In Which I Mainly Whinge About Having Correct Money to Pay For Things
Sunday, June 18th, Day 45 - Just stayed at the hotel all day, mainly writing. The night before while unsuccessful at attempting to get food delivered I had tried, among other places, KFC, which is here in Ghana. I was unsuccessful the night before, but now I had this idea of KFC in my head, how does the quality compare to that in Australia? The nearest KFC was only listed as a few minutes walk away, but the google map satellite view showed an area that looked more like slums than a place one might find a KFC, so I ordered delivery. Unfortunately when the delivery driver came I couldn't make correct change, he couldn't give me change, and the front desk woman couldn't give me change, so I had no choice but to give him a massive 50 cedi ($5) tip. Chalk it up to being charitable I guess. Food quality was much in line with Western standards, and it was a delicious guilty pleasure Western fast food break from the usual.
That evening while having my dinner by the pool I could overhear three Americans sitting at the bar. It sounded like they were faculty for some college group trip to Ghana. It's really been dawning on my just how many American colleges have trips to Ghana. I suppose it's because Ghana is the safest country in West Africa and has more historical ties (slavery) than the safe bits of East Africa.
Monday, June 19th, Day 46 - I suppose I heard my phone vibrating at 5:40am but didn't stir myself because I didn't think I should have a phone that was vibrating rather than ringing. At 6:37am I realized my phone was definitely vibrating. Because there's no power sockets near the bed (!! a big pet peeve of mine) my phones were plugged in across the room so I had to leap up and run over there. I never did figure out how the phone had become set to vibrate instead of to ring.
The delicious delicious sobolo hibiscus-ginger drink I had had at Kakum National Park -- the previous day I had contacted the company responsible via their facebook page and inquired how I can get some and they had happily agreed to send their delivery guy to deliver six bottles to me Monday. They hadn't mentioned the time. Apparently the time was 5:40am.
I whipped on some pants and ran down to the front door. It would be 90 cedis for the order (15 cedies ($1.32) each) and 30 cedis for the delivery. 120 cedis. I counted the money in my wallet, 99 cedis. The hotel didn't have an ATM machine but the guy at the front desk said there was one just around the corner outside the hotel. So quickly ran out there making my apologies to the poor delivery driver who presumably had already been waiting an hour for me.
Unfortunately the ATM wouldn't dispense any money on my bank card. And then even thoughg only one person is supposed to enter the enclosed room round the ATM at the bank at a time and there's an armed guard out front somehow some random guy was able to enter and beg me for money ("please please I need money for soup"). I was in no mood for this and gave him a mighty scowl fit to deal 2d6 psych damage as I brushed past him and ran back to the hotel. Back to the hotel front desk, I asked if they could change one of my two remaining $100 bills. Nope not at this time.
I seemed out of options, had I just wasted over an hour of this delivery driver's time only to be unable to pay for the goods? In desperation I asked the front desk guy if I could borrow 50 cedis, not expecting a positive answer. Why yes I could. Thank god!
The delivery driver couldn't make any change. Naturally. So I paid him 130 cedis. Actually thinking about it now I could have made 120 exactly but I was too stressed to play numbers games with my available bills and after wasting so much of his time I didn't mind giving him a big(gish) tip (10 cedis, about dollar, it's all relative. It's 33% more than he was going to charge me after all).
Then I went and talked to the hotel front desk guy again. He said when he gets off at 7:00 he could go exchange my $100 for me. I was mildly nervous just handing $100 to someone and trusting they'd come back with change, but I got his name and thought to myself I could make a stink with his employers if he didn't come back. His name as it turns out is Lordly which immediately reminded me that he was the very same person who owed me 10 cedis from last year (he couldn't make exact change and shorted me this amount saying he'd pay me back later)! A debt I've kind of jokingly kept in mind knowing full well the pettiness of keeping it in mind. I mentioned that he owed me 10 from last year but he didn't remember. Anyway he'd just saved my bacon by loaning me 50 so I figure we're even.
He mentioned that the hotel only exchanges USD to cedis at a 1:10 rate, and was that okay. A USD is currently officially worth 11.42 cedis but as I said "well I don't have a choice here now do I so I guess it will have to be okay."
Right around noon Arne showed up with the GIZ vehicle. There was another college group coordinator checking in at the front desk at the time. I went to pay for my meals and my card again declined, so I'm concerned there's something wrong with my card which could be a problem. So had to part with a third of my newly acquired cedis immediately.
Three hour drive to the town of Ho, checked in to the same hotel we stayed in last year. Hotel is kind of weird, it's big and nice and it seems like we may be the only guests. Restaurant looks very nice and elegant and we were the only ones eating there, and it took about an hour for my spaghetti to come out (you may note taking an hour for simple food production at restaurants seems to be a theme).
And then, since Arne had not yet been introduced to sobolo, I gave him one of my newly acquired bottles and cracked one open myself. Mmmmmm delicious.