I had made a list of things I needed to accomplish today,
which should take me all over Accra .
By now I own the city, so it was quite easy to chart my way using trotros and shortcuts. First, I had the
project of going back to the W.E.B. DuBois memorial to buy a book of Ghanaian
folk tales. I did find one I liked, and then another, and another, and at the
end bought four, which will add considerably to my load but should also give me
endless hours of entertainment with Ronaldito.
Then I went to the US Embassy, only to find out that I
couldn’t come in carrying a cell phone, and no, I could not simply check it in
at the door. Is that a stupid rule, or what? Who in this time and age doesn’t
carry a cell phone? Fortunately I was on high standing at the W.E.B. DuBois
memorial (after all, I had just spent a small fortune there), so I trudged back
there and asked them to hold my electronics for me, which they readily agreed
to do. Back to the embassy I went, but again I was barred entrance. A helpful
guard took my passport and took it in, and five minutes later he came out to
tell me that I should do an appointment through the internet, and in any case
they were no longer adding pages to passports and I would have to request a new
one. Grrr! I was miffed, planning in my mind a nastygram to send to the
Department of State and my congressman. Afterward I checked in the embassy
website, and they did indeed had there the no cell phones, and previous
appointment requirements. Furthermore, they had a note stating that as of
January 1, 2016 the Department of State was discontinuing the practice of
adding pages to existing passports. Growl! Defeated by bureaucracy once again L
The next stop was the Ghana Water Resources Commission,
where I was going to see if I could buy a 2011 report entitled “A primer for
water conservation, flood risk reduction, and irrigation strategy for Northern Ghana ”, which I thought would make good reading
for my class. After my encounter with American bureaucracy I was jaded about
asking for a report to a Ghanaian government entity, and imagined my inquiry
would encounter all sorts of red tape. Still, no guts no glory, and I stepped
boldly into the foyer. The secretary listened to me with great attention, and
then asked for a moment while she found someone to help me. A few seconds later
a very nice young woman came to my aid, made a couple of phone calls, and the
escorted me to the library, where she searched through stacks of old reports
until she found the one I was looking for. She then asked me to follow her to
the foyer and wait for a minute. At that very moment a smiling big wig entered
dragging an associate in tow, and followed by the biggest policeman I have
seen. His entrance caused a flutter of activity, and I thought that my little
matter was now going to linger until the big wig had completed his business.
Not really, the big wig was asked to take a sit, and my attending angel came a
few minutes later carrying an envelope. When I asked if there was a price she
dismissed the silly idea and wished me a good day. What a good feeling to be decently
treated.
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