Emmanuel U. Okey (O.K!)

Emmanuel is the Mission Maintenance Man I work with. He loves his truck. It is a silver Toyota Hilux and is about 3 years old. He is responsible for every aspect of the Missionary Apartments. This includes keeping water available, propane gas for cooking, sprayed for bugs, fumigated for larger critters, paying the electric bills, negotiating for new apartments and moving missionaries from apartments we are vacating. Emmanuel is a man with many talents and we work well together.

To give you an idea of things he encounters, I will give you a partial list of the things he took care of over Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday the 21st through the 23rd of April 2008. Bright and early Monday AM, he left Lagos for Akure (Uh-coo-ray) some 150 to 200 Kilometers north of Lagos. Two weeks ago he had negotiated for a new apartment for 4 Missionaries who serve in Akure. He moved them from the old apartment to the new one. He assessed the work to be done to refurbish the old apartment so it could be turned back to the owner. He hooked everything up for the missionaries at the new apartment; water, propane, etc. He made sure their mosquito nets were hung and the nets (screens), doorways and window surroundings were sprayed with Permethrin, the insecticide we spray on every possible surface to keep the critters at bay. Next, he hooked up their water filter and verified it worked. Every apartment, including ours, has a water filter for drinking water, tooth brushing water and cooking water. He visited every apartment around Akure, Ife, Ondo and Ibadan. They are pronounced Ife-Ee-fay, Ondo-On-doh, and Ibadan, Ee-bah-dun. At every apartment he tended to water, propane and electric bill needs. This required three days and two nights away from his home and family. He has two boys and a wife. He signed lease documents and delivered N240,000 (just under $2200 in US dollars) in cash and checks to the apartment owner. This pays for 2 years, in advance. That's the system. You pay rent, in advance for a minimum of two years. Some leases have been in place for 20 years. The 240,000 Naira is a significant sum in Nigeria, considering many people subsist on 100-200 Naira ($1-$2) per day.
The working folks' incomes here are way different than what we would consider acceptable. Emmanuel, for instance is paid very well for Nigerian standards, at about $400\N50,000 per month. He also gets reimbursed for up to $900\N100,000 per year in medical expenses and his compensation package covers school tuition for his two sons. His comp package is very good for Nigeria, but is not much money when calculated in American dollars.

Emmanuel, repairs and replaces almost anything needing work, with the exception of electrical repairs and plumbing. There seems to be an unwritten, but strong rule, that those two trades do those types of work and Emmanuel can do everything else. He changes the filters in the water filters on a schedule like I wrote about in an earlier blog about the faithful filter. There are three filters and each gets changed at differing intervals. Every two months for filter #1, every 4 months for filter #2 and once a year for filter #3. He puts bunk beds together, fixes them, transports propane bottles to every apartment, moves literature and Books of Mormon, everywhere they are needed. Emmanuel Okeh is definitely, OK!