Wednesday, March 1, 2017
Mike's 60th birthday.
The General YW President and the General Primary President and their husbands
arrived today to do training. The amount of work behind the scene is astronomical.
They will do training tomorrow and then leave on Friday morning. There are 368
Auxiliary leaders, branch presidents/Bishops, district leaders/Stake leaders, mission
leaders signed up. Sister Clawson is providing lunch and supper. She has also arranged
for transportation for all the outlying leaders and housing for them for overnight. She is
"molly mormon" times 2.
We are working with the Sierra Leone Road Association on a huge 16-stall toilet at the
local bus stop. There are no public toilets in Sierra Leone except a small 6-stall toilet at
the bus stop that cannot service all the people. The project has been approved on
condition we get a signed paper from the Director of the Sierra Leone road Association
stating that the right-of-way behind the bus stop can be used for the toilet. The man
who has to sign the paper has been dodging us for weeks and would not give us an
appointment. The Chief Engineer of the SLRA wants very much for this project to go
through. Sierra leone's sanitation problem is beyond huge. He told us that if we would
come when the director was in, he would see us. So, when the director came in, the
chief engineer called and told us to come right away before the director left. We went
and met with the chief engineer who is very easy to like. He told the director we were
there and the director made us wait for over an hour before he would see us. But that
gave us a wonderful opportunity to visit with the chief engineer and the engineers that
work under him. When we went in to meet the director, the chief engineer made the
introductions. Remember accents are heavy and people are hard to understand.
Neither Don nor I caught the full name of the director and Don was questioning what to
call him. The director said just call me "as is". Don said rather dumbfounded "I am not
calling you "as is". The director said, it is easier than calling me Mr. Kamara. The
engineer reached over and lightly touched Don and said his name is Asis and
pronounced "as is". There was a round of laughter and the ice was broke. Humor is
wonderful.