Junie's Online Thoughts
Thursday, January 16, 2003
All computers are down in town except for the few with really fast connections (more expensive too). This will be short. Im waiting on this painter guy to show up. I had been waiting a half an hour already and decided to go and come back so I wouldnt have to sit on the wobbly stool anymore. Olivia, this gal I met a long time ago in the Geek Corps, got a bunch of paintings from him. I figure that if I drop her name, I can get a good price too. When I arrived (this is the fifth time Ive been to his shack and he's never there), his assistant showed me a scrap book of his work. Turns out Ive seen this guy's stuff at all the local galleries. Now I wonder how much he will be...Olivia said he was cheap, but then again she went to a Park Avenue doctor and worked for an IT company in downtown NYC. I think her version of "cheap" is different than mine...but its worth a try.
Otherwise, not too much thats newsworthy. Saw a drumming group last night. Cooking dinner for the complex tonight (peanut spicy stirfry). Going to Kokrobetay (spelled wrong...its a beach) this weekend and Kumasi the week after next. Dropped off all the papers at immigration so at least we are in the queue for a six month renewal.
Tuesday, January 14, 2003
Back to Legon to try and get a letter that mentions both our names and is made out to immigration. We didnt get it, but saw our friend Lothar present his research. He did well...and he had a car so he could give us a ride home.
Tro tros raised their prices, but ensured that only three people can sit per row. (hooray! this means that you are not crammed five to a seat, sweating like pigs).
Talked to MArgaret and Auntie C. Changed the kitchen lock. Found another key in Kwajo's room that opened our bedroom door. This, sick as it sounds, made me feel better. Had we been smarter and locked ourselves in while we travelled, Kwajo still could have gotten into our locked room. We still would have been screwed. Margaret talked to three cop friends and they went to Kwajo's house to tell him that he would be responsible for anythign else happening in the compound. And Richard, the owner, called him to say that the police had picked up all of these fingerprints in our house and he needed to come down and give his fingerprints. He refused, but if he is scared, then it did the trick. Margaret didnt want to involve the real cops because of two reasons. If the cops, corrupt as they are, think that this amount of money is always kept at the house, they will come themselves or tell their robber friends and steal from them. OR they will go to Kwajo and he will pay them off to end the investigation. Better to use her cop friends and just try to put the fear of god into him. Thats it for now...
Monday, January 13, 2003
Super slow connection today. Argh. So we talked to Auntie C and Margaret again yesterday. They agreed to pay a month's rent for us (actually, it was a longer story. Their brother, who owns the complex, is a real dickhead. He kind of screwed us when we first got there because he didnt tell Margaret we were coming until a few hours before we showed up. Then when she told him about what happened with Kwajo/Cojo, he was like, "thats not my problem." Well, it is your problem. If tenants get robbed at his place, soon people wont want to come to his place to rent. Anyway, Margaret and Auntie C and their two other siblings are getting the money together on their own to pay for our rent for a month. Again, a nice gesture, but they seem really wishy washy about involving the police and making sure Kwajo doesnt get away with it.) Margaret was cleaning out his old house and told us that it was him. That he had forever been telling Margaret how he had no money, but then he came in a taxi to gather his things, and Margaret later found out that he had paid 1.6 million cedis for a place somewhere else to stay. (That 1.6 million cedis was from us, Im sure....as well as the other $400 still floating around in his pocket.) After he was fired, the other staff came forward with stories of his suspicious or stealing behaviors.....why they didnt share this information months ago is beyond me...what help does it do now when hes gone with our money? And besides being a thief, Kwajo is apparently a pedophile as well....Margaret said he was having sex with 11 and 12 year old girls...they had caught one girl hopping the fence to go to his apartment, and when caught she spun thirty minutes worth of lies. Whose to say if Kwajo paid her father or her for anything he did....its still messed up and sick....all the more reason to kick him out if Margaret knew this before. She's got daughters of her own and just the safety issue along would make me say, heres the door you sick son of a bitch.
They changed our lock and will change it again today so its not a lock with a skeleton key (Kwajo knows how to pick those.) We've been locking up the place like Fort Knox now....not like we have any money left to steal, but it psychically feels better to know that if any robbers came back, they would have about ten layers to get through to get our meager valuables. We are going to talk to Margaret again today to stress that we want them to go to the police. I guess here in Ghana the police are corrupt as well...they have no real power and serve more as meter maids than anything. If you have a case that you want investigated, you basically have to pay the police off to look into it and then theres no guarantee that they will do anything for you. Its so nuts. I dont want to be resigned to, "well, the cops wont help so why bother?" because what if they do help? What if we can retrieve some of the money? What if he could get punished? He's not going to stop this behavior if he gets away with it you know?
When we told the rest of the folks in the big house, some of them had stories about Kwajo...that he had come to a party in November and totally scoped out the place, that a camera had gone missing that night, that he acted strangely and some didnt trust him. We didnt get those vibes at all from him...wish we would have....wish they would have said something to Margaret before if they felt this way....so much inaction from people with vibes. Dont know if its just that people dont want to trust themselves if they distrust staff here, if they dont want to get in trouble if someone is falsely accused, if they figure they should mind their own business....there are just so many people who saw him do strange things or act strangely that he could have been fired months and months ago....and none of this would have happened. Its so frustrating. Sometimes I just forget about it all, and other times it still makes me feel sick to my stomach. I keep having dreams about vengence. About hiding in our apartment and catching him in the act, about beating him up, about focusing my rage onto him. Blech.
Yesterday & Saturday we needed distraction. We saw Monster's Ball at Busy Internet. Incredible movie about loss and grief and power. Stuck in my head all weekend. Went to Jamestown with Tim yesterday to explore. Went to a rooftop dinner party last night. It was a lot of fun, and I could get this crap out of my head for a while.
When the computer is faster and Im in a better place, I will talk more about global consumer culture (with two crazy t-shirt stories...) and about racism in Ghana (or the lack of understanding of it...with one of the same t-shirt stories and reactions to Monster's Ball). Too weary today....
