A few more pictures from the past week in Liberia...
It was great to see Doreen and Emmanuel on Tuesday. Emmanuel is really starting to grow and thrive after his heart surgery in February. I guess I never posted anything on our poor neglected blog after Emmanuel returned from his surgery, but he and Doreen are doing well. Doreen was able to rent a small shop and stock it with dry goods to sell with money that was donated to her while she was in the US. Business is very slow under the current crisis but they are getting by. I gave him a soccer ball to take home with him and when they went to leave he grabbed a second ball and placed it into his bag. Doreen laughed and said "Oh, Emmanuel thinks he's taking all two footballs!" He looked up and smiled at me...knowing I would be powerless to resist his charm...and left with both of his new "footballs".
Utilities around ELWA can be a little tough to sort out after 60+ years of pipe in the ground. We were able to extend water and power to the pad so when the container arrives they can hook it up quickly and provide clean water for the campus. Right now there are sand filters on the water system but all water has to be run through filters at houses and the hospital before drinking. These containers should eliminate that need.
Here a couple of my workers are making a sweeping elbow for our electrical conduit. The elbows that you can purchase in Liberia have a very small radius, making it tough to pull wire through. So they are using a small fire to heat the pipe so they can bend it.
I stopped by one of our security guard's house on Sunday. Sirleaf has been working on the house for quite some time. As they typically do in Liberia, every month he would set aside as much of his pay as possible to buy a few concrete blocks or sand and build as much as he can each month. The project took a turn last month when someone in the house they were living in came down with Ebola. He scrapped together enough money to put a roof over one bedroom and Sirleaf, his wife, two daughters, his son, daughter in law and grandson moved into the bedroom. It is a little cramped but at least they are free of Ebola.
And last but not least here was my office on Thursday. I walked in and it looked like a dressing room. Gentry purchased a bale of long sleeve shirts and was selling them to co-workers. Many people right now prefer long sleeves to cover as much skin as possible while out and about. You can purchase all sorts of used clothing in tightly compacted bales here that comes from donated or purchased thrift shop clothing in the US...so Gentry went out and purchased one to help keep people covered up. I told him I wasn't coming to work the day he brought in a bale of pants!
It was great to see Doreen and Emmanuel on Tuesday. Emmanuel is really starting to grow and thrive after his heart surgery in February. I guess I never posted anything on our poor neglected blog after Emmanuel returned from his surgery, but he and Doreen are doing well. Doreen was able to rent a small shop and stock it with dry goods to sell with money that was donated to her while she was in the US. Business is very slow under the current crisis but they are getting by. I gave him a soccer ball to take home with him and when they went to leave he grabbed a second ball and placed it into his bag. Doreen laughed and said "Oh, Emmanuel thinks he's taking all two footballs!" He looked up and smiled at me...knowing I would be powerless to resist his charm...and left with both of his new "footballs".
Rainy season is just coming to an end. The rains and winds were not kind to the first structure that we built to combat Ebola way back in early April. It was a a triage tent to screen patients for Ebola before admitting them to either the ER or Ebola ward...my how things have grown since then.
Generator problems are never really solved, just fixed for the time being. And for the time being they are running so I moved on to the next project. Three containers with water treatment equipment have been donated to ELWA by Parker Hannifin Corp. Each container will have a sand filter, chlorination equipment, UV treatment, water storage tanks and a pump. To prepare for their arrival we cast a concrete slab near the new well that Living Water drilled for us earlier this year. Here the guys are using the slab around the hand pump to mix concrete for the pad. It made it easy to add water to the concrete mix!
Here a couple of my workers are making a sweeping elbow for our electrical conduit. The elbows that you can purchase in Liberia have a very small radius, making it tough to pull wire through. So they are using a small fire to heat the pipe so they can bend it.
And last but not least here was my office on Thursday. I walked in and it looked like a dressing room. Gentry purchased a bale of long sleeve shirts and was selling them to co-workers. Many people right now prefer long sleeves to cover as much skin as possible while out and about. You can purchase all sorts of used clothing in tightly compacted bales here that comes from donated or purchased thrift shop clothing in the US...so Gentry went out and purchased one to help keep people covered up. I told him I wasn't coming to work the day he brought in a bale of pants!
The rest of this past week was spent at the new hospital site making sure things were secure. When we left in August it was sudden and we didn't really get a chance to walk around on the site and make sure everything was stored properly and covered and secure. A couple of the containers that materials are stored in started leaking so we repaired the tops of all of our containers and repainted them with anti-rust paint. Hopefully the project will be able to resume sometime early next year.
Well I have one more week here before I head back. I'll be going to a private location that SP is having all their staff spend their 21 days in quarantine. Hopefully I will have time to post some more pictures before I go.
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