We're getting busier all the time

 A lot of the motorcycles here have umbrellas.  It's for the sun and more importantly for when they drive in the rainy season. They never go more than 20 mph so I guess they don't blow away. The motorcycles are taxis. They can take three or four people squished on to the seat. To take a motorcycle cost more than to take a taxi because the motorcycles can weave in and out of traffic and get you there faster
We visited the compound of an NGO who would like to do projects for us. This seems to be a tradition where they will hang signs welcoming us.
This is the management team for the NGO called Surido. The man standing next to me is the owner and is partially blind. In the past missionaries like us usually did smaller projects and then directly employed contractors to complete them. Now we have a mandate to do larger projects so we need to work through implementation companies that can handle larger projects.
Part of our priorities is to work to improve the public schools. We went and met with one of the school districts presidents. This is the school that he has his office at. This is the afternoon session so it is just the upper grades. There are a thousand students in each of the two sessions. I asked him why there are so many empty desks. He said that because this is the first week back at school that most students don't come at the start but take a few weeks to get started.
This is the school inter Courtyard area or playground. The school also has a cafeteria that will serve a meal. The cafeteria fixes a big pot of food and is staffed by the parents.

 This is the route we took to get to the school. The road kept getting more narrow because the merchants on the side kept encroaching on to it. It went from two lanes each way to one lane and then barely that. Traffic was horrible.


This is Elder Knolls. He is from Karen's Ward in Palmdale. The young missionaries live in a different world than we do. Their apartments are pretty humble. Although I've been told they've all recently got air conditioning and generators for the night time. They also travel on foot or with public transportation. I think they're only allowed to use the motorcycles for public transportation in an emergency with Mission office permission. Most of them live outside of the major city so there is only modest availability of western style groceries. In many cases they would have the most Church experience in anyone in their branch where they serve. More than half of the young male missionaries here are from africa. All of the young sister missionaries here are from africa. There are about 160 missionaries with 14 of them being sisters.

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