Grass Cutters and Fruit Bats!!
We spent a good portion of last week helping a dear Sister Missionary in our mission get to Dr. appointments. We had to help her find a lab to have blood drawn and we had to find an Ophthalmologist in the Sunyani area. After consulting with the right people we were able to take care of these items.
We also decided to take a break and drive up to Techiman to visit our good friends the Vousden's. The Vousden's are from England and we have become fast friends. Techiman is located about 75 KM East of Sunyani. It was a beautiful drive through a tropical Savannah that includes banana trees and Coconut groves. I saw a lady hitch hiking along the way. I mentioned to Louie that I might feel safer hitchhiking in Ghana than the US. They don't have a KFC up there so we brought with us a bucket of chicken. Sister Vousden made a lovely desert. They drove us around Techiman. They are building a new District Center. (Bigger Chapel where multi branches (congregations) can meet in one building). We really enjoined a small change of pace. Louie and I are very spontaneous and love to change something for the day and do different things.
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| District Center in Techiman |
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| Visiting Elder and Sister Vousden in Techiman |
We also drove out to Kenyasi on Sunday to visit a branch out there. There is a set of Young Elder missionaries out in this little town. Every Sunday evening they travel into Sunyani for District meetings because Elder Farris is the District Leader. It is an hour and a half of the bumpiest most terrible road you can imagine. Louie tries to dodge the pot holes, so that gets crazy because he goes all over the road to dodge them. haha! He saw the taxi's doing it so he thought it might be easier on our truck. We told these good Elder's we would bring them back to Sunyani with us. They were glad to have a break from riding a Tro tro (van type taxi with goats and luggage on top). On the way out to Kenyasi we passed a man on the side of the road and he was holding up the biggest rat I have ever seen! I asked Louie what he was doing and Louie concluded that he was trying to sell it to us. He probably saw by the look on my horrified face that I was not interested in buying from him. I hope I didn't offend him, but I could not hide my shock and dismay! While visiting with the missionaries on our return trip I discovered that the large rat is called a Grass Cutter. They eat them for dinner out in the bush areas. The missionaries said they had it in a soup once. I will spare you anymore details about that. Pretty much what happens in Africa stays in Africa. Haha!
I was also interested to learn more about the bats at the park in the middle of town. There is a large quantity of some sort of fruit bat that is quite large that lives at a park in town. Apparently there is up to a million bats that live there. Every evening they leave their roosts at about 6:30 PM (sun down) and they start looking for food. It is quite an amazing site I must say. They eat fruit such as banana's, papaya, mango's ect. I guess they really don't bother humans and in fact they are supper important to the ecosystem here. Their droppings have seeds in them and it reforests the Savannah. I found that to be absolutely fascinating. I still don't like them. They are creepy! Every time we drive by Louie likes to point out to me how they are just hanging there upside down waiting for me to come into town. In my opinion the only thing creepier than a rat is a flying rat. So here we are with Grass Cutters and Fruit Bats.
Here is a quick update on some humanitarian projects we are working on. Our friends at the orphanage reached out to me and requested 25 small bread pans and 25 student mattresses (we would call them camping mattresses). Apparently these kids are sleeping on the hard cement floor. The bread pans are for the children to make small loves of bread to sell at the market to help with feeding the children at the Orphanage. I felt selling at the market was a great sustainable idea and it teaches them a trade. We wrote up a humanitarian need to the Church and I am still waiting to here back. Hopefully soon.
I am playing the piano ALOT!! I am the only person in the region that can somewhat play the piano. I have 6 piano students that I teach weekly. When we drive a long ways out to the bush and a student doesn't show up, I just spot a kid that is cleaning the church with his Mom and I ask him if he wants a lesson. This is how I gain students too. It makes our long drive dodging goats and taxi's worth it. When they feel confident enough to play in church they can earn their own keyboard through a family in Utah by the name of Harmon. We call it the Harmon grant. They have these really great lesson books that gets them playing hymns quickly. If they can plunk it out on one hand I will encourage them to play for Sacrament Meeting. That way they can earn their keyboard and have one to practice on while I continue to teach them as much as I know. I play the piano at every branch we visit. I will play for District Conference here in a couple of weeks and and will be accompanying two choirs. This has been very good for me, but also very hard. It has required a lot of faith on my part. I know the Lord blesses you when you are on his errand. If you don't know that, I couldn't hardly play a hymn before we got here and now I am playing for congregations in the hundreds.
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| Little boy enjoying the piano |
I guess we will be moving soon. We are leaving Fiapre and will be moving to Nkwabeng. It is just another neighborhood in Sunyani. The mission president didn't feel that our apartment was as secure as he would like. He is from Ghana so we will follow his intuition. We will pack up our things in our suitcase that we brought such as our cloths. We will go to Kumasi for a couple of days and the church will pay a Ghanaian to move everything. I think they do it with one of those motorcycles that has a truck bed on the back. They may have to make a couple of trips.
A quick shout out to our son Tom living in California. He was right on the boarder of evacuation but thankfully the winds were blowing to the north (unfortunate for others). It has been a terrible and stressful week for him and his girlfriend Savannah. They are Fuell strong and I'm glad they have each other. The emotional toll is real. The devastation is a heavy weight to see for your friends and neighbors. We know that Heavenly Father is mindful of you. Lean on him through prayer. We are praying for you here in Africa too. Also Joe and Nat and the girls and David and Daria have been dealing with heavy snow and cold weather. We have taught you all to have a little extra food and water. God bless and stay warm. To all the other kids and Grandkids, we sure love and miss you all. xoxo
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| Lunch on Monday. They have the best fruit drinks! Esbak Kitchen |
We always enjoy your posts each week. What a wonderful opportunity to be in Ghana and building the Church and the people there.
ReplyDeleteAbout bats: when our family lived in Uganda 1967-69, we had smaller, insect-eating bats living in our attic. Each night about dusk, hundreds would swarm out from the clay tile roof to hunt for food. It was hard to complain about something that would cut down the mosquito, etc. population. Still, during the day and sometimes at night, you could hear them squeaking and scratching around up there. Now and then, there would be a loud thump, like someone dropping a softball on the ceiling. Also, the guano which soaked through and stained the ceiling over many years wasn't much fun.
With our prayers,
Glausers
You and Louie are amazing! Hang in there with the piano. I never had a lesson but taught myself to kind of play the right hand with hymns. I ended up playing the opening song in the Swahili branch Relief Society room. It was quite funny. Recently we bought a used keyboard for our Christmas devotional at home. I thought I would try to learn some of the hymns using the tutorial books the church has but it was a fail. Oh well....
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