Monday, 3/22/10
Pastor Joseph came by early to share the bad news but to rejoice with us at God’s protection. Several of the young men at our compound began to reveal the wicked nature of thugs like these and the murderers who were still at large. It was a sobering thought that these people were willing to cut off fingers for a wedding band and the police are very little help. If the police found the bad guys they would just confiscate the stolen merchandise for themselves or accept a bribe to look the other way. This whole ordeal has disgusted me. The officials here are corrupt, from the ‘Bishop’ at the Foreign Ministry, to the guard at the airport, to the checkpoint thieves with a rope across the road. Unless the rule of law becomes more important, it is just a matter of time before the wicked rule, and I hope I am wrong.
We then headed to MO Agriculture to pick up our promised letter. Logan, the Deputy Minister, was cordial and interested but when Tito came in, the one in charge of the NGO approval process, he said the procedure was wrong and we had to go to the Minister proper. That would have been nice to know three weeks ago. That office was way across town and we had no one inside that office to move this project forward. Nevertheless we determined to go by there today with a new letter of request and all necessary documentation to keep the process moving. We were in our last week and had not accomplished our primary goal.
We stopped by Broad Street for more legal copies of our documents and since we were so close we stopped at Diana’s Restaurant, for a clean, good, Philly Steak and Cheese sandwich.
Back at the office we prepared the paperwork for the next step with Agriculture and rushed over there before they could leave for the day. When we walked in, the Minister herself, a warm friendly woman named Mrs. Chenowith, invited us right into her office. As we explained our need and the confusion at the other office she immediately called Tito and demanded he bring the letter to her at 7:30 the next morning and that they should not delay us any further. We spent over an hour with her and became dear friends. She was excited to hear our proposals and pledged any assistance she could give to speed us on our way. She happened to be very fond of Moringa and consumed it daily so she needed little convincing of its merits.
When we left her office, completely exuberant at the change at Agriculture, we immediately caught a ride on a government bus packed with people and we didn’t even care. I got on the bus first and Isela jumped on behind me. When I sat down, my backpack was up against her. One of the Liberians said, “Sir, you are pushing the lady”. Of course I said “Hey, that’s no lady, that’s my wife”. Apparently they had never heard that one before because the bus exploded with laughter as they repeated the punch line over and over. We had a great time all the way to that ELWA Junction. We needed a taxi and met Ebenezer who gave a lift the rest of the way. He will be on our list to call when we need a good taxi man. After we got home, I needed to buy more Moringa seeds so we visited the woman near the home of Honorable Blamoh and purchased the rest of her stock. She sold me 265 seeds for $10. I had paid $8 for the first batch of 125 seeds so I felt ok. She was poor and really needed the money. I later found out I could get 72 per dollar.
Oh Well,
Another Day,
Fred and Isela