The agenda for today was errands, packing, and departure from Ghana.
Tracy gave a few books on consignment to Books Enterprise. Not that we’ll ever see the proceeds. Even if we did, it wouldn’t amount to much. A previous dropoff netted only 10 cedis.
Sadly, after buying a few souvenirs at Wild Gecko, Tracy accidentally backed into a pickup truck, destroying the left brake light and scraping the Lancer’s shiny new finish. After avoiding (somehow) crashing the car all semester, we have a minor smash on the very last day! Oy!
After calls to Ben at Akrofi Christaller Institute and Sammy at Danestrol Auto Centre, we settled on a plan to right the wrong. Someone from ACI will bring the car to Danestrol for repairs, paying with the last Calvin cash (1550 cedis) which we delivered to the ACI personnel who came to pick up our refrigerator, printer, and car at 11:30. Some quick thinking solved the problem within an hour! Thanks ACI! Thanks Danestrol!
After lunch, Tracy and I scrambled to pack our final things before we said goodbye to C.K. and the Commonwealth van brought us to the Kotoka International Airport.
We breezed through baggage checkin, with all bags underweight. But when moving through security, we were informed that our residency permits had expired. What??!!
But it was true. Although our visas are valid through 20-Sep-2017 (Catherine) or later (the rest of us), we failed to appreciate the meaning of the faint and nearly illegible stamp on the facing passport page which says “60 days.” Like the students, we should have re-upped our residence permit after two months in the country. We were shuffled to a small immigration office with four officers who patiently explained the situation.
To solve the problem, I was escorted by an immigration agent to an ATM outside the terminal building, withdrew the appropriate amount of cash, paid a 720 cedi fine, and obtained a receipt. We were processed through immigration and soon on our way to security. (This is clearly NOT the first time this has happened.) After showing our passports five times and our yellow fever vaccination forms twice, we proceeded to the departure gate and heaved a huge sigh of relief.
As we wait for the flight, Tracy is working on grades, Mark is playing on his iPhone, Catherine is playing Toca Tailor on her iPad, and I’m writing this blog post on my Mac. We are grateful that nothing worse happened and that we had ready access to funds to solve both major problems today. But, three significant challenges in less than 24 hours! Wow! It is a miracle that we’re at the gate. Days of wonder, indeed!
Despite having an enjoyable time in Ghana, I am happy to trade Ghana’s hassles for South Africa’s challenges. Let the “ZA” portion of GHZA2016 begin!
—Matt
