We are at the Relax Lodge in Tamale. We are spending the night here tonight. We came to Tamale this morning to renew our resident visas. We planned on leaving at 7:00 this morning but then we remembered that Mr. Iddrisu would not be around to pay the other workers so we had to stay at the mission house until they all showed up so we could pay them. Amama called and said that she was going to be late because she was going to stop by a friend’s house and pay her respects. I did not understand if she was going to see a new baby that was born or if she was paying her respects for someone who died. I know that is a big difference but remember we are dealing with a serious “language barrier”! While we waited for her to arrive we went to the Center and helped the ladies see the babies. We finally left the mission house around 9:30.
We were successful in dropping off the forms for our visa renewal and we got our non-citizen cards renewed. We will pick them up in 2 weeks. It is always disconcerting not to be in possession of our passports. Of course they gave us a retention form that we are supposed to carry with us in place of our passports but there is no way you can travel outside Ghana with a piece of paper that says they are holding your passport.
We also stopped by and picked up the rubber stamp for the church at Salinkuka. We stopped by the auditor’s office to see if he had the new documents for us. He is working with the Registrar General’s office to get some of the errors corrected. On the original document they have our nationality listed as Ghanaians. Hardly a day goes by that I am not thankful that I was not born a Ghanaian woman. They have such a hard life and have to work so hard for everything! God knew I was not cut out to be a Ghanaian woman.
We also have 3 boxes of books that we are to send by public transport to Bro. Richard Gyan-Mante for the school he has started. The books are reference books for the library. They will be put to good use. We got to Tamale too late to get them on the bus that was going today so we are spending the night so we can send them first thing in the morning before we head back to Yendi.
Take care and have a great day!
In His Service,
Steve and Kandie
