Car Trouble Part II: The Search

How most Ghanaians advertise a car for sale. (Yes, that is a Renault "Duster")

Mr. and Mrs. O's months-long quest for ownership of a vehicle had not gone as swimmingly as they had hoped.

Having done advance research, the couple had settled on their preferred makes and models and started their search in Accra. Unfortunately, the car market in Ghana is very acephalous - there's no authority or go-to place like an Auto Trader magazine or website. Most Ghanaians either sell to family, or they simply post a piece of paper in their back window with a phone number, waiting for someone to drive by and make a call.

There are a few websites, but the simple fact is that expats do not like buying cars from locals. For the average westerner with a western salary, a vehicle is to be kept in the best condition possible to maintain value and image - regular servicing, replacing fluids and parts at required intervals and using reputable mechanics (at the dealership, if possible). When a strange noise is heard, the car goes into the shop. God forbid the police or transportation authorities find the vehicle not legally upkept.

In contrast, most Ghanaians can barely afford to own and operate a vehicle, let alone keep it in top condition. In addition, local roads take a toll on tires, suspensions and windshields, while the. Labour is cheap, but parts are not, so inventive McGyver-like fixes are favoured over replacing malfunctioning parts. Also, manufacturer's warranties are rare. Thus only the wealthy can keep their cars looking and sounding immaculate.

In this way, the local vehicle market is fraught with peril. So the expats tend to buy from other expats via the online community. However, the summer rush of expats coming and going from Accra had ended, so the expat market was quite small. Mr. O made many inquiries, but as soon as the vehicle ads went up, they were sold almost immediately. (The couple's inability to drive standard transmission exacerbated this - they were not about to learn in Accra traffic)

Mr. O tried looking at a vehicle owned by a local. On paper, it was very good. Upon viewing, the vehicle had some wear and tear. He insisted on an inspection by a dealer. The inspection took an unfathomable 5 hours from arrival to departure (lunch starts early and ends late, it seems) and involved a lot of yelling, but revealed that the seller was not truthful in his assessment of the vehicle and that it needed a significant amount of work. Next.

After a dry spell, another promising lead came up, being sold by an African expat. Mr. O decided to take his chances. The initial viewing looked good and he made an offer conditional upon an inspection - this time by a trusted mechanic who made house calls. After an assessment of work needed, Mr. O made a final offer that was accepted.

The next part is tricky: money must change hands before the vehicle is legally transferred. So Mr. O arranged with his home bank (after several phone calls and faxes) to wire the funds to the seller and upon receipt, the transfer started. A communication breakdown at this point temporarily convinced Mr. O he had just gone headfirst into a 419 scam, but as it turns out, the seller was just as nervous of becoming a victim of a wily foreigner.

With the money transferred and the ownership transfer pending, the seller gave Mr. O use of the car. Then the real fun began: on the way home after only a few km, he was pulled over by traffic police for an "infraction". The officers were not interested in issuing a ticket (the money would go to the government, after all), but after dragging his feet long enough, he was let go with a warning.

So the vehicle purchasing saga finally came to an end - for the moment. Next up was a trip to the Driver Vehicle Licensing Authority - a descent into the depths of Ghanaian bureaucracy.

Things Beget Living

It has been a few weeks since the last update and one can be forgiven for thinking that since Mr. and Mrs. O received their sea shipment, they've become so preoccupied with their western foodstuffs and doodads that they have run out of interesting stories.

That is partly true. Mr. O can now play outside with Little Miss on her jungle gym and read with her something other than the same seven books they cycled through for almost three months. And Mrs. O can now indulge in her love of cooking, now that she has recipes, measuring cups, utensils and more than one pot.

The bigger truth is that the family is now starting to get into a set routine: weekdays are work, errands and playgroups; weekends are shopping, social engagements and going to the pool. There has also been some difficulty with a vehicle (more on that later) that has kept the family a bit housebound, but that will change soon.

As ridiculous as it sounds, receiving the sea shipment has fostered this "normalcy". With their familiar possessions, Mr. and Mrs. O feel that they are living their home life, which is surprisingly ho-hum. ("Honey! The new episode of Homeland is on!")

But a ho-hum life this is not destined to be. Stay tuned for more (relatively) wacky adventures...

Things, Glorious Things!

Opening the sea container.

This past weekend, Mr. O's employer alerted him that a giant shipping container had arrived at the port of Tema, where ships from around the word dock to bring their goods to Accra and all points north towards the Sahara. Tema receives massive amounts of such varied items as vehicles from Europe, rice from Thailand, second-hand clothing from North America and just about anything you can think of from China.

What made this particular container interesting is that it contained most of their worldly possessions - at least the ones they decided were important enough to pack up and bring across the ocean. And there were over a hundred boxes of it. Clearly, these could not all be necessities.

To be fair, about half of the boxes contained non-perishable food items and cleaning products, while others contained such mundane items as linens, toiletries, DVDs, a guitar and - of course - a ridiculous amount of toys.

Little Miss reacquainting herself with her beloved toys.

All of this was delivered straight to the house. The container was cracked open and from the crates came the boxes, brought into the house by almost a dozen movers. Maybe two or three appeared to be proper movers, but the rest were a motley crew of hired hands that arrived in their own tro-tro. Labour in Ghana is so cheap, that while in Canada, it took three men almost a day to put the boxes into the moving van, this crew took only an hour to unload everything (including a Mrs. O-sponsored FanIce break).

This battle station is fully operational.

Somewhere there is Mrs. O. And coffee.

The trick to successful moving is to open the boxes and put the contents in their place as soon as possible - otherwise, boxes stay closed and remind the depressed owner of how they really need to properly unpack their "stuff". This often goes on until the next move. So everything was taken out and put in its place within two days.

Interestingly, as the unpacking took place, the day guards borrowed Mr. O's toolset to break down the giant crates into plywood, 2x4s and nails (all good for construction), flattened the boxes (everyone needs boxes) and accumulated all of the tissue paper (used to wrap kebabs, kenkey and other chop foods). In Ghana, nothing reusable (and sellable) is wasted. The guards would take all of these to market and sell them for a small profit - the hardest part is transportation, since none of them own a car. One guard borrowed a large wagon and carted the plywood off to parts unknown.

With everything in its place, the house does feel much more like "home". Not only does the family have all of their western accoutrements (including plates, glasses, cutlery, kitchen implements, a barbecue, peanut butter, maple syrup, etc.), but with their familiar personal effects, it is easy to forget that they are living in a rented house in West Africa. Mr. O heard of the excitement of receiving a shipment, but discounted this, figuring that life was pretty ducky already. Now with the material comforts of home, life feels more normalized and routine, which is part of the transition experience. The family was doing just fine beforehand, but psychologically, they are more prepared for the coming years.

Especially now that they have real coffee.

In the end, they play with the box anyway, of course.

The neighbour enjoys the bounty of Little Miss.

Thank God, the lawn ornaments have finally arrived.

How to Dispel Your First World Problems

An interesting experiment is to imagine having a conversation with a friend and someone without your privileges. How would your statements sound to them? Do you still see the problem as a significant issue?

When Mr. and Mrs. O have conversations with their expat neighbour as his househelp watches his daughter in the room, they become hyper-aware of this disconnect. Suddenly statements like, "My daughter's pre-school schedule is so inconvenient," ''The cheese selection in the supermarkets is terrible - how can I make a decent lasagna?'' or "I think we want to go to South Africa for Christmas but flights and hotels are so expensive in December," become embarrassing to the speaker.

Again, your problems are valid and they are your own. But this is one way of putting them in perspective, perchance to help overcome them.

Note: David Cain's Raptitude blog (highly recommended) tackles the unbearable lightness of everyday Western living with a healthy dose of zen, mindfulness and introspection. Mr. O has found this perspective useful as the family started the process of packing their middle class lives and moving to a lower income nation where they have become relatively upper class. Relevant topics include having too much "stuff", your incredible wealth and power, and making a moral issue of being inconvenienced. 

All of Our Problems Are First World Problems

Urban Dictionary defines "First World Problems" as Problems from living in a wealthy, industrialized nation that third worlders would probably roll their eyes at.

Grammatical and philosophical issues in that sentence aside, there lies a deep truth that in Mr. and Mrs. O's culture, people tend to get upset and obsess over issues that would be considered trivial anywhere else. Some examples:

These stand in contrast to what some would call "actual problems", like a lack of food, clean water, sanitation, medicine, education or electricity - things most people take for granted every day. These are all major issues for everyday Ghanaians. When one thinks about this, it can put things into perspective:

Mr. and Mrs. O have come to realize that all of their problems are first world problems and barring a catastrophic disaster, revolution or other major calamity, that is all they will be. When the power goes out (and it does often), the generator kicks in. When the polytank runs out of water, a tanker truck comes to fill it. When the internet goes down, Mr. O's smartphone becomes a wifi hotspot (this implies he has both a laptop, smartphone and money for internet and phone access).

The problems that Mr. and Mrs. O have to deal with are slightly more mundane: When the local supermarket runs out of bread flour, they can't make pancakes. The security guard is asleep when a delivery is expected. The househelp doesn't know how to properly crease pants when ironing. There are too many air conditioners in the house, but how many should be on?

As a social worker friend has said: your problems are valid because they are your problems, based on your life experience. While Mr. and Mrs. O's "problems" may not be relevant to the average Ghanaian, the average Ghanaian's problems would not be relevant to people a hundred years ago. ("You mean you have a magic box that beams images from around the world into your house, but you are upset that you can only get THREE channels?")

All that to say, it is okay to whine about power outages, water shortages, bad smells and bad drivers, because these are all problems that make our lives challenging in our current context. The trick is to understand that in whining about one's problems, there needs to be a conclusion. One can either:

1. accept that they are problems that are out of their control (eg. the mosquitoes are out);
2. accept that they are problems that are out of their control, but that will be one day solved (eg. malaria vaccines are on the horizon, but in the meantime I will stay vigilant); or
3. understand at how one can contribute to solving the problem and then acting on it (eg. if I improve drainage and reduce standing water around the house, there will be fewer malarial mosquitoes).

It can be difficult to remember the hierarchy of problems and the most logical responses, but it is part of Mr. and Mrs. O's strategy for mental and emotional survival in Accra. For hundreds of years, foreigners have come, spent their sojourns complaining about their many problems here and stayed shut in their first world houses, drinking copious amounts of gin. Mr. and Mrs. O do this too (they prefer chocolate), but they try to occasionally get out of the bubble, understand the context of their problems and to enjoy the amazing privilege that has been bestowed upon them and understand how their actions can increase or decrease the more immediate problems of others.