Tuesday and Wednesday

Bishop in Accra, working on forms, visited, shopped (found a great Cold Shop, butcher, in reality a stall with a huge walk in freezer, have nice chicken) and then electricity off all evening :( it came back on just before midnight.
today...++++electricity yahoo, cleaning (I hate cleaning), got a call from Hannah (first woman priest in the diocese, getting ready for a leg prosthesis) she sounds good and hoping it will be soon that she can be on two feet, Dean is packing as his farewell service is this Sunday, I will miss he and his family. off to use the mop ....  lol

forgot to post this  oopsy

its Thursday

mtg. with bishop, he will be back tomorrow, restarting a craft project that I started maybe 10 years ago, cross stitch for a pillow, had to sort the colours first, I have several projects in a box at the cottage just waiting for a restart  cant get pics download, no idea why but try tomorrow

lots of typing today

working on lists that have not been updated since 03, paper stuff for synod, trying to teach embroidery to Sr. Benedicta Anne, I guess I learned to sew so young that I cant imagine never having held a needle but she wants to make purificators and put a cross on them for the first time so we will learn,
for the first time I bought food off a street vendor, near where I buy my cokes she makes deep fried plantain, did it ever smell good, so because I was not going out today and if it went straight through me I would be close to the toilet, 1 Ghana Cedi (33 Canadian cents) I got some, ate it at lunch and no undue consequences   yipeeeee
they look like turds but very tasty    internet not working for my phone...will send pic tomorrow

Sunday evening and the hydro is back after being off all day

played  YAHTZEE with Deborah, Dean's granddaughter. her first time and won all three games. not fair  :( 

when its hot, play in water to cool off  so I washed cassock and surplice, a couple of hours later had to run like mad to get stuff off the line as it rained with a blue sky.
My shower stall is shower, laundry room, broom closet, kitchen sink and dish drainer all in one

repairs even on Saturday evening

the windows are glass louvers, narrow slates of glass that really never close tight but since it never snows, it's ok, anyway I had one that had slide out of the track 2x so black duck tape to the rescue, I have 4 colours of duck tape here as I would not like to be caught short     lol

embroidery

asked to teach Sr. Bendicta Anne how to embroider, I have a small kit from 'Michaels' so we will work with that on Monday. If anyone has embroidery hoops hiding in a closet never having seen light for years, I would be very glad to make more room in that closet by taking them off your hands so the students at the Skill centre can also learn to embroider. Let me know..

no hydro, no water

thank goodness I did the dishes early as promptly at 6pm hydro went bye bye and so did the water, the dean had suggested I fill a pail of water so I'm set for the nite and I am sure that promptly at 6am all will be back in order     thanks for batteries  and a slight breeze      oh  hum ......  

MODELING THE DRESS

I thought the Dean was taking a pictures but a little video instead and I talked thru the whole thing
and as luck would have it I have been asked to be on the Committee to plan Synod, oh my!

no electricity all day

a bit of a pain, hot actually, went shopping with the old car, could not get it started but the driver, Matthias has a magic foot as it always starts for him :(  ugh.   so after shopping waiting impatiently for the hydro to return at 6pm, which it did, 30 minutes later it went off as we had a very windy rain storm, another 30 minutes it came back and I set up all my stuff to get recharged, I ws sitting outside chatting with Mary, Dean's wife and her visitor, I talked about the orphaned Canadian Geese that are raised and taken south with a light plane as their leader, neat project back to work tomorrow if we have hydro otherwise its a rest day.

Rita

Gifty called that Rita had surgery yesterday, is doing well and will go home in a day or two

forgot to show that I exchanged the dress

this is the choice now
it actually hangs straight but I set the front up so one can see the design

St. Anselm's Day on 21 April

Today is the day that this saint is celebrated. I have been learning all sorts of things about him in order to say something tonight, very neat guy, he fought the authority of the king, slavery and fought for the independence of the church from the government. He thought that faith in God came first and then one sought deeper understanding of God to inform one's faith. Interesting point of view. The kids are on vacation until May now so no kids at the back of me playing for a week or so.

no electricity

only batteries and flashlite

a day of rest

got up and dressed for first service, did not feel well, nausea so I begged off church today and went back to bed, got up at noon. still not feeling great but ate some lunch, felt worse so planned to lay low all day, Dean and Mother came after church to check, read in pm and then Atta and Mother were 'pounding' to I went out to watch and chat, feeling much better actually, so Atta had to leave for a moment so I picked up the pound stick and for a few minutes  I did the pounding, then granddaughter took over and then Atta was back, then I sat on a stool and gabbed, Dean like to give 'assignments' he was in education before he was ordained, my assignment for the Tuesday service is to talk about St. Anselm, patron saint of the cathedral and the 21st is his day. and what influence is he today, I guess I will have to get to know him, thank goodness for internet and Wikipedia

cute eh, in grade five , loves to read books about astronomy and greed and bible stories, so if you see these topics at a garage sale, I can bring them back in October when I return

WEDDING OF AGNES AND ERIC MENSAH

wedding at the cathedral, the expectation is that all clergy are present so there were 4 priests and 1 deacon, last year I did not attend and I was asked many times...where was I so I learn the drill.
of course with such a service the electricity went off at 6am and so Mr. Generator to the rescue

for an 11am service, starting at 1130 not tooo bad start and I walk back in my door at 2pm. The rest of the clergy are still there and they have services tomorrow. Being a priest here is an endurance test for sure. What I found most unusual after the wedding was the fund raising for the couple, GC100 is shouted out by the MC and then who ever wants to give that much comes forward (Last week exchange rate was 3 GC for 1 Canadian dollar), then the amount goes down to 50 then 20 then 10 then 2 then 2 GC, there was also an offertory during the actual service. Its now just after 3 and I am home and the mother of the bride brought me food (a container with rice, salad and chicken with a can of pop) this is the standard meal at all events, maybe fufu (not my favourite at all) instead of rice and occasionally fish.
                  tasted great!!!

Bulletin

cakes with bubbly

 

dancing back after signing the register etc

 

  

 

 new to me that when the bride and groom are going to sit down behind the table facing the congregation, they only move when money id put in front of them, hence paper on the floor
 

FIRST PICTURE IS TAKE WITH THE CLERGY

I'm standing beside the dean and to his right is Fr. Martin and to his right is the retired dean of the cathedral Very Rev. Daniel and behind and between Dean and Fr. Martin is the curate Rev. Nat

 

What can I say, they are married

so I can not get rid of the underlining .....   oh well

 

So electricity back at 6pm and I plug all electronics in to recharge ........like spaghetti junction

Well that's all for today and back for 2 services starting at 7am tomorrow

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

new game on my phone

it is keeping me very entertained

THIS AND THAT

went to Immigration today to get the application to get my date stamp extended (its only valid for 2 months and that will be up the beginning of April)
to Melcom's for rice, found masala spice which I love and put it on everything almost,
ran out of ink in printer and yesterday Jo Jo looked in Sunyani but none was to be found, Dean phoned a friend in Kumasi who ordered some, and then Emmanuel texted as now he is working and living in Kumasi and was coming to Sunyani this weekend and did I need anything WELL I need ink but how to get the money to him, I was told you can wire money using one's phone number through MTM (phone provider here), well it was not simple, I had parked on the side of the road, got into MTM office and then was told I would towed from where I was parked, so needed to move car to a space in front so went around the block only to miss the parking spot so went around again to finally get parked,  back into the office to figure out how to get the money sent, the hitch then was that the phone I was sending to, was not registered to Emanuel so they have another platform (they call it, another way to send money)  sent the money that way, cost a bit more but it worked, I just got texted that he has the ink so I will be back able to print on the weekend  yipeeeee  no Staples open 7 days/ week here to run and get office supplies unfortunately, here first you have to find it and then it needs to be in stock and then if you have the money, you buy it. I think it is called THE PROCESS

no hydro

no hydro when I got up and was off until after 6 pm, I guess they are doing load shedding( rotating cutting the electricity off ) as they have more demand than supply. I quickly plugged everything to charge up and put chicken on for supper , I was going to go out but the car would not start and it was warm so I read instead and called Mathias, the driver who is the source of all car fixing for me
I bought a bag years ago in Cape Coast made from plastic sachet bags (500 cc of water are sold in bags like sandwich zip lock bags but are heat sealed) a bag of 30 sachets cost 3 GC (about $1 Canadian and that is the water that I drink)   see below from Cape Coast

so I told Sr Mavis about these bags for her Skill centre to make, recycle does not have a following here in Ghana so there is considerable little black plastic bags and these sachet bags thrown away. 

I have trying to figure out the easiest way to assemble the bag and as I fell asleep last night the solution came to me even though I was not even thinking about it, our minds are a wonderful thing eh!

so I have used a stapler to fasten the sachet sacs together and will take it all apart when I go to the Skill centre and get them to sew it with the sides and bottom having cloth for decoration,

I will bring a few home for you to see but they will cost next to nothing for the material as they can use left overs scraps for decorating and collect the bags anywhere, I just save the ones that I use  --- not going into garbage but recycled  and save the environment. it  take some sweet talking for them to be used here unfortunately, take time this recycle stuff

• this is my prototype not finished but I will take it apart at the centre, one sachet is at the bottom next to the stapler so you can see what I am talking about. 
  

Back to work Monday

Newsletter finished and gone to print. Started working on documents for Synod in June, water was off all day yesterday and did not come back until after lunch today so the shower tonight looks really good,  Update: Heard from Gifty that Rita feels better, can eat without pain & surgery is on the 20th

Sunday with the unexpected

yesterday the dean was informed that the preacher for today was not coming so he asked me to preach at the English service at 7am, so after due deliberation I had some words on paper to say

During the gospel processional the dean asked if I had a printer as his printer was not printing today's bulletin properly, I asked was I to preach or print the bulletin as I could not do both and the sermon was next, preach and then print the bulletin he says, so I did, talked slow and I think it worked from the response that I got, left during the peace around 815, had some difficulty finding where the bulletin was on a computer but eventually that became clear, I took the external hard drive to my place to print off a master for the bulleting WELL nothing is simple as the document was in Publisher which I do not have on my computer, went back to the techy and he said he would get his lap top and download the printer driver on it and then print the bulletin, WELL for what ever reason the driver would not down load so we could not print SO I thought of taking my printer to the Dean's computer, down loading the driver and printing the bulletin, That's what we did and had a master by a little after 9 for the 9am service, I went back to my place for a drink and about 920 I wandered back just in time to process in. The tecky? sp  produced copies of the bulletin for all, assignment accomplished and all done   fun eh!!!!!!

Today the Society of Mary were in attendance and brought offerings, the priest get goodie bags after service.

Preaching tomorrow at the english service

need to remember to speak slowly, my accent gets in the way often
a dress from the Order of the Holy Paraclete's shop

LOOK GOOD FROM AFAR

TA TA

Car is great

shopping was easier (you realize that is relative given the sun and the heat and everything else)
Rita was discharged yesterday surgery booked for April 20, she is ok
tonight is pedicure night  oooohhh so nice

CAR IS READY TO DRIVE

it is so much easier with the car, old or not, does not matter so off to shop

the old car

no news on Rita
getting the old car to use, got a new battery but its certificate of road worthiness needs to be renew so I hope the bishop can deal with that tomorrow as I don't know how. It will be great to be able to get around a little easier and to get large packages home without a struggle.

Visited the Skill centre for the Order of the Holy Paraclete, a place where women can take a 3 year course to get a sewing skill, making patterns and at the end they get to take their sewing machine with them to start a little business with their new marketable skill.
There are many reasons why a woman could be there: family in poverty told teenage daughter that she needed now to take care of herself,  she could have never been to school, can't read or write or do numbers. may leave a village in the north to get employment in the city with no marketable skills, may turn to living with a man, get pregnant, not get support to raise the baby, has a future with no possibility of getting ahead, maybe not able to even survive. Many variations of this theme result in a woman looking assistance to have a future.
They make dresses, table cloths and napkins, bags, pillow covers with fabric that has been tie dyed or painted at the centre.  They also sell fabric that has been decorated. Daniel is the artist and has a great imagination. I will bring samples of their work back with me so if you are interested, see me in the summer. notice sewing machine wheel is cranked by the right hand

follow up

Rita is still in hospital, tests today and then I guess decide to do what ever needs to get done  .....
will keep you posted
Sr. Mavis has the learning centre where students learn marketable skills, I'm visiting it tomorrow will be able to tell you more after, anyway they go out on Wednesday and sell what they make, they had a stall across from the cathedral so I went to see and this is their merchandise, nice batik, and other things

EMERG IN SUNYANI

 before I describe Emerg at the Regional Hospital, if you are living in a developed country with universal health care, you need to thank God for your health care system
Gifty, friend, calls that she has a woman (Rita) who had a baby 7 months ago by C/S and now she has big time abdominal pain, when she stands up it??? falls out but when she lays down, it goes away and has pain every time she eats,(my guess is that she has an incisional hernia with the skin still intact so is holding her bowel in) has been to the doctor in Kumasi who says it was too late and to a doc in Sunyani that booked her for surgery last month but the machine (??unknown function) is broken so she must rebook till the end of April. Now pain when she eats all the time, so Gifty suggested she go to emerg and asked me to go (wear a clergy shirt of course) but never been to emerg on such a run so I say yes but go to the dean to get hints on how to handle this situation and he very graciously offered to come as well, wearing a white cassock.(he say it has more clout than the shirt), so eventually we all get to the hospital,  patient, Gifty, her driver, dean and me, then the husband comes along.
We pass a 20 bed ward, 10 beds lined up along two facing walls, men and women along with a crib, IV's running, I find out later it is the ward for emerg, then we get to the initial assessment room, 10 stretcher, right touching almost with each other along one wall, no sheets, no pillow, black vinyl covered mattress, many with no side rails and most look left over from WWII, each stretcher has cotton curtains around but they are all thrown over the curtain rail, so everyone, patient and or visitor, has a bird's eye view of everyone else in the room, as it is warm in the room, windows are open with little breeze, To get the patient's chart a family member goes to Medical Records to get it, if you are being discharge with meds, family member goes to Accounting, pays and brings back the receipt to be given the meds, chairs in the hall are only for patients so the sign says, SO Rita is going to be admitted, her surgeon has been called in and Dean and I left.

We with Universal Health care have nothing to complain about, believe me.

and the 7th day He rested

did nothing, read, eat, type some labels for file folders, got up late
GREAT DAY!

EASTER

It was long but lots happened, 50 minutes sermon by the bishop, offertory 1 hour with several opportunities to dance up and give. see below. Mother Felicia leading (white outfit and purple head scarf), then after service  invited to Bishop's for visit and supper, and some to take home, yum .......
video going a bit faster than it happened ??? slow it down

VIGIL

hydro off around 615pm, service starts after 7, generator coming and going, flashlights abound or light from cell phones, 2 young lads baptised, hydro back as service ends, the circumstances does not make easy to carry on

GOOD FRIDAY

started late, the host processed in reverse from the Altar of Repose, I thought there was a 2 hour break between the 8am service and the 3 hour watch at 1pm, nope, went straight through so I had to excuse myself at noon to get my thoughts on the 7th words from the cross, I took the opportunity to eat lunch as well, I had not even printed it as I thought there would be a break. Anyway got lunch and the printing done and got back. When I compare what took place today and what it says in the Priest's Handbook (Anglican) this is more catholic by far.
Lois, Dean's daughter is visiting from university in Kumasi, she is lot of fun, there was lots of different fabrics her mom had, so got a piece and will get it made up, don't know when but soon

it is actually pinker than the picture but what the heck

MAUNDY THURSDAY

started African 7 pm, went along, homily, 4 priests washed feet, Eucharist
and procession with the consecrated bread to the Altar of Repose (Jesus in the Garden), an altar is set up with greenery, candles and a place to kneel in front and the bread is processed to there, The Dean carried it covered, with an umbrella over his head, all the other priests and servers walked backwards as to not turn their back, while directly in front of the dean, one server spread incense and a second strew petals on the floor for the whole procession.
I captured some of it in pictures, incense blurs everything a little but I hope you can get the jest of it.

reading a series where the heros are a group of women

Author Fern Michaels, I suppose romance but really this untidy group of women, the Sisterhood Series, have escaped from jail and now are part of a very sophisticated ring who go after 'supposedly' legit individuals and groups who are terrorizing and bring them to a form of justice, not always legal, not always nice but these women wear the white hats and win,  intriguing plots lines, maybe just interesting here in the heat but I am enjoying their antics, change of plans, have to rebook going to Berekum to be at the cathedral on Easter Day