Interesting stuff during the week

It is difficult to anticipate all of the construction requirements of our larger projects when we are developing them. We always end up adding something in the middle of the project which requires additional approval. In this case we discovered that a seasonal stream ran between the building and the bathrooms that we constructed. This wasn't evident until the rainy season which occurred during construction. The government civil engineer said that the running water would undermine the foundations of our new structures so we had to divert it. We had to add this drainage canal which ended up costing costing about $9000 . 

This is Wein Town Public School on a Saturday. Government testing is occurring soon and this is an extra exam preparation class the school holds. There's got to be more than 100 students squeezed into this hot classroom.  There were four of these simultaneously being held at the school.

We do a lot of scanning. Usually it's for our project contracts. Most projects have two contracts.  Usually one is with a contractor who is doing the construction and the other one is with the entity that owns the buildings. We have to get a signature from the contractor and also a signature from the building owner or in the case of public schools it would be some regional administrator. Once we get all that we scan it and send it to our area office in Ghana for a couple more signatures of church leadership. I am authorized to sign the contracts with the property or business owners.

Once we get the contract signed then we submit paperwork to have the funding transferred to the contractor.  If we get the funding to the contractor within two weeks of the start We are happy. When our mission first started it took about a month.

Probably 80% of all cell phones in the country are this type. Few have smartphones. That doesn't keep them from watching videos and playing games on them. People buy their cell phone service by the minute. Few have any type of monthly contract. It's not uncommon for us to receive a call and then  have the caller's phone turn off due to their minutes expiring. When that happens we just call them back because they can receive phone calls even without any minutes.

We have a mission issued cell phone that has regular monthly contract service. Overall cell phone service throughout the country is pretty good. There are no landlines.

These little kiosks are where people go to buy minutes for their phone. They're all over the place. they are also able to transfer money.  To transfer money you give the attendant the money and then he transfers it to the app on the recipients phone who then goes to a kiosk in their area and they get paid. This is what the people use because the banking system is so basic and ineffective.

The megaphone you see on the kiosk is one of the more irritating things in the country. It blasts the same message which is usually "recharge your phone" continuously. This is done at the stationary kiosks and also with people that walk through the streets.  

There are a surprisingly large amount of construction material supply stores. Usually they're just kind of beat up small places that sell tile, wiring and plumbing supplies. This place not only kind of looks like Home Depot but is one of the premier Stores in the country. The selection's not much compared to America but for Liberia it's the go to place. The first floor is tools and machinery the upper floors are fixtures like cabinets and counters.

The church has a very effective program called "Pathway" where people can receive college degrees remotely. The problem here is Internet and computers.  Some thoughtful and kind people in America have organized a program where they supply used laptop computers to those who are enrolled in the program. We got to deliver one today.

We were mostly in our apartment this week doing paperwork. Which wasn't so bad because it's really hot outside. We actually felt pretty satisfied with our week because we got our two new projects and one project addition going and almost funded. Paperwork is one of the more challenging parts of our mission.  Fortunately both Cheryl and I and our area office who processes the paperwork have gotten better at it.

We had lunch this week with Marian our area Africa West director for humanitarian services. At lunch we also met President Gifford Nielsen who is a church 70 and president of the Africa West area. He was an NFL quarterback. Nice friendly man.  President Alfred Kyungu is a 70 and second counselor in the area presidency joined us for lunch.

This is President Kyungu. He was born in the Democratic Republic of the Congo. There are 16 area authority 70s serving in West Africa, all of them are Africans.