Friday, March 3, 2017
Cholena's 39th birthday. No! Can that be right? She is still 20 years old in my mind.
Don was up at 3:00 a.m. The sanitation project we have been working on for 4 months
is being scrutinized by a man in Salt Lake, who has to approve the project, but has not
read any of the paperwork we are required to fill out on a project and keeps asking
questions and interjecting his concern about the cost. All his questions are answered in
the paperwork. Everything has been explained as to why we are doing what we are
doing. He has even gone as far as asking other West Africa countries to submit to him
the costs of their projects that are similar to the one we are going to do. This infuriated
Don. Sierra Leone has its own unique problems and we have to deal and work with
those. What we have to do here, is not the same that can be done in Liberia, Senegal,
Ivory Coast, Nigeria or Ghana. Don is so put-out he made out a request (while sitting in
bed) to cancel the project. He had his finger on the "submit" button and then felt he
should not send it. He saved it though. He called President Sesay, who is the
contractor on the project, and had him come over to talk to him before we left for
work. President Sesay's advise to Don was not to do anything until his anger was under
control. President Sesay said he would not be the contractor on the project if the
church made us do inferior work that would not be sustainable. Don agreed and said
he would find another contractor. We came to the office and Don wrote up a scathing
e-mail. He had me read and corrected it and then I advised him to send it to President
Sesay before he actually sent it out to half a dozen people. Instead he called our boss in
Accra, Brother Buah. Brother Buah has a very heavy accent and is quite difficult to
understand on the phone so Don tries to do e-mail with him instead of talking to him on
the phone. But, he really needed to talk to Brother Buah. Don told him everything
including the cost of the project being overly questioned and his desire to cancel the
project. Brother Buah reminded Don that Elder Stevenson, Apostle, told the Director of
Temporal Affairs in Accra to do something for this community. Brother Francis, the
Director of Temporal Affairs, is the one who told Don to "do something for this
community" back in September when he and Elder Stevenson joined us at the PVA.
Brother Buah told Don to leave the project alone and let it go through as is. OK!
BUUUUUT, Don is still concerned about this one man coming back and denying the
project. Don and President Sesay have devised a plan-B and have made several
alterations to the blueprint to lessen the cost but will not meet the needs of the
handicapped. We will wait and see what SLC has to say.