Kwame’s Quandry

Thanks to two charming acquaintances from the University of Utah–thank you Ruth and Rosey—and our sons in Ann Arbor, the police reports from the Washtenaw County Sheriff’s Office finally arrived in Kumasi.  For those readers of this blog who are thinking of mailing me a Care Package, note that the FedEx Envelope containing the police reports took one whole week to get here at a cost of $118.00.

I was naturally interested to see which felonies I had committed, so I checked out the reports as soon as they arrived.  But no surprises, neither Suzy nor I had any record with the Sheriff’s Department.  However, the report goes on to say that their records may not be complete.  So, if “To Whom It May Concern” wants more information about either of us, they should contact the State Police Department in Lansing!  Great!  Then, they can check with the FBI, Interpol, and Homeland Security to confirm that we are not international terrorists.  Why did the Sheriff’s Department have to create doubt in this report!??  Don’t they realize that I am dealing with African bureaucrats?  I thought I made the purpose of this report clear in my expensively “notarized” letter.  What crime of international interest could I have possibly committed that would be unknown to the police in my own jurisdiction?  Could my visa here be held up because I might have an unpaid parking ticket from Alpena?  [I don’t, by the way.]   But the police reports were on official letterhead, with a notarial stamp, and several signatures. Perhaps that will be sufficient, and no one will actually read them.

Suzy has a travel guide to Ghana that claims that it is much easier to get a visa extension in Kumasi than in Accra.  That sounded good.  So, instead of returning to Accra and the College of Physicians & Surgeons for the necessary letter requesting my extension to one year, I will ask the Provost here for a letter.  He is a charming man, very supportive of my interests, and very helpful.  It seemed more appropriate to approach him, since I am officially a Visiting Professor here, and I am living in Kumasi now.  I drafted a letter, the Provost reviewed it, had it printed on his letterhead, and signed it.  Since time was running short on our current visa – 10 more days, Suzy and I headed immediately downtown to Immigration, which we were told was “across from the Central Post Office.”  [An aside: street addresses do not mean much here.  Most people do not know the names of streets.  Neighborhood names are well-known reference points, and for greater resolution, you must relate the destination to a specific structure.  And then you ask someone.  So, the “address” of Internet Ghana is “behind the Adum Shell Station.”  The location of our house has an official designation with a section and plot number that is mentioned in the lease, but no one could possibly find me with that information.  If I say, “Turn at the red and white ‘pole’ between Gyinyase and Kotei, then ask where the obruni lives” you will have no trouble locating me.]  The Kumasi Immigration Office was indeed across from the Central Post Office, only behind another government building that was directly across the street.  We only had to ask two people to find it.

The Immigration people in Kumasi were indeed very pleasant and much more accessible than their counterparts in Accra.  Unfortunately, they have limited authority (perhaps that explains their accessibility).  This was the plan that the very pleasant immigration officer suggested: we should renew our visas now for two more months (40 cedis for each passport).  Then, when that visa runs out, we should come back for another two-month extension for another 80 cedis.  Then, when those visas expire, we leave the country.  There is no visa that allows us to stay for more than six months.  We need a residency permit to stay longer, and that can only be issued in Accra.  After further clarification, a very nice senior officer was willing to call Accra to see what could be done for us, and he mentioned the name and phone number of Mrs. H, an authority in Accra who could approve such a transaction.  I wrote it down on the back of the police reports.

Since I was not ultimately interested in paying 160 cedis to become an illegal immigrant in 4 months, I decided to lay the problem before the Provost again.  How do they deal with this?  Shouldn’t the University have faced a similar situation in the past? I still don’t know.  The answer may be “no.”  However, when I related the details of my encounter with the two immigration officers and mentioned the name of the authority figure in Accra, the Provost immediately responded, “I know Mrs. H. personally.  She is the Head of the whole operation there.  I will call her.”  And he did, while I watched and listened in total wonderment from the other side of his desk.

So, we revised the addressee of the Provost’s letter, and Suzy and I set out for Accra early the next morning.  Not wishing our plight to be out of Ms. H.’s mind for too long, we went directly to Immigration after our arrival that afternoon.  We never actually met with Mrs. H. in person, but her secretary was very helpful.  For the first time, we got a complete account of what was required for a residency permit, and we had most of the necessary documents already.  She did not seem to be perturbed by the wishy-washy police reports.  Maybe she did not read them, and this will come back to haunt us later.  But she did point out a potential inconsistency in the Provost’s letter that asked for a “visa extension” rather than a “residency permit.”  However, I think I convinced her that an academic surgeon like the Provost could not also be expected to be well-versed in Ghanaian Immigration Law.  He had asked for an extension for one year, and it was up to the Immigration Service to decide how that should be done.  She bought that explanation – at least for now.  But the one additional requirement that we could not dance around, apart from the 400 cedis in cash, was the required medical reports from a Ghanaian physician.

Okay.  So now, we were finally playing in my ballpark.  This was something that I might be able to facilitate on my own.  And I was not disappointed when I called my colleague, Dr. EA, at Korle-Bu, who was both generous and accommodating with his time.  He did a screening physical for Suzy and me.  We had blood counts done in the Polyclinic Lab – results in one hour– and he waived the chest x-rays when I told him that we had negative PPDs before leaving the US.  After two hours, we left Korle-Bu with medical reports, sealed and stamped.  My eternal gratitude goes to Dr. EA for this unscheduled attention.

Mrs. H’s secretary was floored when we returned that same morning with the medical reports and an obscene bundle of currency.  I do not think she believed we could do it before the weekend.  But she looked through the documents again, found everything to be in order, and had another officer escort me to main hall where the hoi polloi wait for their visa accommodations (or not).  There, the packet was handed to a young lady who, after 45 minutes or so, handed me a bill, directed me to the cashier, and provided me with a receipt for our passports.  I was told to return on or after the 14th of December (one month) to reclaim them.  So, will this be it?  Will this be my last trip to Ghana Immigration?  Or will there be some additional, last minute hurdle to jump over?  Will it be the Provost’s request for an extension rather than a residency permit?  Or the indecisive police report?  Or the absence of  a chest x-ray report?  Stay tuned.  I’ll know next month.

Oh, by the way, in case you think that 400 cedis for two residency permits is in some manner excessive, I will relate to you what was told to me by a Ghanaian friend, Elizabeth A, in Accra who has applied five times for a visa to visit the United States.  Elizabeth has a house, a car, and a good job in Accra. For the sum of $135 a significant proportion of her monthly salary, she was permitted to fill out an application and talk to a consular official behind a bullet-proof glass window.  Her application was rejected five times, and she is simply out of pocket for $675.  She bought nothing but the privilege of visiting the Embassy/Prison.  This confirms my impression, also based on my painful experience in the London U.S. Embassy trying to get Suzy into the U.S. after we had been married and living together for 1 ½ years (long story for another blog).  My impression is that immigration officials from all countries, and particularly the U.S., are in the employ of Satan.  I would rather do business with the Sopranos.

So, that is the latest Immigration story.  And the trip to Accra was not a total loss, either.  I saw the Rector of College, I met with Dr. EA (who was delighted with the parts of our co-development project that I had sent him), I met with my senior pathology colleague and mapped out the cases for the Pathology Review, and I saw Dr. AR and set a date for videotaping of a hysterectomy.  December 17th corresponds nicely with my return to Accra to pick up the passports (or not).  I gave Dr. AR a copy of what I had started on the hysterectomy program based on his cases.  He is now already talking about collaborating on another e-learning project for teaching Caesarian section.  Is this idea catching on?

So, the unexpected, unplanned trip to Accra turned out to be a success on several levels.  But it was not a pleasant three days for Kwame, our driver.  And that is what I really want to focus on in this entry.

Keeping in mind that what I am next about to relate has traveled through space and time and across the Language Barrier, this is what I understand about Kwame’s life before the Englebergs.  Kwame identifies himself as a farmer, from a small town that is now a suburb of the city of Cape Coast, about 2 hours west of Accra.  Like many Ghanaians, he has also had a makeshift auto maintenance business that he ran from his house in the village, which is conveniently located on a major road.  His wife and two small children live in that house now, and he sees them once a month – an arrangement that he feels quite contented with.  His older child, a daughter, goes to a primary school that costs the family 25 cedis a month in fees.  His younger son, the toddler, currently stays at home with his wife.  But he will also eventually require school fees.

The childrens’ school fees and the demands of modern life have required Kwame to engage in the cash economy.  He has been a private chaffeur and a tro-tro driver, and his wife earns some cash in the village as a hairdresser.  I do not know what the state of his farm is or who is taking care of it now. He has many primary relatives in the village, and they seem to support his family in his absence, up to a point.

He had mentioned more than once that his wife had not been feeling well recently.  As best as I could understand, her legs were “weak” and she was occasionally dizzy.  This may have been a single complaint.  I am not sure.  But I knew that this illness was stressing him out.  In fact, he had also been complaining of intermittent chest pain, but I checked this out, and it was clearly musculoskeletal in nature.  Suzy seems to think he has had chest pain problems since he climbed a cocoanut tree some time ago, found a snake at the top, and jumped.  Could be.

Halfway between Kumasi and Accra, he received a phone call from his brother informing him that his wife had been taken to the local hospital and had undergone tests and treatments.  She was still in the hospital, and the cost of care (not being enrolled in the National Health Insurance Scheme) was now at “600,000 cedis.”  Now, before assuming that his poor wife had undergone an emergency heart transplant, understand that the “Ghana cedi” only replaced the “cedi” about a year ago.  One Ghana cedi is 10,000 “old cedis,” but many citizens still use the old scale and have a difficult time converting to the new currency.  Initially, Kwame told me that his wife’s bill was “6 Ghana cedis.”  I was skeptical, knowing that his English was not much better than my Twi, and his math was slightly less adept than mine.  In fact, the correct conversion is “60 Ghana cedis,” which would not buy a Band-Aid at the University of Michigan Hospital, but seems to buy comprehensive care in Cape Coast.  Nevertheless, this is a fat chunk of change for Kwame on the local scale of relative values, and I could tell that he was deeply concerned both about the health of his wife, the maintenance of his children while she was in the hospital, and his finances.

When we arrived at Linda D’or, a favorite bus stop, restaurant, and snack bar on the Kumasi-Accra road, Kwame was in a very agitated state.  He didn’t want to eat; he didn’t want to drink, he didn’t even want to use the fine toilet facilities (for only 10 pesewas).  So, we agreed on a plan.  After we arrived in Accra and made our first stop at Immigration, Kwame would drive us first to the bank to get money, then to the tro-tro station in Accra, where we would supply him with 80 cedis.  He would take a tro-tro to his village and see to his wife and children’s problems.  He would return only when he felt everything was in order.  If he returned Friday night, he would drive us back to Kumasi on Saturday morning.  If matters were more entangled, he would stay as long as needed, and meet us in Kumasi when he could.  The latter course would require me to drive the Kumasi road, something that I looked upon as an adventure but with some trepidation.  I had learned some valuable lessons on our trips thus far.  Kwasi has a “Mean Streets” sensibility on the road, and he knows when to stop when signaled from the roadside and when to pass by without braking.

I also wanted to know in more detail about his wife’s illness.  He was fairly convinced, perhaps by his brother, that someone had gotten a hold of some of the wife’s hair clippings — remember she is a hairdresser — and was using them to perform “juju” on her.  Suzy, who is a devout Baha’i and decries superstitions of all kinds, promptly informed him that there is NO “Juju.”   But I do not think he was convinced.  She advised him to see his parish priest to get some perspective (Kwame is a Catholic and member of his church choir).  I thought this was good advice whether the local priest exploits the “Juju” idea or not.

I suggested that he obtain and bring to me receipts for the items that she was charged for in the hospital.  In that way, I could figure out what the doctors there were doing and maybe have a better idea of what was wrong with her.  I assured him that, if his wife did not get better, we would bring her to Komfo Anokye Hospital in Kumasi and have the University doctors see her there.

Thankfully, things turned out well.  Kwame returned on Friday night.  His wife was better.  He paid the hospital bills and gave the rest of the money to his “sister” who is looking after the children in his wife’s absence.  I know that he did not want me to drive myself to Kumasi, but I also feel certain that he was comfortable with the way things were left in his village.

He did bring back the hospital receipts for me to look at: 20 cedis for “admit to the hospital”, 10 cedis for “medicine”, 10 cedis for “laboratory tests”, 20 cedis for “scan.”  So . . . completely useless.  But as long as she was better, I was not going to press the issue any further.  I might learn more than I want to know or need to know at this point.

Kwame also returned with a box of oil filters and a new air filter for the car that we are leasing.  He apparently did not spend any of the money we gave him to purchase these items, and it was not apparent to me who paid for them, if anyone.  He claims that he just “had them.”  Perhaps it was his way of paying us back in kind.  I have not told him so, but I have no intention of deducting this 80 cedis from his salary at the end of the month as I have other cash advances he has asked for previously.

This entire experience brings up an interesting and touchy subject. Based on the local economy, Kwame, Joseph, and Agatha are well-compensated.  To what extent are Suzy and I responsible for the people who provide personal services to us, and what obligation do we have to their families?

I received some guidance on this from the Department Head I work with at KNUST.  We were discussing neighborhoods, and I commented that all of the houses in my neighborhood, completed and half-built, were enormous.  Nobody was building a bungalow for two, or even a four-bedroom house.  The Department Head pointed out the houses were often constructed with separate “apartment” areas internally to accommodate extended families under the same roof.  This was particularly true of Asante families in which kinship obligations take an interesting, oblique turn.  When an Asante King dies, his son does not inherit the throne.  His nephew does.  Nephews and nieces, aunts and uncles, are very important in this culture.  Uncles may be expected to provide material and educational support to their nieces and nephews, even sometimes to the exclusion of their own children, who are hopefully someone else’s nephews or nieces.  A family that can afford to build a house may design it to accommodate nephews and nieces as well as children.  This is the tradition.  But it is changing, the Department Head informed me, as Ghanaians are becoming more Westernized and more focused on the nuclear family.  His own wife and high-school age children are living abroad, where they have access to the best schools, and return home only for holidays and the summer break.  So, the Department Head, an already accomplished academic, lives alone with his caretaker, and spends his evenings working on another advanced degree.

All of the houses in my neighborhood, whether finished or not, are occupied.  If it has a roof, people are living in it.  And here is how this happens: future homeowners here do not buy their homes; there is no widely available mortgage system to permit this.  So, those with means buy land and build a house.  They invest in the construction as their fortunes allow, and thus, the process of building a home is expected to take several years.  During that time, it is customary to have someone living in the house, keeping an eye on the property and protecting the building materials from petty thieves.  The Department Head said it took 7-8 years to build his current home.  The man who is his caretaker now and currently lives in the “boy’s quarters” on his property, approached him early in the building process and asked if he could live in the unfinished property.  When the house was completed, he was hired as the caretaker, although this is not necessarily the rule.  Sometimes when houses are completed, the temporary residents are asked to make other arrangements, and they become temporary residents in some other unfinished house.

Fairly affluent and living alone in a large house, I can see how the Department Head could become very dependent on his caretaker and the caretaker’s family.  They provide the Department Head with real security in his dwelling.  And the Caretaker is certainly dependent on the Department Head.  Were he not so employed, what else could he do?  And the Department Head is generous with him.  School fees are paid, and emergencies are managed.  At Christmas, there is a bonus, so that there are some comforts as well as necessities.

Mutual dependency.  It seems to be the African way.  It is what prevents this impoverished continent from imploding.  The three people in our employ are loyal and dependable.  Although we like to consider ourselves self-actualized, we need them.  I have resolved to make sure that are all enrolled in the National Health Insurance Scheme, that their children’s school fees are paid, and that they get an extra salary by the 15th of December.

Note:
To regular readers of this blog (if there are any), I apologize for the lack of images lately.  My snapshot camera is dead, and my video camera is now also acting up and creating grey bands across the images when I try to play them back.  I must resort to my computer webcam to take pictures.  Here are three new ones, unrelated to today’s entry.  The images show cocoa trees with pods growing on the sides of them.  A friend of Suzy’s is showing us where chocolate comes from.  He is holding two halves of a cocoa pod that he cracked open.  Inside are seeds separated by a sticky white, wet substance that is sweet to taste.  The seeds themselves, the source of cocoa, are very bitter to bite into, but there is a subtle taste of chocolate there also.  Normally, the seeds are fermented and then dried before shipping out to make chocolate.  The last picture has nothing to do with cocoa.  It is a portrait of a student from KNUST that just came out nicely. To me, this picture may say more about Africa than anything I have written.