1st Day on the Job and w/o a Boss

After being awake for nearly 42 hours I went to sleep last night around midnight. Because one of my bags got lost in the 2^nd world (between the 1^st and 3^rd) I am currently without an alarm clock. Possible replacements are slim. I have my i-pod touch, which has an alarm on it, but no speakers (at least not ones loud enough to wake me after 42 hours awake), and my Verizon American only cell phone. Well to make a long story short, I thought I had it all figured out. I had manually set my i-pod to Ghana time and had counted out the hours to correspond and my alarm on my cell phone. What I didn't know is that my phone is capable of keeping time in one time zone and displaying a different time. I guess because I couldn't connect to a wireless network the actual display would not update, but it had actually changed time zones. So even when I set the alarm to go off at 1:30 am (thinking that would be 6:30 Ghana time) it actually went off at 1:30 Ghana time (but remember it still showed Utah time). So at 1:30 this morning my alarm went blaring off and little ole me pulled myself out of bed just after an hour and half of sleep to get ready for the day. I picked up my i-pod to check the time and I suddenly became very confused, it told me it was only 1:30? In my half awake now 44 hour daze I actual began thinking I had actually travelled in time or something weird. After several minutes trying to figure out what time it actually was, I wondered over to my computer to try and log onto some world clock or something (all at the same time worried that I was going to be late for work which started at 7:00, I had anticipated just getting up and going straight there). Of course my computer struggles to find a connection and then I can't find a site which will tell me what time it is in Ghana. So, hoping my computer time had not failed me I checked my windows clock. It read 1:45 am. Thoroughly confused I took my odds and went back to bed. I set my phone alarm at 6:30 and just hoped it would all work out right in the end. Sure enough, the alarm for 6:30 went off when the phone showed 12:30. I don't know who made that screwy software, but I hope I never meet them.

Granted I was slightly late, but since the boss was in the Republic of Congo for the week no one really noticed. (he sent me an email and told me that I could take naps if I needed to, so I don't feel so bad, he actually was impressed that I made it in when I did). My work is thoroughly interesting. With the history of tribal customs marriages in Ghana are usually done independent of state influence. The state does have a procedure that one can follow, but it also recognized tribal customs as sufficient. The Church is not so forgiving. For policy reasons that I am still learning, the church wants it in writing and fortified by a binding legal contract. While, to facilitate this the church is attempting to register all the Bishops as marriage officers who are empowered by the state to perform marriages. While they have been largely successful in this endeavor, the challenge now is to make sure the Bishops do their job properly for the benefit of the couple as well as the church. That is where my job comes in. I am working on two projects. (1) I am making a power point presentation that can presented to priesthood leaders that simply but comprehensively explains how to be a marriage officer. (2) I am forming possible legal strategies in convincing the Ghanaian government to recognize temple marriages as legally binding. Right now our Bishops can marry people, but our sealers cannot. This is complicated, but it mostly revolves around the fact that the Minister of the Interior has to inspect a building and declare it a "public place of worship" in order for it to qualify as a place where marriages can be solemnized. Needless to say the Church has been hesitant to declare it's temples as "public" worship places. So I am working through possible legal solutions to get this accomplished. I think some of the best scenarios will come through making friends rather than pressing the issue through legal means. But we will see.

Well this has been a really long post but I am sure you all want to hear what the country is like. Well, I honestly have not seen very much yet, though I am starting to feel more comfortable in my surroundings. At first being a very very stark minority in a sometimes menacing and, less than a decade ago, a war torn country, made me feel a little uneasy. I felt that every one was starring at me and just waiting to pounce on my wallet. I have found this to be only half true. They are watching me, and they want to pounce on my wallet, but they want to do it legally. They will offer to sell me just about anything I want. Actually, street vendors try to find traffic jams and then walk down the middle of the lane. When they see our car full of whites we become our own little attraction. They come right up to the window, and it made me a little nervous. I mean the doors were not even locked. But when I asked if they have ever attempted to open a door, the senior couple, sensing what I was getting at, made sure I understood that the people are not like that at all. They simply hope you will roll the window down to buy something. They are just like pushy salesmen, of which the biggest risk is annoyance and never any real harm. Once I realized that this really is just a cultural thing and relaxed a bit, it became really fun to drive down the street with people waiving and pointing at the car full of whites. I was going to take a picture of it, but I felt weird pulling out my camera and shooting pictures. I will have the courage up soon. Oh, and what they say about people carrying 4 or 5 foot high baskets on their head IT'S TRUE!!! It is the absolutely most incredible thing I have ever seen

Here are some pics from my day. Sorry I don't have anything better yet, I am still waiting for some time to go out into the city. The first one is the my office, the second the view from my office and the third is me enjoying my first African pineapple.

Love you all,

Jeff