Burning Concrete ?

First stop of the day... after paying the power, water and phone bills ... was to head out to the village to see Aigoola... She had another batch of blankets ready for us.. so we loaded up the van...


Torat had brought her sewing machine into town yesterday to have it repaired.. it had stopped working properly.. so we had brought it with us to the city to get it repaired under warranty... On the way in we discussed how she was starting to get more orders from in country, and we are going to help her expand that part of the business so that soon she will be self sufficient... We discussed that maybe it was time to get a second machine.. especially if this one was getting so much use, and as well Aiperie was home on weekends to work as well.. Well we got into the sewing shop, and the man took one look at the machine, looked up and said .." Man have you ever used this alot!... what are you doing .. running a business...?" he then asked what we were sewing... when we told him mattresses and blankets, he just shook his head... he then said " This is what you need" and he brought us over to a commercial machine that they use in the sewing factories... it was a very nice sewing machine, good and solid... for then next few minutes, the conversation got faster and faster and louder and louder... then all of a sudden "SUOW" ... which means Finished... I asked what has just happened here... they told me that not only did we get the commercial machine for only $20 more then a regular sewing machine, we got the table and everything.. even the over sized motor and special foot for sewing think mattresses and even leather.... So I guess it was a done deal... Anya sat at the machine and stepped on the petal and fired the piece of cloth across the room... man is this think fast....

We brought it out and set it all up for Aigoola... she was very excited.. but she is always so reserved that it is hard to tell what she is thinking... but there was no trouble knowing what Apiry was thinking when she saw it... sew was excited enough for the village... it turns out that it is the same machine that she has been trained on at her sewing school... she loves it... then as things have started to settle in , the phone keeps ringing from Aigoola to say how much she loves it, and how much faster and easier it is then the other one... We laughed and said that one day she will have a big factory with 20 of these sewing machines working... Tomorrow when she comes to town for material, we are going to be pricing out what it would cost to rent a small container at the bazaar... we have 3 orphanages, an invalid home and several families that we work with, not to mention honey , mattresses and blankets that we are pedaling around the valley... we have been doing a bit of the math, and think that we could set up a consignment shop and have enough stuff to fill the shop with out any trouble... Not only that, but we may be able to employ a couple people to look after the shop... we will crunch the numbers tomorrow and see if we can make this happen... This will not only give them an outlet to sell there things, but it will give a place that people can go to purchase traditional crafts with out having to drive to the capital...

From there we went to see Vera to have a meeting with her.. we learned that she had a need for blankets for the kids program that she has there, as well as for some of her families... and we just happened to have a Van full of blankets....

When we got to the seniors home we met with the director ... I knew through the grape vine that they were having difficulties with the fire martial... he is concerned that if this all concrete building was to catch fire, the seniors would have a hard time getting out... basically the same thing we faced at the orphanage a few months ago... The director is new to all this, and does not know how to do the dance.... In fact I think that she just aggravated the situation, and the fire martial was ready to shut the home down.... So Anya and I went to meat with the Fire martial... When he saw me he said that he had heard of us, and knew that we cared for the seniors and orphans... he also recognised that we had helped with the extinguishers at the orphanage... he then thanked us so much for helping... I shared with him that we were not interested in a big fancy building, but that it was very important to us that those we are helping are warm, have food, and are safe... I then thanked him for his part in looking after the people in this end of the valley... We told him that we can see he does a very good job and thanked him so much... this was easy for me to say because it is a very truthful statement... in fact in all my years here I have never seen one of these big concrete buildings burn down, so he must be doing a good job... of course most of that was the inside of my head voice.... but in the end, we walked away with 6 fire extinguishers , a letter saying that everything was inspected and good, every one happy , the seniors home still open, and he has agreed to put the order for central system smoke detectors for the orphanage and seniors home on hold for another year until they are able to find the money to put them in....
I don't know about you, But something happens to me when I get a fire extinguisher in my hand... Oh I just want to pull that trigger so bad !... Anya was relieved I refrained.....