Week #6

We met Dr. Emmanuel Kissi and his wife, Elizabeth, this week.  This is a picture of Elizabeth Kissi’s mother, who is 110 years old.  She is very alert.  She does not speak English but responded to all of our questions when interpreted by her daughter.   I cannot comprehend being 110 years old.  It doesn’t compute!

Dr. Kissi is a general surgeon who trained in Great Britain.  He and his wife joined the church in England and returned to Ghana in 1979.  He and his wife have been valuable members of the church serving faithfully in many capacities for all their years here at home.  Dr. Kissi has a hospital named Deseret Hospital.  He walked us through the facility, very proud of the facility he designed and built.  His daughter Elizabeth is a nurse practitioner who works as a midwife.  It is a very nice facility.

Six weeks ago, when we were being oriented, Dr. Stubbs indicated that, when driving, you need to make two assumptions:  #1, the brake lights on the car ahead of you are out, #2, every vehicle on the road, especially the trucks, is going to break down.  We have come to appreciate his wisdom.  More frequently than not the vehicle in front of us does not have brake lights.  We have learned not to look for them.  And whenever there is a traffic jam we have learned to look for the vehicle broken down that is blocking the road.  

Knowing this I have to share a funny incident last week.  Once or twice each week we drive the 25 km to the Missionary Training Center in Tema and back.   The drive takes only 15 minutes (once on the highway.)  It has become a game for us to keep track of the number of vehicles broken down on the side of the road.  Most of them are trucks.  The record, so far, is twenty six. Last week, while sailing along keeping track of the number of the vehicles on the shoulder we noted a large billboard announcing:  “FOR ALL YOUR HAULAGE NEEDS, DEPEND UPON MAN TRUCKS.”  We both cracked up.  First, the word "haulage."  I’ve never heard of “haulage.”  It must be a British leftover.  (I did find it in the dictionary; origin dates to early 1800's.)  Second.  MAN trucks.  What is a MAN truck?  Are there WOMAN trucks seeings that most of the women here carry a lot more on their heads than men do?  Or is a MAN truck a model, like a  KENWORTH truck?  We don't know.  But then to say “depend upon MAN trucks.”   I honestly don’t think there is a truck of any kind, MAN or not, here on the roads that I would depend upon. They all look like they are one day short of their breakdown date.  Maybe I just need to find a REAL MAN truck.  We'll keep looking.

As a compliment to Ghanaian ingenuity, however, when a truck is broken down, a tow truck isn't called.  The truck is repaired on the side of the road.  The Ghanaians fix broken drive lines, tires/wheels/suspension problems, engines, transmissions, etc.  I am amazed at how they can take a vehicle apart on the shoulder of the road, repair it, and get it on its way until its next breakdown. 

 

Back to the MTC.  This is a picture of Elder Fofana.  On Friday we went to the MTC to review the medical records of the new group of missionaries coming in.  This is a small group, about 26 total.  As we were checking them in we talked to one missionary from Sierra Leone named Joseph Fofana.  Marsha and I both looked at him and said, out loud, “What a coincidence, we knew a missionary in South Africa, Durban, two years ago named Joseph Fofana.”  (As explanation, Steve Mann, the mission president in Durban e-mailed us two years ago and asked us to “adopt” one of his missionaries who was spending his first Christmas from home and probably wouldn’t get anything from home for Christmas.  He was a survivor of the civil war in Sierra Leone and had to bury his father and a brother as casualties of the war.  We sent him a Christmas package and then communicated to him by e-mail during the remainder of his mission.  He has been home for about six months. We last exchanged e-mail messages about two months ago.)  This missionary at the MTC looked at us, thought about our question, and said, “he is my brother.”  It turns out all the boys in his family are named Joseph Fofana, each with a different middle name.  The missionary who served in Durban has a middle initial of “D.”  This new missionary has a middle initial of “A.”   

This second picture is a missionary who had his left arm amputated as a child.  He was in an altercation with some school kids who injured his arm enough that he had to have it amputated.  He is the dearest of young men.  Very sincere, and very smart. 

Marsha and I continue to enjoy ourselves.  We do not think about “home” now.  Accra has become our home.   We love what we are doing.  We love the people we are meeting.