US Embassy

I get up bright and early on Wednesday April 30th. Romana is off to Bible study and I am headed to the airport to pick up K & M! They are arriving by plane from Tamale this am with Bernard. We manage to find them pretty quickly and Emmanuel takes us to the guesthouse where K & M are staying. They stayed at SIM guesthouse in East Legon. It was very nice and K said the staff had been very accomodating. They arranged for George to pick me up and get me to the Embassy by 2pm. I had an appointment on Monday at 2, I changed to Tuesday at 2, and will now finally be arriving Wednesday at 2!

K & M are headed to TK Beads with Evans and I am off to the Embassy. George gets me there promptly at 2. The guards outside reluctantly let me in. Then the guard on the inside says "you had an appointment yesterday, call and make another appointment." I calmly explain to him that I wasn't in the country yesterday and I have no phone to call and make an appointment. A nice Ghanaian man in the waiting area extends his phone to me. I thank him and start to call the lady in DHS and ask her to convince the guard to let me in. I guess you aren't allowed on the phone inside cause the guard them asked me to step outside.

I get the DHS dept. on the phone and explain the entire situation to her. She tells me to hang up and she will call me back....wait....click. Arrgh! I don't know the number of the phone I'm calling from, how does she know it? The outside guards are looking at me like I am mad! I just close my eyes and stand still and will the phone to ring. I am clenching my teeth and tensing my entire body trying to make the phone ring. Finally, it rings! "Hello, this is Tanya Lively", I say. The man on the other end says "Martin, I'm looking for Martin." Ethical dilemma...this is not my phone, but I am waiting for a most important call. I make a quick decision to say "Sorry, wrong Number" and hang up. Probably not the right thing, but it's what I did. :/ Now I'm back to clenching. It worked before, it was just the wrong person calling. 3 minutes go by, then 4. Finally the phone rings again. The woman tells me to show my passport to the guards an tell them I have an appointment with DHS.

I am let back inside and return the phone to the nice man. Thanks Martin. Sorry about your missed call. The guards x-ray my bag and explain to me where to go.

I go into the DHS room and sit and wait to be helped. The woman comes in, greets me, accepts my documents and scans them against the originals. She tells me the DHS officer will be in touch with me when my case has been reviewed and is approved. I thanked her and left. 22 minutes to get inside. No more than 7 minutes inside. Done. Now the waiting begins...