Money Matters

This weekend we went to Kumasi, a great place to get authentic kente cloth and wood carvings for a great price. So on Wednesday, I headed to the bank to exchange the remaining US dollars I had into Ghanaian cedi.

I've noticed before that Ghanaian banks just aren't the same as banks in the U.S. and this trip to the bank just reiterated that thought. Not S.V.B.T. quality by any means! :)

To begin with, there is an armed guard who greets you at the door("greet" really isn't the appropriate word, as the guard barely acknowledges you, as he points to the queue in which to stand). So I stand in line, quietly, as it was very crowded in the bank, but no one spoke, and when they did, it was almost a whisper.

I finally get to the teller who doesn't smile, say hello, or ask how he can help me. Rather, I inform him that I would like to change my American dollars into cedi. He takes the money and does the transaction without saying a word. As he hands me back the cedi, I ask for a receipt to keep for record, specifically asking for the rate on it as well as how much cedi I got back. A standard request in the U.S.

So I begin counting the cedi to see how much I got and he hands me a rolled up piece of paper, taped. I grab it without looking at it and continue counting. After I count my cedi I look at the "receipt" to see if how much I got back matches what the receipt says, and the paper is BLANK. I don't know what he thought I asked for,... or if he gave me the paper so I could write down my own "receipt"?... LOL Oh man!

Frustrated at this point, because I have no idea if he has given me back the right amount, I just crumple the piece of paper, leave it on the counter and walk out.

The friend I was with just says. "T.I.A." I look at her and she elaborates. "This is Africa." LOL. The whole ISEP group uses this term when something like this happens, whee there is nothing we can do except just go with the flow.

So in the end, I still have no idea if I got the right amount of cedi back. For all I know, and would not doubt it, the teller just got an early pay day.