Once upon a time in the not so distant past, I considered myself a reasonably productive person. I could get up at 6:30 in the morning, have breakfast, get ready and get Elliot to daycare and me to the office by (or reasonably close to) 8:30, put in a full day of work (including crossing many things off my ever-changing to do list), pick Elliot back up and be home by 5:45, have dinner by 6:30, start bath by 7:30, have Elliot asleep by 8 (in time to catch the Daily Show and Colbert reruns on Comedy Central) and enjoy a couple hours of quiet time in the evening before Dusty and I retired around 10. Here, of course, I don’t have an office to go to, which is good because the traffic in the morning in front of our house is so horrendous, I’m sure it would take me forever just to get myself to work, never mind having to drop Elliot off somewhere besides. And my to do list, while still ever-changing, mostly just expands rather than shrinking.
This week, though, was pretty good, even by American standards. It started Monday with a phone call to Michael at Internet Ghana, who works in their Accra office. Internet Ghana is the Internet provider we’ve been trying to go through to get Internet at the house, but the modems have been “finished” since November, so we’ve been out of luck to this point. But Michael has good news for us. They got a shipment of 100 modems on Friday, but they are going fast. They had already sold 30 Friday and expected them to be gone by the end of the day Monday. Michael is doubtful any will make it to Kumasi. We had to act fast. Michael could set one aside for us, but only if we paid for it in advance, which sounds simple enough, except this is not like home and you can’t (nor would you want to) just give your credit card number over the phone and be in business. So sending money required that someone (Elliot and I in this case – Dusty was out car shopping) take a taxi into town cash in hand to send the money through the bank to Accra where Michael could pick it up and pay for our modems. Despite some hiccups (nothing happens here without hiccups), we were able to send the money and get not one, but two modems – one for us and one for our friends, Lloyd and Jan, who have also been waiting to get one. Lloyd and Jan picked the modems up Friday morning and will be heading back to Kumasi over the weekend, so God willing, by Monday we will be online.
This week, though, was pretty good, even by American standards. It started Monday with a phone call to Michael at Internet Ghana, who works in their Accra office. Internet Ghana is the Internet provider we’ve been trying to go through to get Internet at the house, but the modems have been “finished” since November, so we’ve been out of luck to this point. But Michael has good news for us. They got a shipment of 100 modems on Friday, but they are going fast. They had already sold 30 Friday and expected them to be gone by the end of the day Monday. Michael is doubtful any will make it to Kumasi. We had to act fast. Michael could set one aside for us, but only if we paid for it in advance, which sounds simple enough, except this is not like home and you can’t (nor would you want to) just give your credit card number over the phone and be in business. So sending money required that someone (Elliot and I in this case – Dusty was out car shopping) take a taxi into town cash in hand to send the money through the bank to Accra where Michael could pick it up and pay for our modems. Despite some hiccups (nothing happens here without hiccups), we were able to send the money and get not one, but two modems – one for us and one for our friends, Lloyd and Jan, who have also been waiting to get one. Lloyd and Jan picked the modems up Friday morning and will be heading back to Kumasi over the weekend, so God willing, by Monday we will be online.
But wait, there’s more! In addition to (almost) having Internet access set up at our house, we are also now (almost) the proud owners of a vehicle. This, too, did not occur without its hassles, but car shopping is never without hassles, they’re just different here. After scouring Kumasi for a suitable vehicle in our price range, Dusty was starting to think he would have to make the 6 hour bus trip to Accra to find a car. We weren’t asking for much – reasonably low miles, everything working that was supposed to work, minimal dings and nicks to the body and a good working air conditioner. Then, out of the blue, one of the dealers he had visited arrived at our house Tuesday with a car he thought might fit the bill. It was a bit over what Dusty had planned to spend, but it was also a newer car than we had been looking at, which theoretically should mean it would have fewer potential mechanical problems. I persuaded Dusty to test drive it and he was sold. After settling on a price, the deal was struck. The next step was to get it registered, insured and all that. This would require both Dusty and Steven, the car’s previous owner to visit the registration office and file paperwork. They made plans to do this Wednesday at 10 a.m. Except Steven didn’t show. Dusty called, and he promised he was coming but had just been detained at his office. So Dusty waited some more. Steven still didn’t arrive and (in one of the more frustrating aspects of the culture here) still kept promising he was coming. Dusty finally gave him an ultimatum that if he wanted to sell the car, he needed to come. It turns out Steven really wasn’t able to get away from work to do the paperwork that day but better to say “I am coming” than to be up front and just make plans for another day. Grrr!! Fortunately, he brought the car over that evening so we could drive it until they were able to go file the paperwork to finalize the sale, which now would have to wait until Friday because Thursday was a national holiday. As I write this, it is about 11:30 on Friday morning, and they have made plans to meet at noon. We shall see… I will keep you posted.
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