Our 60 days is up now in just over a week, and we still haven't been able to renew our visas. Not because they haven't let us renew them, but because we haven't had time to go to Accra and get it done. So this morning Joey talked to the guy from the church who is in charge of all the travel and visa renewing for the missionaries and luckily for us he will be able to take care of it. The only things he needs from us are our passports, 40 Ghana Cedis and 2 passport photos and we are going to the temple in Accra tomorrow with the branch so we can just leave the stuff there for him to get it taken care of for us. YAY! Only one problem...
The passport photos were an easy one for the guys, they had 4 taken when they opened the bank account in Kwabeng and still have 2 left from that. Easy! But Emily and I suddenly needed a surprise trip to Kwabeng so that we could get ourselves 2 passport photos of our own. The guys needed to go to Asunafo to teach their second class, so Emily and I were on our own for this chapter of our adventure.
So off we went. We weren't thrilled to take a taxi on our own because we didn't want the guy overcharging us because we're two white girls with no escorts, but luck was definitely on our side. Not only did we catch a Tro Tro (pronounced "cho cho" with a slight "r" sound in between the "ch" and the "o" but barely noticeable to the ear untrained in Ghanaian speech) just before it filled up, nabbing the front seats and everything!
To our great surprise the last person to jump in was none other than Nicholas Mensah, Esther's husband! It was such a relief to see a friendly face that we knew and it was easy for us to ask him the price. I'm not sure why asking the driver seemed more difficult, but it was just a nice comfort to have Nicholas there with us.
Once we arrived in Kwabeng our next obstacle was finding a place to take our passport pictures. When the guys went it was quite the ordeal, so they made sure to let us know which place to go to first - but no one seemed to be at either the "bad" place they'd gone to OR the "good" place. Eventually, after going back and forth between the two, someone finally decided to call the guy who ran the "bad" photo shop and he finally decided to show up. I was a little skeptical, knowing that this was they guy we were told not to patronize, but seeing as we didn't really have any other options I was also grateful that someone had shown up.
It all turned out okay though! It was actually VERY fast and VERY efficient. Instead of having to pay 6 cedis each, since we only needed 2 photos a piece, he was able to take both our pictures on one polaroid picture (pretty facinating actually) and once both our pictures had been snapped it was only 60 seconds later and we had the pictures done! Not "BAD" at all! ;) I guess when the guys had gone to him his camera wasn't really working so it took forever before he finally told them they'd have to go somewhere else, which wasted quite a bit of time. It worked like a charm for us though! I loved it!
Then, after the disappointing news that the popcorn machine was not there anymore (which I was greatly anticipating) we then needed to find a way home. Transportation to Kwabeng is always easy to find because it's on the way to Anyinem, which is a main transportation hub, but going back to Abomosu is a little bit harder. We were told when we first got here that we would need to catch a taxi into Anyinem before being able to come back to Abomosu - luckily we haven't yet had to do that, but it is always a trick trying to get something to take us back. The first time we finally caught a taxi, but had to pay a little extra - but this time Emily and I got really excited when we saw the exact same Tro Tro on the way home! We slowed it down long enough for the driver to greet us and then tell us that he was staying :( SAD! But then the driver points behind us and says - "There the bus!"
And oh what a blessed sight the government bus was! Emily and I went running and got on the bus with a really big sigh of relief! We'd made it!!! Our adventure alone was successful, and boy are we ever grateful for that!
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