It was Yvonne, one of the student-volunteers. She explained in an eerily calm voice, sounding pleasant but pissed off, that 80 dollars was stolen from her suitcase. She had told their professor/leader but she had redirected her to me.
My heart fell as I processed the information. “No…” I said in disbelief, leaning against the open door. Then, straightening, “Okay, let’s go to your room and you can show me how you found this out.” I put on my sandals, locked my door and followed her to her room a few doors down the hall.
We had been shopping all day; I assumed Yvonne had two wallets – one with Ghanaian cedis, which she had in her purse all day, and one with her American money and credit cards. Yvonne explained she had wanted to change into comfortable clothes before going into the hotel conference room for the group’s nightly discussions they call “Reflection Time.” She mimicked what she did when she had first entered the room and replayed her thought process aloud for me. She opened her suitcase and picked up her wallet lying on top of her clothes. She said at that moment she knew someone had been fiddling with her things because she remembered putting her wallet in the suitcase’s interior netted pocket. She opened her wallet and her suspicion was confirmed by the folded dollar bills – apparently she never folds her money. She counted $80 less than her total $200.
“I have a lock on the zipper to the compartment on the front,” Yvonne said while showing me the front of her suitcase, “and the silly thing is that I keep my passport in here, but for some reason didn’t think to put my wallet in here too. It was the one time these whole two weeks that I didn’t put my wallet in the locked pocket,” she said with heavy remorse.
I knew there was nothing we could do about the missing money besides point fingers and hope a guilty conscious would give in. We had no proof that she had $200 in her wallet when she left the hotel in the morning, and the only way the hotel staff could be held liable for the theft is if the money had been put in a safe.
But I knew I couldn’t say these things to Yvonne right then. I tried assuaging her self-blame by suggesting that we talk to the hotel manager about who had access to the keys.
As we walked down the stairs to the front desk I pondered why Yvonne had not mentioned the possibility of the money being taken from her wallet before she had left her hotel room. What if her roommate took the money? I immediately declined the notion. She and Nanci are good friends – they’re even taking a girls’ trip to Puerto Rico together this summer. I knew her roommate could not be dismissed as a suspect on the basis that they had become besties over the past two weeks, but it seemed an unlikely case in comparison to the other potential leads.
As we approached the front desk I reminded myself to keep an open mind to every possibility. I trusted Yvonne to not jump to any conclusions but still hoped she would let me do most of the talking. Working with Ghanaians through critical junctures is the flesh and bones of my job.
The receptionist was the same lady we had given our keys to in the morning. She had also worked the previous night shift, which I remembered because after checking into my room I had gone past the front desk to buy a bag of sachet waters from a shop on the street to accompany the group’s dinner. As I smiled walking past her, she proudly announced, “Room nine.” Now, with Yvonne at my side, I studied her briefly. What if she had memorized each of our room numbers? But then how would she have known Yvonne had all that accessible money. Still, though… I asked her politely but sternly where we could find the manager. Her eyes flickered, as if she sensed something was wrong. “He is outside on the patio. In the back.”
We thanked her and went outside through the propped-open front doors. The patio curved in a lax C-shape, cupping the hotel perimeter and facing the neighborhood street. The first table we passed, the only one occupied, sat two male Ghanaians. Probably guests. The manager was sitting alone at the end of the curve smoking a cigarette under a tall thick tree that would’ve provided ample shade had it been daytime. He was leaning back in his white wired chair with one leg over the other on the table. It seemed a peaceful hiding place for a man who didn’t like being bothered.
As we drew nearer, I recognized his face. He had been on the patio the previous night when our group arrived. He had asked me if I was the “boss lady.” I replied that I was and we exchanged local names (mine in Fante, his in Ga).
“Hello, good evening, Kwame.” I said as Yvonne and I stood at his side.
“Ekua, how is it?” he smiled, leaning farther back.
“It’s no good. We have a problem. While we were touring the city today, someone stole 80 dollars from one of our volunteer’s suitcases.” I waited for a reaction. Nothing.
“We were wondering if you could help us find out who had access to room twelve during the day.”
His eyes moved slowly from us to the quiet street. He took a drag on his cigarette, held it, then exhaled toward the looming leaves. Feet still on the table, he pulled his cell phone from his shirt pocket and studied it. We waited while he talked to someone on the phone in Ga. When he hung up he said, “That was the cleaning lady. I told her to come to the hotel so you can ask her if she took the money.” Drag, exhale, feet still on table.
Was he serious? If this girl had taken the money, how likely was it that she’d confess? Especially in front of us? In front her boss? It seemed as if the manager knew calling her in wasn’t going to solve the problem, but he couldn’t be bothered to think of another solution. I couldn’t bear to look at Yvonne. For only being in Ghana for two weeks, I figured this was probably her first encounter with the Ghanaian style of management. Welcome to our world, honey. It’s humorous at first till you realize it’s serious shit. CBB (Can’t Be Bothered) should be the new TIA (This Is Africa).
The satisfied look on the manager’s face hinted that he had done his part and wanted to finish his cigarette.
“Well, I guess we’ll wait for her at the front desk,” I said. Yvonne stifled an incredulous laugh. I remembered the group was scheduled to leave the hotel at 5 a.m. for their flight home. “To be honest,” I said to Yvonne as we walked through the patio, “I don’t think we’ll get the money back tonight. I will keep trying tomorrow after you've left. If I do happen to get your $80 back, there are ways we can get it to you so don’t worry about the bad timing.” She nodded.
“Did you find the manager?” the receptionist asked eagerly. She seemed to have caught on that something was wrong.
We told her “yes” and explained the situation. Her reaction gave me a funny vibe – it seemed a bit theatrical. (Huge gasp, “What? Oh! Sor-ry,” interspersed with throaty scoffs and tsks, which in Ghana signifies disapproval.) This would be a normal reaction from a Ghanaian if the timing between each exclamation didn’t feel so unnatural. I’m not at an expert at detecting liars - I want to give everyone the benefit of the doubt - but her reaction somehow did not seem genuine.
“…and then your manager Kwame called the cleaning lady to tell her to come to the hotel,” I finished.
The receptionist’s eyes grew. “You know,” her voice had lowered, “she’s going to deny the entire thing. Why would she admit to something like that?”
“Wait,” I couldn’t believe she was ratting out her colleague right in front of us. “You think she took the money?”
The receptionist shrugged and smiled. “Who goes into the rooms all day? She does.”
“Well, if she’s not going to admit to it then what should we do?” asked Yvonne.
“You should file a police report."
"Yes, we will in the morning," I said.
The receptionist continued, "Oh – and you should call the owner! He won’t come tonight, but he will come tomorrow. You call him and tell him about this and he will fix it.”
“That would be good because the manager was not very helpful. He didn’t seem to care about it all,” I said to Yvonne. She shook her head.
Just then, we heard a taxi pull up near the front doors. It was Tettey, our tour guide.
“Tettey! What are you doing here?”
Tettey is an infectiously smiley, tall and gangly man of about 30. Then again, guessing Ghanaians' ages with accuracy is really hit-and-miss. “I forgot to get money from one of your volunteers. She owes me five cedis,” he said. He would see the volunteers in the morning but maybe needed five cedis before then.
“Oh. They are in the middle of their ‘Reflection Time’ still, but I can go interrupt real quick. Which one owes you money?” I asked.
Tettey looked up to the ceiling and threw his hands out as if to describe the volunteer by air-tracing their silhouette. “Glasses… red…”
“Mev?”
Tettey nodded. Mev was the only redhead in the group. I remembered her complaining that she only had 50 pesewas (coins) to her name after leaving the Accra National Arts Centre in the morning. That was nice of him to loan her money, I thought.
I turned toward the conference room down the hall. “Oh, wait!” I nearly shouted and spun around to the front desk again, “Tettey, this is good that you’re here! Yvonne, can you fill him in on what’s happened?”
I got the money from Mev and returned to the drama. The manager had joined too, sitting in a low-seated tan sofa chair next to the front desk. I looked at the others and sensed Tettey had been filled in.
“So, Tettey. Has something like this happened before to your tour groups at this hotel?” I asked.
“No,” he shook his head, staring at the ground with both arms folded across his chest.
“What about at a different hotel?”
He shook his head again, trance unbroken. He seemed very upset.
The sound of a car engine flooded the lobby. It was the cleaning lady. I noticed she was the same woman who served us breakfast, fresh-faced, all smiles.
She was wearing a grey conservative dress with an airy scarf around her shoulders. Her black glossy purse hung over her shoulder and in her hand was a Bible. Was that a...prop? Couldn’t she have just left it in the cab or stuck it in her purse? It's not a likely thing to forget to have in one's hand... it was definitely intentional.
The scene was quite predictable: The manager asked me to assert our concern, I explained what had happened and asked Yvonne if I had left anything out, and the cleaning lady denied taking the money. Yvonne watched in silence, Tettey studied the staff members and I attempted to keep peace.
It was quite humorous aside from the gravity. The cleaning lady was yelling at the receptionist and manager in Ga, occasionally looking at me and Yvonne. What was the point of her defending her innocence to the staff? They didn’t care. “In English, please,” I had to remind her a few times. In English, she went off about morality and why she has never stolen a single thing in her life. “I never even touched her suitcase!” At one point she even shook her Bible in the air to emphasize a point. The manager sat, legs sprawled and chin cupped in his hand, as if he was watching TV.
When the cleaning lady got particularly worked up, I interrupted, “Please. Let me speak. We are not accusing anyone. We simply want to know more about what happened to Yvonne’s room during the day.” Why all the hostility? I tried placing myself in her shoes. I couldn’t decide if I would act this way if I were innocent or guilty. When she switched from English to Ga again, I took advantage of not having to listen and examined her. She was well-dressed and accessorized and her nails were painted. I decided appearance had nothing to do with the likelihood of her being a thief. Rich or poor, 80 dollars is 80 dollars.
When she was done ranting, the manager moved his hand from under his chin and thrust it forward as if to say, “I told you she didn’t take it.” Instead, only slightly more appropriately, he said, “As you can see, she did not steal the $80." Ha! I almost burst out laughing. "If the money had been put in a safe, we would have more to do. But that is not what happened.”
“Well, thank you for coming here to tell us your side of the story,” I said to the cleaning lady. She nodded and looked at the floor with disdain. “I am calling the owner tonight to set up a time to continue the discussion in the morning, and then we will file a police report.” I looked at Yvonne. She had been quiet during most of the cleaning lady's rant. “Yvonne, anything else you’d like to add?”
She looked at me, then looked at the cleaning lady and shook her head.
“Naomi,” said the manager. The cleaning lady looked up. “You may go.” Naomi spun in her heels and marched out the lobby doors. Yvonne went to the front desk and talked to the receptionist while Tettey and I spoke to the manager. Tettey and I decided that after dropping off the group at the airport, we would return to the hotel and sleep in the rooms until the owner arrived. Then we would get to the bottom of the issue.
I said goodnight to Tettey and the manager. Yvonne was still listening to the receptionist. "She said she came straight from church. Did you see how angry and loud she got and how she shook her Bible in the air?" she laughed. "She is lying. You heard her when she said she didn't touch the suitecase? Of course she touched the suitecase! Her saying that only made her seem more guilty - to clean properly you must touch everything!"
"Has she gotten in trouble for something like this before?" I asked.
The receptionist looked at us and lowered her voice, "Oh, yes. And the manager knew about it too."
"If the manager knew about her history of stealing things, why didn't he say anything about it to us?" Yvonne asked.
"Because they are friends," she responded.
Yvonne laughed and shook her head. I wondered why this lady was so openly telling us all these awful things about Naomi and the manager.
"Think about it," she continued, "she is the only one who could have done it. She had access to all the keys throughout the day."
"But we put the keys on the front desk when we left. What happened to the keys after that?" I asked.
"You gave us the keys, I put them in their boxes right here." She motioned to a wooden rack on the wall with about 30 cubby holes big enough for a hand to fit inside. "We put all the dirty rooms' keys in these - " pointing to the "Dirty Rooms" sign, " - and then when they are clean, we move them to the 'Clean Rooms' boxes below," she said, pointing to the identical set of 30 cubby holes two inches below.
"Who worked at the front desk during the day?" I asked.
"Oh, there was a different boy. He comes mid-morning to mid-afternoon."
I continued pressing, hoping she wouldn't catch on to my developing sideways accusation. "Could he have used the keys to go into the rooms?"
Her mouth opened and closed. "You see, at the front desk we are responsible for so many things. We cannot leave the front desk for very long. There is no way he could have left long enough to check all of the rooms to see which suitcase had money laying freely."
For some reason, I believed her. By the look on Yvonne's face, I think she was convinced of this excuse as well. It was as if this receptionist was a mind ninja - she had won both of us over by verbalizing our thoughts, like: "The manager is clueless. He is always asking me what to do." Maybe she could tell that Yvonne didn't want ambiguity and instead needed something to put her negative energy toward.
The receptionist received an internal phone call. She hung up and said, "I am coming," to us, and then walked around her desk out the side door to the compound next-door. About a minute later she returned with a towel and said, "Come. I must bring this to a guest."
We followed her two doors down the hallway and continued listening. I wanted to continue walking up the stairs to my bed, but sensed Yvonne felt comforted by her. Then I remembered I should call my boss Kirsty to fill her in. I went upstairs to fetch my phone. I felt a lot better after talking to her. She said that because Yvonne did not put her wallet in the hotel's safe, the hotel is not liable, and neither are we as a NGO. And neither is Tettey's tour agency, which technically was in charge of the group since the day before.
Yet, I still felt somewhat responsible for making sure Yvonne got her money back since she wasn't able to fight her own battle the following day. I really didn't want to hand off the case to the police, considering our NGO's previous experience with "law enforcers." Not even a week earlier, one of the male volunteers from the University of Missouri group was guilelessly walking alone in the dark and was followed and robbed. He had a number of important items in his stolen backpack, including his passport (who carries their passport around when traveling?). So we filed a police report. When the University leaders, the volunteer, Kirsty and Lawrence stated their case to the front desk policeman, he actually asked them, "What do you want us to do about it?"
Kirsty told me to keep threatening to file a police report to make sure the staff knew we meant business, and maybe the owner would crack and cough up $80 in the morning.
The receptionist had a similar idea. "It would be so dishonorable for the hotel to be involved with the police," she said, handing the portable hotel phone to me to call the owner. "You should call him now. You must sound very angry."
"I can do that. What is his name?"
"Call him Mr. Charles."
I thought it was strange that she was giving me tips on how to talk to the owner, along with all the other insider information she had given us. Later I realized it was probably to win over Yvonne and I as friends so we trusted her and didn't think that she, too, was a suspect.
I called the owner while Yvonne and the receptionist watched. "Mr. Charles?"
"Yes?"
"Good evening. This is Michaela. I am the leader of the volunteer group staying at your hotel last night and tonight. Today while we were away, we believe someone from your staff took a lot of money from one of the rooms." My voice was crescendoing with force.
"I am very sorry to hear that."
"Yes, it is most unfortunate because the group is leaving very early tomorrow morning to go back to America. I need to meet you tomorrow morning to discuss what we are going to do about this issue."
"I will be in tomorrow at 9 a.m.," said Mr. Charles.
"Nine a.m., I look forward to it. And I hope you will show more concern than your manager did this evening. It was not handled well at all," I said, my eyes meeting Yvonne's.
"Madam, please, I do apologize."
"Thank you, and I am sorry to disturb you at such a late hour. I hope you understand."
"It is no problem, Madam."
"I will see you tomorrow."
I hung up and the receptionist beamed. "That was perfect! He will do everything possible to help you tomorrow, I am sure."
Yvonne lingered to ask the receptionist more "whys" and "hows." I was getting antsy, feeling we were wasting time trusting this receptionist, but didn't want to dishearten Yvonne. About fifteen minutes later we retreated upstairs to Yvonne's room.
"In the morning you should give me all your contact information - I will need it for the police report. We have it in our database online, but that doesn't help," I told her.
"Right."
"And if I get your money back for you, I can have it wired to your account. Or we can send it through PayPal.”
“I don’t have PayPal but my husband does,” Yvonne said, unlocking her door.“That'll work. Write down his PayPal email address on that piece of paper too," I said.
"I will," Yvonne assured me. She sank into her chair in the corner, and I sat on her desk.
"What do you think of the cleaning lady?" Yvonne asked. "Do you think she did it?"
"I'm not sure. I definitely know the receptionist rubs me the wrong way for some reason. It could've been any of the staff - Naomi, the receptionist or the boy who takes over at the front desk during the day. I don't know why we just targeted the cleaning lady tonight."
"You're right." She sighed. "You know, I feel like this happened to me because I got away with such good bargains the whole time I was here. Karma's a bitch," she said, laughing.
"No, let's not think it was karma because you couldn't have done anything to deserve someone stealing from you. It was just bad luck. And you know, I think you handled this better than the majority of the group would have. I just hope this experience doesn't ruin your image of Ghana. This sort of thing can happen anywhere."
"True, but the thing that maybe bummed me out more was the way it was handled by the management," Yvonne said.
"You're right, that manager doesn't know left from right. But you should try not to let one person or one incident give you a sour taste in your mouth the night before leaving Ghana. I wish you could be here tomorrow to see how it turns out. I'm sure your spirits would be lifted."
"This isn't going to take away from my feelings about Ghana," Yvonne assured me. "My love for this country is too strong. This was just a little bump in the road. I wish I could see how things turn out too, but I trust that everything will turn out as it should."
I nodded.
"And you know," Yvonne said, laughing, "I really wish our group hadn't decided to make this an alcohol-free trip because I could really go for a glass of wine right now!"
Part Two: Can't Be Bothered (Morning and Afternoon Episode)
CANT BE BOTHERED. This is the thing. Some of the moneys, they grew legs and walked away. Unlucky! But not all the moneys walked away - so that is lucky. LOCK and KEY prevent the moneys from travels. Good hiding place sometime will work too! But once the moneys walk away, there is nothing for it. No managers can make the moneys walk home. No police can make the moneys walk home. Nothing for it!
ReplyDeleteReally enjoyed your writing.
ReplyDeleteUnlucky and unthinking. It happens, though. Thank you!
ReplyDelete