokey.  So, I am excited for rain to clear the air.  Other missionaries assure me that when it does rain the air is clear and everything turns green and it is beautiful here.  I think it is beautiful anyway.  This is really a lovely place.

We have lost a few senior missionary couples lately because of health issues.  Two couples have gone home recently from the Area Offices because one spouse is ill.  Another went home because of the illness of an elderly parent.  Our Country Director couple in Kenya leave tomorrow because he has developed heart trouble and is returning to have it taken care of in the US.  We lost our Country Director couple in South Africa a couple of months ago due to ill health.  I guess that is what happens when you get old.

We have been enjoying some of the tourist areas of South Africa recently.  Last week we spent 4 days and 3 nights at Kruger National Park, one of the best known game reserves in Africa.  We took several game drives and were able to see many more of the animals we have already seen and some we haven’t seen before.  Our first drive started at 5:30 am.   We took the roughest road I have ever been on to get into the park.  The smell of the orange blossoms in the groves as we drove almost made it bearable.  We stopped for breakfast at 11:00am.  We were starving but the place we stopped over looked the river and at this time of year there is not water but in the river and all the animals have to come there to drink.  We were entertained by a troop of baboons as they crossed the dam and irritated the animals on the other side of the river.  The hippos came up and went under the water, babies followed their moms nipping at their tails.  Giraffe’s grazed peacefully at the tops of acacia trees.  Impalas were everywhere.  Waterbuck drank beside secretary birds and elephants covered themselves with mud.  Warthogs grazed next to zebra and wildebeast.  We dined on bacon, eggs and toast cooked by our guide.

Later in the day we saw 4 lion, lots of crocodile basking in the sun while birds hopped all over and around them.  We saw many varieties of antelope and even saw a herd of about 25 Sable Antelope which our guide assured us was the best sighting of any animal in the park he had had in several months.  There are only about 150 Sable Antelope in South Africa.  They are the black and brown antelope in the slideshow.    We also saw a saddle billed stork.  See if you can find it in the slideshow.  He has a yellow “saddle” on his bill.  There are less than 100 of them in South Africa.

We saw lots of elephants, eagles, vultures,  rhinos, cape buffalo and ostrich.  We also saw a number of endangered birds the Kori bustard and the Great Hornbill among them.  Our guide was very knowledgable and we learned a lot.  The next day we did a morning drive and saw more lion, a leopard that had just killed an impala and was dragging it through a ravine to hide and eat it.  We then saw a pack of hyena playing.  There were about 20 or so of them, all ages and sizes.  That night we took a night drive but the only exciting thing was the same pack of hyena heading to eat something.  We couldn’t see what they were eating but we could smell it and it wasn’t pleasant.

We stayed at a lodge on the Crocodile River.   Just across a dirt road in front of the lodge was the fence to Kruger and then the river.   It was an exciting place, lots of animals that we could see at the river in the park and many in the yard of the lodge;  antelope, warthog, mongoose.

This week we have been back at the office going over projects and preparing them for approval by the Area Presidency.  We have projects for emergency clothing to be sent to refugee camps in Kenya and Uganda.  A waterwell that needs to be drilled next to the site of a chapel under construction.  The church drilled a well for the building to have water and the villagers have come begging for access to the water because the only source of water they have currently is a dirty stream.   Our supervisor has asked us to find money to drill a well for the village.  We emailed Salt Lake and asked for the money and were given permission to drill it.  We have sanitation projects and hygiene training projects in Uganda, vision and diabetic retinopathy projects in Madagascar,  water projects in Mozambique,  wheelchair and water projects in Ethiopia,  training equipment for nurses in the DRC.  Lots of interesting things happening in this corner of the world.  We love being a part of it and doing our little bit to make it happen.

If you hear of anyone who contributes to the humanitarian fund of the church give them a big round of applause, a big hug or whatever seems appropriate at the time.  Everything we do comes  from their contributions or profits from church owned businesses, and we do a lot here and in other places in the world to help ease suffering and to help people help themselves.

This is a project and monthly report from one of our country directors. I hope it comes out the way I plan it for the blog.  Click on the link and it will open a word document.  It might take a little while to open.

A water project and monthly report – Copy.docx

In an email from my brother, Donald, he asked a number of questions about our activities and conditions here in Africa.  I thought it might be good to give an overview of things in this post.

Pam and I are supervisors of 9 couples strategically located throughout southern Africa.  We have a couple in Ethiopia, Kenya, Rwanda, Democratic Republic of  the Congo, Zimbabwe, Mozambique, Madagascar, Uganda, and South Africa.  Each couple is responsible for several countries in their area.  They are called the “country directors” and if we had sufficient couples we would have couples working under them for the various countries in their respective areas.  Since we have so few couples available each country director has to do everything in his given area of  the continent.

Country directors work with local communities, government, U.N., other aid organizations, other charitable groups to come up with ideas for projects that will help the people.  Our criteria for a project to be approved is that it must do some or all of the following:  promote self-reliance, build the partnering organization, be sustainable, have beneficiaries participate in the project, or relieve suffering.  We always partner with a local organization for projects, because they will be on the ground in the area as time passes and they can help with monitoring, re-organizing, and other things that come up after the project is complete.

In a general sense the church is trying to build up non-government organizations (NGO’s) to be the long term help to the people.  The church is there to help fund, supervise, oversee, and initial startup of projects.  Long term they are turned over to the people themselves.  Donald asked if the country directors wear shirt and tie on a regular basis.  They do wear missionary attire the majority of the time.  They do not do manual labor on any regular basis.  They hire contractors, site monitors, and others to do the actual work and just try to make sure it is done properly and completely.  They also handle all of the finances of the project and have to request funding and pay for work on a weekly basis.  When you consider that some of their areas are more that a 1,000 miles across and most do not have significant airline service you will understand that they cannot be at every project each week.  This requires the use of others to oversee the work on a daily/weekly basis.

Many of our projects involve trying to get clean water to communities that are out in the bush areas with few or no roads.  The country directors all have four wheel drive trucks to work in provided by the church.  They also have gps equipment because we have to have the gps location of projects to be able to find them later for long term evaluation of them, especially wells.  All of our water projects now include hygiene training.  The majority of this is done by the partnering organizations and involves training trainers in each community who in turn teach the members of the community.  This is not always the case, but most of the time.  We also do sanitation projects along with most water projects.  This involves putting facilities, teaching hygiene, maintenance and repair of the facilities.  Each water project has as part of it the organizing of a water committee for each community.  The committee is supposed to oversee the system and charge a little money for water so they can repair the system.  This is part of the long term sustainability of the project.

  One of our current projects involves our training of 2 nurses from each of 10 kebeles (villages) in hygiene.  These nurses will each then train 18 other nurses for each kebele.  Each of these 20 nurses in each kebele will personally train 500 families in their kebele.  This means our training will be spread to 100,000 families with an average of 5 people in each family.  That means 500,000 people will receive hygiene training. 

Donald also asked about the government and why it did not do more for its citizens.  The needs are so great in so many areas that the government simply does not have the resources to do everything.  Economic issues are difficult and if there were not outside agencies helping it would take much longer for these services to reach even a large percentage of the population.  We work with the governments to help decide where to help next.  We also work with many other aid organizations including Catholic charities, other local churches, international groups from other countries, and private donors.  In a general sense we are trying to help and get along very well.

Now, Pam and I oversee all of these projects from afar.  There are currently over 150 open and ongoing projects in the Africa Southeast Area. We get proposals each week for more to consider.   We are the first line for the country directors to contact for help with challenges, submit proposals, and a host of other issues too numerous to put down.  Our duty is to make decisions about whether a project fits our criteria, do we have a budget for it, and is it possible to do under our situation.  We are supposed to be dispassionate about the projects as much as we can so we can make the correct decisions.  We also have to make sure that all of the finances are in order before we close a project.  Pam has to run financial reports on each project in order to close it,  and this from the woman who doesn’t even like to balance the checkbook.  Our budget is fairly large, but we can only scratch the surface of meeting all the needs here.  We will start to travel to meet with country directors in the next month or so.  We have been trying to learn our duty and their duty so we can be of use to them when we meet. 

We will generally travel by air to the various countries.  We have a car here, a Nissan Tida, that provides for our local transportation.  

Well, I hope this will give you an idea that touring game parks is not all we do here.