Recently I asked our supporters to pray for our time in CKY - as
we had a lot of business to do. I
thought it might be fun to share a bit of what we did while we were there. Remember, none of these shops is in the same
place, so a trip downtown, with traffic, can be between 30 min and 3 hours -
one way - depending on the day and time of day.
Grocery shopping -
I shopped for groceries to last for the next 10 weeks. (Unfortunately, I forgot a few things - and
the closest place to buy the few things that I can is a 4 hour round trip
away!) Shopping required stopping at 8
different stores. I found most of what I
needed - though almost all of the stores were out of frozen chickens - they
said that they will be restocked in a few weeks. This time, I only shopped for myself and 2
other people. Often I have a list for
more than that.
I bought 18 lb. of beef chunks and 38 lb. of hamburger - NOT all
for me.
Medicine to restock the clinic and personal prescriptions
- This required stops at 5
places. I got almost everything on my
list - though the blood pressure medicine that we need has been unavailable in
the country for several months.
Piano - We sold a
keyboard to some fellow missionaries.
This required 2 trips to their house - one to drop it off, and one to
pick up the payment.
New curtains and paint - We (and by we, I mean me) have
been wanting to repaint a few rooms at our house and replace the curtains. Thankfully, some colleagues had leftover
paint and also some curtains - which I then had remade to fit our windows. The tailor who did the work was working out
of the mission compound- so that was great - I didn't need to track him down!
New Rug - Of
course, new paint and new curtains means needing a new rug - so I stopped by
the place where they have big rugs hanging over bamboo poles. I looked through lots of them and smelled the
ones that i was interested in (since I sometimes see them hanging in the rain). I finally found the one I wanted and bargained
for a good price.
Printer cartridges -
We were out of ink for our printer - that required a trip downtown and
stops at 3 stores to find.
Various other items - I needed a few random things as well
- a bike pump, a plastic tablecloth for the clinic, two thermoses, rectangular
plastic tubs, welcome mats, and lamps.
Most of these are found in different places (no one stop Walmart
shopping here!). If I need something, I
say, “Mr Bah, I need to buy _____ .” And he usually says, “One of
my cousins sells that.” I found a bike pump next to the place that
sells apples (obviously!!!), and the plastic table cloth and Thermos were in
close proximity. We were driving by a
market and I saw the plastic tubs and welcome mats by the side of the road- so
Mr. Bah pulled over and I jumped out. I
have never shopped at this place before and I was immediately SWARMED by very
pushy men wanting to sell me stuff. They
were a bit obnoxious. I finally bought 3
mats and a tub. I also saw some of the
rubber shower mats that I wanted, but was feeling very overwhelmed by people
and so left them. Sadly, I never found
them again. Randomly, I also bought bug
spray at that stop. The next day, I
showed Mr Bah the lamp that I was looking for and he looked at me with
irritation and said, MOM, we should have gotten those downtown yesterday! opps….
Getting and exchanging money - This requires a trip to the
bank downtown. Occasionally, they won’t
let you have all of your money at the same time and want you to come back
again. Once you get US dollars, you need
to change it into GNF. The current
exchange rate is 8500 to $1 - so for every $1000 use you change, they give you
8,500,000 gfn. Makes for a heavy backpack
-especially when you are trying to look inconspicuous walking down the street. This trip to the bank took a long time
because we had to reactivate one of our accounts - since our team had been out
of the country for several months due to Ebola and we hadn't used the account
for a while.
Paying other missions -
We often owe other missions money - or they owe us money - for
things that we buy or sell or services that they do for us. This trip, we needed to pay another mission
for stuff that we had put on a container.
Paying Mr. Bah his salary - While we are in CKY, we usually have to
arrange for Mr Bah to get paid his salary.
We leave money with other mission colleagues so that he can collect it
at the end of the month. This trip, he
also wanted all of his vacation and holiday pay - so we arranged for that as
well. As a mission, we also help pay for
his kids to go to school, so we helped get him money to register them and pay
for the first 2 months.
Internet stuff -
Internet in the capital is SO much better than the village -so we
typically head to CKY with a list of websites that we want to check out, things
we want to Google, internet banking, downloading files, and SKYPE appointments
with family or others.
Eye clinic - This
trip to CKY required me to drive to a local hospital in search of an
ophthalmologist. I had been given his
name, but he was out of the country and I was told that I needed to speak with
his partners. Unfortunately, I didn’t have email contact with any
of them - SO is required an in-person visit.
I found the office and was able to ask about a baby who was born with
cataracts and where I could refer them to.
Lemon grass - I was also needing to find lemon grass and
was told that there was some on the mission compound. We have LOTS of older people in the village
with arthritis and I was told that I could make a solution by putting lemon
grass in a jar, filling it with oil, and setting it in the sun. Apparently it is good for arthritis
pain. So I sent Jim out to the mission
to get some for me.
Veggies and fruit -
There are several places that I stop to get a 6 week supply of fruit and
veggies. We can also buy stuff along the
road on the way back home.
New kitchen cabinets - We needed new kitchen cabinets made
for the GH. So we called the carpenter,
who came and measured what we needed. We
then bargained for the price. He arranged to make them, and then have tile put
on top. This process required several
phone calls and several trips to his shop to encourage the process. Jim then went and picked them up. Unfortunately, after they were delivered, we
discovered that a piece of the tile on one of them was chipped. Nothing we could do about it…. kind of sad.
But they look pretty good anyway.
DVD restocking - We have colleagues in CKY who have a whole bunch of DVDs that they loan out - so I made a run by their house to get a few TV series to watch in the village.
Phone cards - We
make phone calls by inputting prepaid phone cards -so we needed restock our
supply of those. Thankfully, these are
easy to find at gas stations or with people who walk up and down the street in
traffic.
Things that we often have to do but didn’t this trip : Get new propane bottles to replace empty ones
in the village, restock the guesthouse (we did a bit but our teammates were on
their way down and offered to do it), buy plane tickets for us or Hannah, get
visas or other official paperwork, buy car insurance or paperwork.
Some days, as we are sitting in traffic or running errands, I
think about how simple most of this process is in other parts of the
world. But at the same time, there is
not nearly the sense of accomplishment and challenge there. Here, finding new stores and items is
exciting.
To be sure, shopping and doing business in CKY is not for the
faint of heart. We love visiting and
hanging out with our friends, and then escaping back home to the village!
