I think I will start calling these the “Tamale Notes” instead of the “Yendi Notes”! We went back to Tamale this afternoon to pick up the “Letter of Commit” only to find out it was really a “Letter of Comment”! Language barrier! Yesterday I was talking to my sister Cathy and I told her about the “Letter of Commit”; I told her we had no idea what a “Letter of Commit” was. She said, “I know what it is; it is the letter they are going to use to have you “committed” after you get the lease on the land!
We were at the office trying to pick up the letters when the electricity went off. We paid for the mini survey but were not able to get the real receipt. At least they gave us a “temporal receipt”. We are supposed to go back to Tamale on Monday and pick up the real receipt.
The “Letter of Comment” turned out to be a short analysis of the property. The letter stated that the boundaries of the property did not match with the layout of the town’s plat maps because the plat maps are out dated. They are so out dated that the back portion of the property has not even been demarcated with streets. It just appears to be out in the bush. This information was nothing new to us because they have never updated their maps. The letter went on to say that it was their department’s responsibility to bring the maps up to date and that we had permission to proceed with the lease. We asked if this would cause a problem for us in the future and we were assured that it really did not matter.
We then proceeded to the Land Commission to turn in the “Letter of Comment” and to pay the final fees in the process. Well, guess what? The man at the Land Commission said that we had one more property inspection to do. We told him that we were confused. He said that his office also has to come to Yendi and do an inspection of the property. Please! Is this some sort of weird joke? Are we on one of those hidden camera shows?
The man is supposed to be able to come and inspect the property tomorrow; of course we had to fuel his vehicle to come to Yendi. He said that public transportation was rather unstable. There is no way we wanted to drive back and forth to Tamale 2 times in one day just to get the inspector to Yendi. He also has to write another letter; who knows how long it will take to do that.
We wanted to pay for the actual lease today but the electricity had been off and when it came back on the computer would not work because the server was not working and the computer tech had gone home for the day so they could not generate a bill for us. But they are still supposed to send the inspector and we can come on Monday to pay the fees. Lucky us!
I have whined long enough! We are back safely in Yendi; we drove through some light rain on our way to the mission house. It is still threatening to rain; we are hoping and praying for rain.
Hope you have a good weekend.
In His Service,
Steve and Kandie
