Today was again a slow day for the kids and me. Catherine did a homework assignment on Nelson Mandela and Leonardo da Vinci. Mark focused on chemistry. I worked on a paper for the upcoming Ghana Institution of Engineers Annual Conference. The “slow day” reminds me of the opening lines of Paul Simon’s “The Boy in the Bubble,” the first song on Graceland, which turns thirty this year. Thirty! Ouch.
Indeed, “the sun was beating” today as it always does. It seemed all the stronger for the fact that we had three bouts of dumsor, and each time the flat warmed quickly. Tracy was told by the Commonwealth porters that repairs were ongoing to the electrical system, necessitating the outages. When she asked if the new generators would kick in, she was told that there was no fuel. When she asked if she could get fuel, they laughed. (“It is a biiiig generator!”)
Tracy, on the other hand, had a busy administrative day, including gathering eight pieces of paperwork for each students’ resident permit, necessary because their three-month visas expire in the first week of April. One item, University of Ghana IDs for the students, is not yet ready despite repeated promises. The university switched ID vendors recently, causing significant delays. Welcome to Ghana where nothing is ever easy!
—Matt
