Success! I am now in possession of both a Ghanaian driver’s license and a Ghanaian Non-Citizen’s card. The people in the non-citizen office assured me yesterday that when we come back today it will only take a few minutes to get the replacement card. We decided that there was no need for us to get up so early and be the first ones at the office because it would only take a few minutes; we should have known better. A few minutes turned into 2 hours! The officer was having a hard time entering the data because she had never done one on the new program. She had to call her manager a couple times; they had to send new PIN numbers and the finger print scanner did not work well! They had to rescan my finger and thumb prints at least 8 times! Not only did they have to rescan them I had to use all my force to press my fingers on the machine and someone had to hold more pressure on top of them! That was just crazy! If at any point one of the fingers did not scan the whole thing had to be redone! It is not like my hands are crippled or something! Ha! The guy that was entering my information in the computer said, “You have been in Ghana for long!” (meaning a long time) One of the questions on the form is, “When was your first trip to Ghana?” My answer is 1970. That really is a long time. Steve’s first trip to Ghana was 1981.
We had big plans to go around to the small grocery stores and see what we could find. No store carries everything; one store might have mushrooms and another one corn and yet another one chicken breast. It just depends upon what they have gotten in so mostly shopping is search and seize. If you see it, you had better buy it because you might never see it again! Our plans were cancelled because it was too late by the time we got all the necessary things done.
Steve has been having trouble with the small printer scanner that is hooked up to the lap top; the red ink will not print even though he tried 2 different ink cartridges. We took it to the repair man today; he said that the ink was bad; he added water to the ink and got it to print very faintly. That is good and bad news; the good news is that the printer is not broken; the bad news is that the printer is archaic and the cartridges are hard to find. The last ones we ordered off the internet. The problem with scanners / printers in Ghana is that they are all archaic; they might be new in the box but they are still too old to update or buy ink for.
It was almost dark by the time we pulled into the mission house this evening. Divine was in the lane waiting to see us. He is working on plans for a hospital in his village. He does not understand that you have to have land papers before you can start building something; especially like a hospital! They are heavily regulated by the Ghana Government even if they are private hospitals. We tried to explain things to him but he does not believe us; he thinks that because it is in the village and the chief has given him the land, he is free to build whatever he wants to build. I got on the internet and sent him the documentation that tells what you have to have before you can build a hospital or a clinic. He said that he talked to one of the MP’s (Member of Parliament) and he told him to go ahead and start molding the blocks. The MP has never built a hospital; how does he know the rules and regulations? Divine will not be happy when he reads the material we sent him.
Take care and enjoy your day!
In HIS Service,
Steve, Kandie and Skeeter
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