Hello Family and Friends:
Well another month shot in the butt. Fooled ya, you thought I was going to say week didn’t ya.
Well this might be short. Not much happens these days. But I’ll start with today. Regular start for Sunday get up at 6:30 am and try to be out the door by 7:15 for my 9:00 meeting. But as usual, I checked my emails from over the night to see what happened at the plant and see a text. It read “Hi kindly passby my hse in Rongai. Sick my joints r weak can’t walk 2 our student university hospital 4free trtment. No public trnspot gets there & av no cash 4a cab”. So this was from a guy in the branch that Debi and I have helped with schooling. So when we got to Rongai, we stopped at his house. He didn’t know if he had malaria or food poisoning. He said he had been sick for a couple of days. We started off to take him to the university hospital but along the way we ran into a traffic jam. So he directed us in another direction. Along the way we had to take many alternate routes because of something going on in town. We finally made it to the hospital where we dropped Benjamin off at the door. I gave him some cash so he could get a ride home and we headed back to church. NOT. The Nairobi marathon was being run today and the city was a mess. Imagine I15 and I80 being shut down in SLC and you can get an idea of what it was like. I tried back tracking to get out of the mess but some of the roads we had traveled were one way and that didn’t work. And the roads in Nairobi make no sense like the roads in SLC. None are straight and it’s a mystery where they go unless you live at the end of the road. So after fighting traffic for about an hour and having already missed Sacrament meeting, we finally recognized a street (at least Debi did), and we were found. Started making a B-line to the church and ran into more traffic. Turned around and tried making it a different way and ran into more traffic. So I finally said I’d had enough traffic for a Sunday and went to the shopping where we buy our groceries for the week. Traffic in Nairobi is a nightmare. I’ve said it before and it gets reinforced every week we are there – anything goes on the road here. It doesn’t matter which side of the road you drive on, which way you drive, whether it is on the sidewalk or shoulder. There is little road rage here, it’s amazing. If this happened in the US there would be mass murder on the highways.
Anyway, all said and done, it was a good day. We took care of a brother in need. Had we gone to church that’s what we would probably have been taught. So maybe we passed the test. On the way home got a text that read “Hi bruv I was diagnosed as food poison. Maybe I consumed some unsterile food. They gave me some medicines hoping I’ll get better. I appreciate ur hand. We’re family”.
Work is continuing to improve little by little. Found out during the week that we will probably have to make the improvements recommended out of profits and not a loan. The Board doesn’t want the plant to take on more debt. So all the improvements discussed may take a little longer than planned to put in place. On the personnel front, I continue to get hard working people into the right jobs; which is very good. There are a number of slackers that just got new bosses. Some of the most worthless people thought they should be the boss just because they had better educations or thought they were smarter. They had a rude awaking this week. One guy put in more hours this week than he ever has. He was the type of guy that came in at 8:00 to 9:00, left for breaks and lunch and was never at the plant when there were problems. This week there was a serious problem and his new boss was there from the start to the finish. So the marginal employee was there to show he added value to the repair process. Anyway, the plant will do better with people who care and work hard.
One other item of note, a young man we have climbed with came in and told me he and his family had no food and he wanted some money. I gave him some and then the next day his friend came in and told me he had no money and needed money. Word spreads fast, I don’t know who to trust. I could give away every dime I make here to people that ask for money. I’ve decided to take a different approach. They make bead work here. So I’m having them make bracelets that have UTAH, WYO, BOISE STATE, IDAHO, and (clear my throat), BYU. I’ll send some of them home with Shena and Debi. I think they would sell at tail gate parties, etc. So give some thought on how to distribute them. They are nice bracelets and could be sold cheap.
Remember to vote this week.
Love you all
Dad/paul
No comments:
Post a Comment