Monday, October 24 (is this working?)

Happy Birthday Dad! The big 5-5.

I have posted most of what happened today so I don�t have much to say
tonight. We didn�t have power until about 8:30. Being in the dark sucks. But
even worse is being in the dark without the fan on! I do stand by what I
said about generally loving the weather, especially when I got an email from
my brother saying how the sun set one day and didn�t come back for a week.
Enjoy the cold suckers!

A few days ago, I wrote about how funny the kids were. Now I have one about
how bratty they can be. We travelled to Bonwire, about 30 km from Kumasi. It
is a big tourist attraction because it is the home of Kente weaving, so the
kids there are used to seeing foreigners frequently. When our van stopped,
it was surrounded by kids and almost all of them said �Please give me��
followed by either �money� or �a pen�. It�s not that these kids are
particularly needy; it�s just that they know that foreigners find it hard to
say no to children. I smiled and then asked them for money or a pen. I was
tempted to close the window though!

We then went to a place called Atimatim today, essentially a neighbourhood
in Kumasi, travelling on probably the bumpiest road in existence.
Fortunately we were only on it for about a kilometre. Our tanker filled two
huge reservoirs and it was great to see how happy it made the women there.
One told us how happy she was not to have to walk a long distance to collect
water from an unprotected well and everyone else seemed thrilled as well.
It�s pretty strange to think that was about a 15 minute drive from our
office downtown.

On the road, we passed a food stall that was advertising �Spaghetti
bologhice�. Bolognese? Misspellings are pretty common here, so I�ll try and
remember the best ones.

Back to the water project. If anyone is interested in fundraising or knows
anyone who might be, let me know. With as little as $1000 US we can put up a
2000 gallon reservoir that will serve about 500 people a day. There�s no
pressure; I just want to get our work known. It�s a good way to donate (at
least it is to me!) because you know exactly where the money�s going. If you
give $1000, I can give you a picture of the reservoir we put up with that
money and the people who use it. So if you�re ever in Kumasi, you can stop
by and say �hey, I paid for that!�

For dinner we had kenkey and some stew and vegetable salad. Vegetable salad
here comes in a can and from what I can tell, it is little bits of
vegetables smothered in mayonnaise. Okay, that�s all for today.