Of chickens and pizza

Saturday morning I went to Gbarnga to buy another solar battery for the main guard house. Later in the morning I installed a USB charging port that I rigged up using a square junction box, a scrap piece of 1/2″ rubber wood, and a port meant for installing in a car dashboard. This will allow the guards to charge their phones and flashlights while on shift, especially at night.

In Gbarnga, Tumamee and I went to the BRAC office to order the next batch of 250 chicks for delivery next week. Unfortunately, the accounting office is closed on Saturdays. Tumamee called the BRAC farm manager, Mr. Gaiquee, who agreed to deliver the birds and more feed on Tuesday and take payment then.

I was invited by Linda Seyenkulo (Bishop’s wife) to have pizza dinner at her house in Totota, about an hour south of me. Bishop also wanted me to visit his new poultry farm to give advice on the solar lights that didn’t seem to work correctly. Moses and his brother James convinced me to allow them to go for the ride. They just hung out while I visited. Their farm is about 9 miles from the center of Totota in a fairly remote area where they own 48 acres. Upon entering the chicken house I could see immediately that the charge controller wasn’t wires correctly and they were using the wrong type of batteries. I gave Linda and their poultry manager a list of recommendations along with some observations about the chickens (such as the lack of drinkers for the number of birds they have). We went back to her house and she prepared a homemade pizza in a small propane oven. Her house doesn’t have running water but does have municipal electric coming from a small solar farm. We sat outside with a glass of wine and a pretty darn good pizza given the limited ingredients. We talked about family and, inevitability, church politics in Liberia. I enjoyed my time but wanted to get going as dusk approached.

I was able to get Netflix on my phone so I binged on episodes of “The Office” while the network was cooperating.

I started my Sunday morning off with a delicious blueberry pancake breakfast courtesy of a package of dehydrated blueberries I brought from Target. Church was a modified service because Sumo was away and there was a congregation meeting. I hung around and took some photos. The afternoon was spent at a PTA meeting held on the campus.