Changing money!

Last weekend there were a number of news items relating to the new GhC50 note which was introduced in August. Apparently the old ones were not being accepted by some traders and government agencies as they had ceased to be legal tender on 1st October.
That seemed strange to me as I had been to the bank to withdraw some money on 4th October and been given the old notes. As this money was to pay duty on a car we decided that it would be better if we had the new notes as we didn't want our money to be refused adding to the bureaucratic problems.
As soon as the bank opened on the Monday morning I went back to the bank to return the money and ask for new notes. I handed it over to the teller who seemed very surprised to hear that it was no longer legal tender and told me I needed to speak to the manager. He sort of confirmed that I should change it and told me I would have to pay it back into my account and then take out the same amount. I thought this was very strange as all I wanted to do was exchange the notes I had for new notes. Anyway I duly filled in the paying in slip and went back to the teller who proceeded to tell me that I now needed to write a cheque to withdraw the money. As I hadn't brought my cheque book I protested and pointed out that all I wanted to do was exchange the money for new notes and thought all this process was completely unnecessary as it was their problem as they had issued the notes in the first place. After another short phone call the manager allowed her to just give me new notes for the old ones. Of course they weren't the new GhC50 but GhC20!
When I got home I was listening to the news and heard that the Bank of Ghana had now extended the time when the old notes were legal tender as there were not enough new notes in the system!

The goodness of Ghanaians

Last week my sister and her husband came to visit us. It was their first visit to West Africa and I think they were a little apprehensive as they thought they would be constantly bitten by insects, live in primitive conditions and get very sick from eating the food (if they could find any they liked) and drinking the water. However, they were very pleased with what they found here and were very surprised at the level of the hotel we stayed at and the places where we ate out, as the food was as good as they could get in the UK.
They did have some Ghanaian experiences though. Our car broke down in Kakum Forest Reserve and so the three of us had to get a taxi down to the hotel, leaving my husband to deal with the car. We were intending to travel back to Accra the next day and expected the car to be fixed, but it wasn't, so  we had to travel back to Accra by taxi. My husband looked for a taxi he thought capable of making the trip, but didn't consider the fact that the driver couldn't speak English and had never been to Accra before!! Everything went well till we reached the new motorway and I was a bit slow telling him to turn to Tema - forgetting his lack of English -so we found ourself driving through Accra. I drive here and know parts of Accra very well, but not that part. Anyway we eventually found a road I recognised and got home safely wondering if the driver ever found his way back to Cape Coast!

We took them to the airport on Tuesday but we only intended dropping them off, as the airport isn't a great place to hang around. They went off to go through the formalities and we tried to start the car but the battery was dead. My husband called his brother to bring some jump leads, but as he was still in his office we realised it would be quite a long time before he could help us, so he then went to the car parked in front to ask the driver if he had any.
The guy hadn't, but he offered to help by taking the battery out of his own car and putting it in ours and then once the car started we did the reverse procedure meaning we could drive our car home. We were so relieved and offered the guy some money for his help but he declined and said he was just pleased to help. We were very impressed by his actions in helping complete strangers who were in difficulty and it just reinforced in me one of the reasons why I like this country - the people!

Where is Health and Safety!

There is a lot of construction going on around our house and as I watch the various workmen involved in the building work I am amazed that there aren't any serious accidents.
To get the mortar and bricks to the second storey labourers carried them up rickety ladders on their heads. They didn't have any safety gear and were generally barefoot.

Across the road they are putting up the roof. The men working on it have no form of safety harness and just perch precariously on the framework while hammering the next beam in place. I am also sure there is no form of insurance for them or compensation if they do have an accident.
Labour is cheap here and unfortunately the workmen know there are lots of others ready and willing to do such risky jobs!

May blues!

Isn't it funny how bad things always seem to happen in one month in particular? Last year May was not a great month for us as when we both returned to Ghana after a break we found that our househelp had crashed our car! It meant that my husband spent nearly all the month in various workshops getting it back on the road. It also meant we had to sack our househelp and find another.
This proved a headache in itself. The previous guy had lived-in but we decided that we would prefer someone coming in to do the cleaning and another person to do the security and gardening. The girl we employed to clean was OK, but the fact that she travelled in often meant that she was late and to be honest she didn't work as though her heart was in it! The guy who was employed for security and gardening proved a disaster. He was a very well-meaning guy but he was an alcoholic which meant he kept nipping out to get a drink. Also when he fell asleep, which he did regularly, it was impossible to wake him up - a real problem when he was supposed to open the gate to let us in! We finally changed our mind and employed our current guy who now works for us on a live-in basis and has proved very reliable.
This month seemed to going well until a week or so ago. We had a rainstorm which was preceded by a very strong wind. This ripped off the canopy which covers our cars and in doing so damaged one of them. The sides looked like some dememted person had run riot with a sharp implement. It meant my husband had to spend yet another day or two in the repair shop. I suppose the only good thing about it was that the car now looks good and it only cost about US$70! The repair of the canopy was a bit more expensive - around $150. But we have learnt our lesson and will have it checked ever year before the rainy season starts to make sure it doesn't happen again.
Then my husband was driving the car into town and was stopped by the police - the road tax had expired! I suppose there are some advantages in system where a bribe solves problems! For around US$10 he was let off and told go and get it! I was so relieved that it had happened to my husband rather than me as I don't know how I would have coped with the situation.
We now are at the end of May- thank goodness!

Death in the family!

For about 3 months we were caring for my husband's youngest brother. He had chronic Hepatitis B and despite the best efforts of my husband, and his own will to live, he sadly passed away on 17th February.
It is only when something like this happens you realise how 'third world' this place really is.
My husband realised that his brother had deteriorated during the night when he went into his room in the morning and realised that he needed to get to hospital. In the UK it would have meant a phone call to the ambulance service and his brother would have been sent speedily to the hospital, but here there is no such service, and even if there was, the time it would take to navigate the rush hour traffic would have meant it arrived too late!
This meant my husband had to drive him - through the same traffic- to the hospital himself. He says he knew his brother had died even before he reached the main road so he was driving the corpse of his brother to the hospital - a traumatic event in itself.
When he reached the hospital the doctor pronounced him dead and as that particular clinic didn't have a mortuary, my husband had to drive round Accra with the body looking for a mortuary to receive him. Fortunately the extended family rallied round and were there to support him and help him to find a suitable place.
As his brother was a Muslim, it was necessary to get a death certificate so that he could be buried that day. This was another problem as there was supposedly the need for a post mortem as he hadn't died in hospital. Fortunately when my husband produced all the medical reports they supported the fact that he had been seriously ill and after a paper chase around Accra, the body was finally buried that evening.
So you can see, illness and death take on different proportions when there isn't the health service, emergency services and a bureacratic system that works efficiently!

The trials of buying a house in Ghana

For several months now I have been trying to buy a house so that I can get a rental income as money in the bank gets so little interest.
There are lots of houses on the market but finding one that has the necessary documentation is proving very difficult. So far we have been shown documents for the wrong house with a name pasted on and photocopied, documents which claim to show that the person owns the land but it is not recognised by the authorities and a failed search at the Lands Department because the owners had mortgaged the land.
We finally thought we had cracked it when we saw just the house we wanted and the necessary
documentation was held by the bank as the owner had taken a loan using the house as collateral. However when we went to try and view the house we were told there was a tenant and it was too short notice. We then went to talk to the bank and were willing to take the sale to the next stage so sent a sale and purchase agreement to the owner in America mentioning the tenant. He was adamant there wasn't a tenant so we then arranged with his brother here, who had Power of Attorney, to view the house. We organised a time and duly turned up - but the brother didn't!
After the shock of finding out the house was definitely tenanted the brother in America finally decided he would sell the house to someone else!
This week we tried another route - an auction! It was a nice house in a nice area and had been foreclosed. Unfortunately there were caretakers living there - an old couple - who looked very worried about losing their home. We missed out on the auction and I don't feel too bad as I wouldn't have liked to have to force people out on to the street.
Now it is back to the drawing board and we are just waiting for the perfect property to appear!

Christmas time again!

I just looked at my blog, which I haven't maintained this year, and realised that last entry was Christmas last year! I thought that once I retired time would drag but this year seems to have gone more quickly than ever.

As I look back I don't seem to have done that much. I did begin the year by tutoring a Bangladeshi boy who had come to Ghana with his parents and was starting at a school which had British based curriculum. I enjoyed the sessions but not the driving! It usually took me an hour -on a good day- to get to where he lived and an hour to get back. I am not a person who drives for fun and the effort of driving to the tutoring sessions 4 times a week proved too much and so I stopped in March but I hope I gave him a good start so that he could benefit from the things he was learning at school.

Since then I have worked with an Argentinian guy who wants to improve his written English and this is proving much more interesting and as it is only once a week, can face the battle with the Accra traffic.

Apart from the work, we hosted a Canadian girl who is volunteering here in Ghana. As this was the first time for us to open our home to a stranger we were a bit apprehensive about how it might affect our home life but she was the perfect person to host as she didn't intrude into our lives at all and was very self-sufficient and most of all she ate all the food we prepared! As we eat our variation of Ghanaian food with lots of pepper (chilli) that was amazing. At least that was a good preparation for her move to live with a Ghanaian family in the 'bush'! Not sure that living in our house with all its mod cons would prepare her for that though! She'll be staying with us over Christmas so we'll find out how she coped.

The biggest drama of the year was returning from a trip overseas to find that the guy who looked after the house while we were away had crashed our car into the gate post! He had asked the mechanic who had repaired the car if he could drive it back to the house after he had taken if for a test drive - not mentioning that he didn't know how to drive. He must have thought that, because it was automatic, he knew what to do! Of course he couldn't negotiate the entrance to the house and crashed, hurting his own chest and causing the mechanic to break the windscreen with his head!! Neither were wearing seat belts!

It meant that not only did we have to spend quite a lot on repairs we also had to get another person to work around the house - which was a trial in itself!

Here is a picture showing the damage to the car. I think in the UK it would have been a write-off but here the mechanics are able to perform magic and now it looks as good as new - almost!!

However, the saddest part of the year revolves around the poor medical care in this country and the lack of professionalism of the medical profession. My husband's brother contracted hepatitis. Apparently it is prevalent in the village where he lives. In fact, the health department conducted a survey and discovered that about 14% of the population of the village had it. Unfortunately it seems it was only a statistical survey and the people they tested were not informed as to the results of the tests. As a result his brother only found out he had chronic hepatitis when it was in an advanced stage. Then the doctors prescribed a dose of medicine that was designed for people in the first stages of hepatitis and at the end of two months of treatment he was worse than when he started it.

He is staying with us at the moment and it is so sad to see such a young man suffering as a result of such inept treatment. My husband is now doing everything to try and get him well again and we have our fingers crossed that with the correct medication and a good diet and rest, his brother will make a good recovery.

Looking back on the year, there has been a lot of joy and happiness but the worry related to his brother's illness is going to affect our Christmas this year but we can only hope that a New Year will bring renewed hope.