Week of August 1

The biggest news of the week, well even of the last seven months came finally came! J My resident permit is ready which means that we can finally apply to the U.S. Embassy and get this process actually going! The four months that were wasted thinking that “the Colonel” was handling everything are in the past. Once we got the news, I contacted the USCIS Office within the U.S. Embassy and we were then informed that we had an appointment Monday, August 8…. Tomorrow! We have been running around the last couple days in Hohoe getting all the requirements done for the petition that we are filing. It took 4 visits to 2 different internet cafes, a trip to the bank, and tonight we are meeting with the court magistrate to be their version of a notary to stamp a sworn affidavit that our marriage is real. Paul just keeps saying, “the U.S. does not mess around!” We are leaving at 2 A.M. tomorrow morning to take the four hour drive to Accra, going to the Ghana Immigration Services to pick up the Resident Permit, finding a forex bureau to change money and then heading to the Embassy for our interview at 2 p.m. and I just pray that all goes to plan (for once).

Other than that, this last week was sad because my friends Tina and Chelsea left back to California. It always makes me feel a stab of homesickness when people here pack up and head to the airport haha just because sometimes it feels like I’m never getting there. I really miss them though and I loved having them here. I am now friendless again which hasn’t happened for over 3 months now so it’s different. Paul and I have been watching the series Planet Earth though this last week which we are like addicted to. It’s been like “cold” here for Ghana this last week too, causing us to put our fan to the lowest setting (never happened before) and only really having it on to keep away the mosquitoes.

             I have mentioned this before as well but Black Magic is a huge belief here, and this week a pastor came with us to pray for the family and talked A Lot about Juju and the evils of the spiritual world. He told us that his dad had been a fetish priest and he’d witnessed his dad performing all the evils that could be practiced. On top of voodoo dolls being used, he said that people would come to his dad to have him call up their enemies’ reflection in a mirror, and then he would stab the mirror with a knife and blood would rush from it and the person, being miles away would feel the “spiritual stab” and would die. He did say though that if the person who he was trying to kill was strong in the Lord, then when he called them to the mirror, instead of their reflection showing, fire would appear and no harm could come to him.  Which he said, is the reason why Africans are so religious. He did a few other things that I had never witnessed before and it was one of those experiences that made me stop and think, “wow I really am living in Africa.” Hopefully next week, I will have good news to report on the visa proceedings, until then please keep us in your prayers J