A few months ago Leanne, Amase, Dan Dan and I were out sight seeing. We had two motorbikes and we basically drove around to see what we could see. We saw an old palm oil refinery that was rusting away because of mismanagement, as well as a University of Agriculture and all the nice trees they planted. The weather was nice and the trip was even nicer. After a few hours of driving around, the bike I was sitting on lost its shifting lever and so we had to turn around, look for it and bolt it back on. At that point we decided that we had seen enoug....

Here in Palmgrove one ends up finding many different ways of constructing things.  One that contrasts a lot with what I am used to is the Soak Away.  It really isn't anything new.  It's what professionals might call a septic field tank.  It is a big cement tank in the ground where the sewer of the house goes to.  The sewage soaks away directly from the tank into the ground around it.  That is because the ground around here is all sand which absorbs water really well.  In the time I’ve been here, I have never seen a situation where ther....

Palmgrove Community is building a new school house.  The arrangements for this has been going on for quite a long time.  It has only been in the last month that the actual construction has been taking place.  The organization that has been handling this project, or rather controlling the spending is Word Wide Christian Schools.  The real donor of this school could be said to be Don Tingent.  He and a number of other people were responsible for getting a house built by volunteer work.  The goal was to build a house with as much volunteer w....

Brian and I had an early Christmas here in Palmgrove, Africa.  On August 14 we went to Uyo to pick up our DHL which was sent to us from Crystal Spring.  Oh boy, did we ever enjoy and exclaim over the contents which we opened by lantern and flashlight that evening!From Debra's awesome little package of coffee, to the turbo charger for the loader, to Rachel Basel's diary…;everything was appreciated!!! And still is.  The past month of July was mostly spent not feeling well by both of us - not our choice of a useful or happy pastime.  This ma....

It all started with a little bit of NAPA. It was such a little bit, so innocent, it made the people so happy, yet unknown at the time, it was wreaking havoc on our faithful water pump 100+ feet underground. This NAPA, which had previously ignored us so that we didn't have running water for the whole month of June, came as one phase, when it should have been three phase. The result of this was a long series of tiresome and stressful events, which I am about to relate. June: This month was pretty much dry, as in we didn't have any water. This tra....