Writing to the blog requires 3 things: time, energy, and something to say. When things are really quiet and we are in a ‘waiting’ phase, there is not much to say. This week has been very busy and I am simply behind. I have several reports and projections to do but I sense I am coming into a slack time and will be able to catch up. Wednesday we heard from Emmanuel and the contract with TIDD needed our company stamp. We didn’t have one. So we traveled in the heavy traffic to downtown Adum and Marlayne remembered from LAST YEAR where there was a stamp maker and recognizing the street suddenly cried out “turn here” and then stop and park here. Sure enough he was just around the corner exactly where she had remembered. Hard as it was to do, I told her right there she was a keeper!
I am not sure how rubber stamps are made in Canada, but at this place the vendor is just a clerk who calls the stamp maker (his brother) on the phone and we wait for 5 Ghanaian minutes for him to arrive. (Nearly 20 Canadian minutes) When we had decided on the layout of the stamp he went to work, pulling up a piece of car inner tube and cutting off a rectangle of rubber with a scalpel made of a razor blade tied to a stick. An astonishing young man with eagle eyes and a ‘mirror image’ brain does the stamp all by hand with a small metal ruler and his razor blade; we left him to his work to return on Friday with 7 Ghana cedis.
We bought groceries on the way home and I topped up the fuel tank with petrol for my trip to Assin Fosu on Thursday.
It is difficult to determine travel times here because what few signs there are very seldom give any mileage, and it would not help a lot unless you knew that the road was or wasn’t under repair and whether or not it was good the whole way and whether or not it passed through a ‘market village’ and you have to wade through gridlock for 20 minutes. I was told about an hour to Obuasi and another 1.5 to Assin Fosu so I allowed 3 hours and left at 6:30 for a 10 o’clock meeting with Maria. I stopped at a sawmill along the way and Maria called at 9 saying she had arrived while I was still about 15 minutes out. Maria works on Can. Time and said her driver unexpectedly showed up on time also. The government official with whom we met was less than helpful and at the end of the day we returned to our respective homes branding it as a useless trip.
Friday morning began at about 5 AM with a ‘shots fired’ Police incident less that a block from our house. Details are not suitable for Blog publication. I began with a jog and report writing while waiting for a phone call for a meeting. A lengthy and somewhat more fruitful meeting ensued and then the dreaded trip into Adum in Friday rush hour traffic to pick up the rubber stamp. A beautiful job, correctly done, very tiny, and very hard to believe it was done by hand. We headed for TIDD with our prize, nearly drowning in traffic up to our ears. The official, Mr. Odum was not in at TIDD but I must “Please wait, he is coming”. Upon being ushered into his office I produce my prized rubber stamp only to discover that he had not accepted the contract documents and had sent them back with my supplier, 03 Company. I will duly stamp our Company name under my signature and re-submit the contracts. Fortunately none of this slows production.
I went to the internet and did some research on cooking with steam ovens and took Felicity home so I would know where to fetch her for Saturday mornings’ early session with folks at home on Skype.
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