Sunday, June 12, 2011

Week of June 6

This week, the phrase “This is Africa” truly was reiterated over and over again. The first couple days were spent with my friends and I with 4 of the orphans at the hospital trying to get them seen by an Actual doctor to treat two herniated Belly buttons, and a heart murmur. After a total of 11 hours spent there, getting yelled at by other waiting Ghanaians, and having a medical officer have No idea what we were talking about, we admitted the utter failure and realized that next time, we will be taking them to Accra, the big city to hopefully get help there.
Paul and I then spent the next 3 days fussing with this whole visa mess. We got up early and took the 4 hour tro tro ride on Wednesday to the Ghanaian Immigration Service in Accra, only to find out that the documents weren’t prepared for us yet so we would need to come back the next day. Well we didn’t have money to stay the night in Accra, so we had to trotro ride back to Hohoe that same night. Then Thursday morning we got up and took the most wretched trotro I’ve ever rode in, but made it safely to Accra. We filled out the forms, and Paul’s older brother Richard came to bring us the money to pay. For me to obtain a resident permit, they require my spouse (Paul) to own land? and have tax slips? haha which is So crazy because NO ONE would have that. So we ended up having to pay for not having those so the total fee was 800 cedis. (including the bribes for the missing information) Paul’s dad had sent Richard a check but the bank couldn’t cash checks that day (typical) so Richard paid for us from his pocket (so generous) and is also the Guarantor for us. Then the officers told us we would have to be coming back the next day for the final signing…. So we slept at Paul’s brothers house that night and then went (unshowered) back to the office Friday. The officers we had paid had forged like a whole file of land that Paul supposedly owned with like signatures, and stamped seals and even a blueprint of the house that was on the land haha I had Never seen anything like it. Paul just said, “It’s how things are done here.” We went up to the main office, and after being drilled with questions by the Head Commander, we were able to have the final signing and officially were accepted for our application of the resident permit. They said it would be finished in 2 weeks, and then from there we will be able to take that and file for the spousal visa with the USCIS office. After going through all that, we just marveled at the fact that the Colonel could really have fooled us that he could be “processing” anything for us… Like there is No way!
 I haven’t really mentioned this in earlier posts, but Paul gave me the most beautiful ring on the day that we were married. Both of our rings were melted from the same gold, and mine had 3 beautiful diamonds on it, the one in the center was from Paul’s mom and it was the biggest and it was square. There was a slight discoloration on one of the holders for the diamond though, so the jeweler that made it said that he could take it and remold the holder so that it fit well. Seems simple, right? Well, all the way back in February, he took the ring and removed the holder needed to be fixed, which would have been great except that he didn’t have enough gold at the time to remold it. So for 4 months, I have been wearing a ring with a missing diamond and going to this guy every week asking if he is ready to fix it. Finally, 2 weeks ago he said that he would start it and have it done by last Monday well long story short finally on Saturday he told us to come for it. He handed me the ring with this like sneaky look on his face (and he’s illiterate by the way so his English is very broken) and it was like Not even the same ring AT ALL. The middle diamond that used to be square was now this teeny circle one and the diamonds were now set straight instead of diagonal, and the gold which before had been thick and high quality, was now this thin unevenness. Needless to say, I had like a meltdown/freakout at the man and just kept yelling, “This is not honest!” Paul also (although much more calmly) told the man that we are Not stupid and that we had trusted him and that this was totally unacceptable. He gave So many excuses but finally after like 30 minutes of negotiations, he admitted he’d taken out the middle diamond and that he’d lost some of the gold when he’d remolded it, (which he was never supposed to remold it in the first place) and said by next Friday, he would remake it again, add the gold back into it and put the right diamonds on it. Such an ordeal and if Friday, it is not done, I seriously am calling the police on him but then haha there’s always the problem that Ridiculously corrupt and will end up making us pay for their help.
     Okay, other than those lovely experiences, my friends Adrienne, Rachel, Julie and Amanda also left on Saturday L And I miss them So much already. They like left us So much stuff though like I’m now stocked up on bug spray, shampoo, wipes, and even some granola bars, Gatorade powder, some tuna fish, and I feel like I’m living in luxury sleeping on the American pillows that they gave me. Adrienne gave me her running shoes which was like the Nicest thing EVER because I’ve been dying to get out and run again and have already started putting them to use. Plus she had a seamstress make us Beautiful matching Batik dresses and I am like in love with mine. I will really miss having them around and us having our “Girls Girls” talks. I just realized that this blog is already too long but I Really was amazed at the difference that they made...

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