The Longest Day of Our Lives

---

AN - The longest day of our lives!!! It sounds like we are exaggerating, but we are not. Running around in circles and nothing accomplished, is the title in which I will call this entry.

First thing in the morning we go to:
Jubilee Hall
- 5 minutes walk from our dormitories
- to pay for one months rent
- they tell us: you cannot pay the rent here, they only take key deposit money and to pay the rent we must go to the cash office
Cash Office
- we take the campus shuttle and then walk up a giant hill to get to the cash office, (CHANTEL - walking by what we later found out is the all male dormitory referred to as Commonwealth hall. It would appear that no one in that hall goes to class because they all sit on the second floor and hoot and holler at anyone who walks by like a bunch of frat boys. I give them a wave which is met with even louder shouting and laughter and we both vow to try and avoid that route in the future.)
- it takes us approximately 25 minutes
- we want to pay for a months rent
- they tell us: you cannot just pay for a months rent, you have to pay for it all at once, and that we need to go to the International Office, because they cannot process us
o they are a little confuse to know what to do with us, they pass us to a few people in the office
Reuben’s Office
- we take the campus shuttel again, it takes us about 15 minutes
- we are confused, and tell him our situation
- he tells us: we have to pay all at once, however, just go to the International Office and let them know you are here and need to be registered
International Office
- we walk from Reuben’s office, approximately 10 minutes
- we tell them we need to register and that the cash office won’t take our money
- They tell us: that we cannot register with them, because they were unaware of our stories, prior to the time Reuben has spoken of us when he was in search of accommodations for us. They also say that we are not their students because we are not enrolled in any of their classes or programs. We have to pay the rent in full and in order to pay we need to go to GULF Building, where the Commercial Bank of Ghana is located, and then with our receipt go to the Cash Office, where they will stamp our receipt and then come back to the International Office.
Reuben’s Office
- 10 minutes to walk back
- we tell him what the international office tells us
- He tells us: that their driver can drive us to GULF bank so we can pay our fees
Some lobby of some office building
- 15 minutes drive from campus
- we tell them we need to pay for our accommodation at the university
- They tell us: we are in the wrong building and that the Commercial Bank of Ghana is around the corner.
Commercial Bank of Ghana
- 2 minutes walk from that lobby
- we tell them we need to pay for our accommodation at the university
- They tell us: to fill out this form
o We can barely fill out the form because we do not have a student id or an account number, the man says it’s fine, just fill out what we can
o We also don’t have enough money for Chantel’s rent, I was fortunate to bring a little more US dollars along
o Problem, the bank machine only gives us 800 000 cedis. That barely covers the cost of rent
Western Union
- 2 minutes walk, it’s next to the bank
- we tell them that we need to withdraw more then 800 000 cedis from our visa
- The teller tells us: we should go to ECO bank

CHANTEL - On a side note it would have been easier just to carry on to the bank rather then going back to campus because of the horrendous amounts of traffic around Accra but the driver insisted that we go back to Reuben’s office before continuing on. Reuben then informed us that we need to speak a lot slower to the driver because he had no clue what we were saying to him and I think we scared him a little. Now he seems more comfortable with us and is super nice - he spouts out random information and if we ask him things slowly and clearly he helpfully answers many of our questions. I was later informed by Reuben that I speak too quickly even for him so we’ve agreed that he can tell me to “speak African” whenever I am rambling on. I am getting a lot better and saying things really slowly and pausing to make sure whoever I am talking to is following the conversation.

AN - Reuben’s Office
- 15 minutes drive back to campus
- we tell Reuben that we need to withdraw money from a bank in order to pay for the rent, however, the bank machines we have encountered limits our withdraws
- He tells us: before we drive into the city to find ECO bank, we should talk to the manger at the Barclay bank on campus
- once again we are fortunate enough for Reuben to let us use his driver
Barclay bank
- 8 minutes drive to the bank from Adult Education Office ( CHANTEL - a colleague of Reuben’s comes with us, this sweet little man who ensures us that our struggles with getting anything done are normal)
- we tell the manger that we need to withdraw money on this visa, however, the bank machines only allow 800 000 cedis and we need up to 600 USD
- She tell us: that we should go to the Barclay branch that is located in the city, it’s much larger and they could probably help us

CEDI - Ghanaian currency
1.00 CAD Canada Dollars = 7,930.60 GHC Ghana Cedis
1 CAD = 7,930.60 GHC 1 GHC = 0.000126094 CAD
1.00 USD United States Dollars = 9,208.00 GHC Ghana Cedis
1 USD = 9,208.00 GHC 1 GHC = 0.000108601 USD


ECO investments
- 50 minutes drive outside of campus and into Accra (Chantel and I both think, this drive would have easily taken us an hour and a half, if not more, by public transit)
- we tell the manger that we need to withdraw money on this visa, and we need to withdraw a large enough amount to have it equivalent to 600USD
- they tell us: we are at the investment branch, we need the actual bank, and then the security guard gives our driver the directions
ECO bank
- 30 minutes to drive to the right bank
- we tell the manger that we need to withdraw money on this visa, and we need to withdraw a large enough amount to have it equivalent to 600USD
- they tell us: we cannot withdraw American on any Visa card, and we have to go to the bank machine to withdraw money
o Chantel ends up withdrawing 2 900 000 cedis, (CHANTEL - I ended up having to withdraw it in 800000 portions because that is the max that you can take out - we figured that the reasoning behind this was because that is the largest stack of money that can fit through the slot of the ATM machine. This totally makes sense but because the value of the cedi has dropped so low it means that we have to carry huge stacks of money everywhere. At first it was fun to play with but now it becomes a matter of where do we shove it all.) AN - add that to the stash we had before and that should about cover rent
o The lady that helps us take out the money, helps us sort and count our money at Western Union, which is joint to ECO bank
Commercial Bank of Ghana
- it is rush hour and it takes us about 1 hour to drive back to the Commercial bank
- we give them the forms that were given to us at this bank earlier in the day and we tell them that we need to pay for our accommodations at the university
- they tell us: that we haven’t filled our enough information to process our request, we need to have an account or a student id.
o They also tell us that we cannot pay in cedis and that the full payment needs to be in USD. CHANTEL - This is after we run around trying to get enough cedis to pay for it and exchanging the last of my USD. This was the ultimate bang your head on the wall moment.
AN - Reuben’s Office
- 15 minutes to drive to Reuben’s office
- we holding back tears of exhaustion and frustration, we both tell each other that everything is going to be okay
- we tell Reuben everything we have done and where we have gotten
- he tells us: that we should go to the international office once again and tell them that we haven’t been able to pay our rent and that we need student ids
International Office
- 12 minutes walk, it takes us a little longer then usual because we are dragging our feet
- we tell them that we were not able to pay for our accommodations because we do not have student ids, nor do we have an account number, therefore the bank will not take our money, also, we were unaware that the rent needed to be paid in USD, specially when our key deposit were in cedis
- they tell us because they were not aware of our arrival, we are not recognize as their students, and since we are doing research it may be best that Graduate Studies and Research Office Register us
o they also indicate that their most likely be a fee of 600 USD to register
CHANTEL - We look at each other and both mentally freak out a little more
AN - Reuben’s Office
- Theoretically it should have taken us 8 minutes to get back to Reuben’s office; however, due to exhaustion and the incomparable heat, I don’t know how long it took us to walk back to Reuben’s office… I think we had both blacked out and some how ended up in Reuben’s office. CHANTEL - So very true.
- AN - We tell Reuben everything that the International Office told us and also about our concern with the 600 USD fee.
- Reuben calls the International Office and tells them that the recommendation from them for us to go to the Graduate Studies and Research Office is conflicting since we are not graduate students. In reply they say, that since we are doing research, that Office would be a better match.
Graduate School and Research Office
- The driver takes us their and Reuben also accompanies us. It takes about 10 minutes to drive their
- We find the sectaries office, the dean is not in. We tell our situation to the sectary.
- He says to us: that he is sure something can be done, however, their needs to be a bunch of forms that needs to be filled out. Usually on normal circumstances, these forms would have been filled prior to our arrival to the university.
o He tells us to come by the office tomorrow, early morning and bring our letter of introduction (that was written by Shaheen) to talk to the registrars office.
CHANTEL - This office was a lot more helpful considering we are more international students than we are graduate research students. Everyone kept saying that we would work something out and not to worry but it also felt like nobody knew that we were coming there and that they had no clue what we were up to. One of the people actually asked us if we had just woken up one day and had decided to come to Ghana. As with SFU international, UofG international kept telling us that we should have done this and that and so and so should have contacted this person and so on. Again, as we had with SFU int. we kept saying we know but this is our situation and this is why we were doing this and whatever else to try and keep them from thinking that we were crazy. The part that got me riled about this was that the I knew the ONE thing that SFU int. had actually done for us prior to this trip was to contact UofG and tell them that we were coming and why. UofG had even responded several times dating back to the beginning of December. Thankfully An keeps ever email she’s ever received so we were able to dig up all the correspondences between SFU int. and UofG int. to show them that we were legitimate and not crazy (at least not in that sense)

AN - By the end of the day, we felt quite discourage and frustrated that we had not accomplished anything!!! However, Reuben lifts our spirits by tell us, everything will work out and that everyone is here to help.

---