More banking madness! Tracy and Stephanie were assured during a morning meeting at Standard Chartered Bank that Calvin’s account would be unfrozen as early as Wednesday next week, possibly later. That’s cutting it very close to the time students arrive for their January-term class.
While they were at the bank meeting, I unpacked some of the stuff that had been stored. Catherine and I were archeologists (opportunity to teach the concept of metaphor to a fourth grader) as we dug through the stuff.
It took an astounding hour and a half to empty two boxes. Why? We ran across several bulbs that needed testing. Catherine evaluated half before she accidentally touched one, burned her hand, and dropped it. Smash! We spent 20 minutes picking up all the pieces with wet napkins. I tried not to think about the mercury released into the environment as the CFL imploded.
We also found an old-school calculator with a roll of paper. (Catherine thought it was a typewriter!) At first, it didn’t appear functional. But, she spent 30 minutes learning how it worked (by trial and error with very little help from me). She tried a few math problems on it, including 84x70. She asked me to confirm the calculator’s answer on my phone, to which I responded “Which fourth grader in this house is learning 2-digit by 2-digit multiplication?” To her credit, she willingly did the problem by hand and correctly found the answer to be 5,880. Rinse, lather, repeat for another fifteen minutes! The large roll of paper is nearly spent after a day of calculating.
This afternoon, I took the kids to the University of Ghana swimming pool while Tracy worked on a paper. Funny, there were pool tables at the pool. After swimming for a while, Mark played billiards for about an hour. Turns out, the loser of each game must pay 1 cedi to the house. Mark found a “friend” who won 6 games to Mark’s 1, so he had to pay up.
Catherine and I spent our time in the swimming pool. Initially, Catherine wasn’t thrilled about the requirement for long-haired people to wear a swim cap. But a very kind Political Science student (Bennis) helped. When Catherine was swimming freestyle, a clinical psychology student (Sedem) noticed and challenged a race. Catherine won handily, as Sedem has only recently learned to swim. I guess the half-season spent as a GRCC Gator paid off. No photos of the pool or the pool, but we all had a good time.
Tracy is now at a three-hour New Year’s Eve service at Legon Interdenominational Church while I’m at the flat with the kids.
Goodbye 2015. Hello 2016. Happy New Year, everyone!
—Matt
