Accra Adventures

Wow…what a day! I took the day off from school today to go into Accra to help buy tennis shoes for the kids, get started on renewing my visa, and get some groceries…or so was the plan! J Needless to say, things didn’t go exactly as planned. We hoped to leave by 9 a.m., which then get pushed back to 10, because we had an inspection this morning. Well, since the inspection crew arrived late, I believe we were on the road by about 10 after 12! I could’ve been at school after all. However, it was really nice to have a relaxing morning and to take some time to get ready for tomorrow’s inservice.

Well, we braved many a stores to buy shoes for the kids, which was once again an adventure! We’re getting better, though. We bought 30 of the 48 kids shoes, so we’re getting there. After awhile, style and color preferences tend to fade; if it fits, it looks great! :) Because of our late start and the shoe adventure, we didn’t have time to make it to the immigration office, so it looks like I’ll be doing that next week sometime. We started to head for the mall to get some dinner and groceries, but because of a wrong turn, ended up stuck in traffic for quite awhile! Once we finally got moving, we were pulled off to the side by three policemen who claimed we ran a red light. (Note: If you are not fond of sarcasm, read no further!) Hmm…who would’ve known there was a red light??? The cars in front of us, behind us, and beside us all were charging through the same “red light”. Considering most of the traffic lights here don’t even work (literally…most aren’t lit at all), I have a hard time believing that we really did, or even if we did, it was impossible to see it because of the crazy rush of the traffic and people. However, they said we did, so I guess there was no arguing.

Here’s where our adventure really begins…the policeman hops in the back seat of our truck, claiming he’ll need to “arrest” us and take us to his office so he can fill out the paperwork for Papa Jim to go to court tomorrow. So, he directs us through the crazy traffic, and I kept thinking that if he really claimed to try to protect the people, then perhaps something should be done about the fact that no one follows any sort of traffic lane rules, there’s pedestrians running out in front of cars, and a bike that swerved right in front of us. He talks around and around in circles—making it quite obvious what he was after. Then, after leading us off the main road onto some other side roads, he tells us that he’s stopped taking us to the office…I’m still wondering if this “office” even exists! So, instead we go out to the main road again (which we just came from about ½ hour earlier!) and meet up with another policeman who repeats what he heard happened and says he’ll need to fill out the paperwork to go to court tomorrow. So, we agree and wait patiently—knowing the whole time that all they really wanted was a bribe! About 45 minutes after we were “arrested” (ha!) and 5 policemen later, I think they finally realized that we weren’t going to bribe them, and they let us go with a stern, “Next time you see a red light, you better stop!” So much for policemen doing their job!