Friends in Low Places

I am in Ghana on a tourist visa. I was granted 60 days upon arrival, renewed my visa in September for three months and was due for a second renewal on December 8th. If I had a work visa, which we are in the process of obtaining, I wouldn’t have to renew my visa at all. But that is neither here nor there.

So here’s the pickle: About every other week day, an immigration officer takes a bag of the visas-to-be-renewed to Ghana’s capital, Accra, which is a bulk of the reason it takes approximately two weeks to process the visa renewal for all mainstream requests. I am leaving Cape Coast on Friday, December 17 to visit Togo with a friend for a week. I need my visa/passport to get into Togo; therefore, I needed to have my visa returned to Cape Coast by the 17th. To get my visa back by then, I needed to get it renewed no later than December 3rd.

Toward the end of November I told my boss Kirsty about my December 3rd deadline. She said the Cape Coast immigration office has a rule stating that foreigners are prohibited from renewing their visa more than one time at the immigration office in Cape Coast if they have not left Ghana since their arrival. I have not left Ghana since I arrived in July, and I had already renewed my visa once in Cape Coast.

Traveling to a neighboring country to renew my visa was out of the question – I just needed a quick fix to tide me over until I go to Togo. I could’ve taken a three-hour tro-tro or Ford van ride to Accra, but I’ve read that the Accra office can take a couple days to sort out a visa renewal, and unfortunately I can’t afford to take time off from work right now. I considered what would happen if I would let my visa expire from December 8th until the 18th when I’d arrive to Togo, where I could get a new visa at the border. On second thought I decided I’d rather be on the good side of Togo’s border patrol – no need to ruffle any feathers by entering a country on an expired visa.

After telling Kirsty I could try going to Accra, she mentioned that our Ghanaian friend Eric has a friend in the immigration office in Cape Coast who would be able to take care of my situation in a matter of days. Days? What happened to the two-week process? On numerous occasions I’ve benefited from “knowing people” but never with this small amount of my own merit.

The weekend before my visa was due for a renewal, I started to doubt this alleged immigration connection. What if the guy can’t pull the strings Eric said he’d pull? If my visa isn’t returned by December 17th, I won’t be able to go to Togo – a vacation I’ve been looking forward to for months, down time I need desperately before the influx of volunteers coming January and an adventure I’m excited to share with my good friend who’s flying all the way from the U.S.

Okay, okay… surrender your throne, Drama Queen. Or is that more diva-like? Whatever, I would still be able to go to Togo, just not as long as I’d hoped. But still – the fact that I had anticipated this time crunch and could have taken the visa to Accra myself instead of relying on some random source… but why worry? All I can do now, I thought, is tell myself in my most Ghanaian voice, “It twill be fiiine.”

Two days before my visa expired, Kirsty got the phone number of the immigration guy from Eric. She had met the man, Jude (name has been changed for security purposes), a few weeks earlier when she was due for a renewal herself, so she called him to find out when I would be able to catch him at the immigration office. She returned to my office and relayed to me that Jude was in Accra Monday and Tuesday, so I should go to the Cape Coast immigration office on Wednesday. I’d been instructed not to leave visa renewals for the last minute, or “until the eleventh hour,” as a Ghanaian friend put it once. I hoped this guy knew my visa would expire that day but figured Kirsty or Eric had told him.

The day before my visa expired, my friend Joeva said she read that nine foreigners were deported recently for having expired visas. It was especially wonderful hearing this after I had already convinced myself the worst case scenario would be paying a 40-cedi fine for allowing the visa to expire, or not getting my visa returned before I wanted to leave for Togo. Thanks, Jo. Such a fountain of information, that girl.

Wednesday morning I went through the visa renewal checklist of required materials: a printout of my return flight itinerary, a letter written by a superior from my NGO requesting my visa renewal, a copy of my NGO’s certificate, 40 cedis for a one-month extension (I will request a 60-day visa upon my return to Ghana from Togo), and 5 cedis to get four passport-size pictures taken at the photo booth on my way to the immigration office. I walked from our office to the main junction and took a shared taxi to town. I alighted at Kingsway in front of the Melcom superstore and walked toward the Cape Coast slave castle to the photo booth just outside the immigration office.

I thought about joking with the photographer about why he didn’t ask to take my remaining two photos of the set of four (only two photos are required for visa purposes) like he did the last time he took my picture for my visa renewal in September, but decided against it. I didn’t think he’d remember me from the first time and reasoned he, like many Ghanaians, may not understand that sort of humor (“What, did I get uglier over three months?”).

I called Jude as I walked through the front entrance and waited at the door for him to meet me. The building contains more offices than just the immigration office, but to me the entire building is called the immigration office. It’s my favorite building in Ghana that I’ve been inside. It’s open-air; birds fly free and not silently and the blue sky is ceiling to maybe 8 to 10 floors, which are situated on the outside of the circular building and the central part of the ground floor is a circle of well-groomed grass.

A Ghanaian man in a jungle green immigration uniform sauntered toward me from the bottom of the staircase across the hall, one hand holding his cell phone to his ear and the other grasping a newspaper. His eyes were glued to me for about 10 paces - I was the only white person in the front entry way, so I figured he knew who I was. Respectively, I took him for Jude.

Now standing in front of me, he was still on the phone. I shook his hand and stood in front of him awkwardly as he finished his conversation.
“Hello, I am Michaela. Eric’s friend.”
“Yeah,” he said, smiling from my face to my hand, which was still in his. “Is that your car?” He motioned to the car parked on the street in front of the entrance. A Ghanaian man was in the driver seat.
“Um, no, it’s not.”
“Oh,” he replied, sounding disappointed. He let go of my hand. “Is Eric coming?” he asked, looking outside again.
“No, he isn’t,” I told him. “He is in Accra today. With Kirsty, my sister you talked to on the phone on Monday.”
“Ohh, I see, I see, I see. How did you get here?”
“By taxi. I took a shared taxi from my office to town.” I may be an obroni and I may be a female, if that’s what he’s getting at, but that doesn’t make me helpless!

We walked across the hall to the staircase. “You have all the documents?” he asked.
“Yes,” I nodded.
“And Eric has told you everything?”
I paused. Told me everything? That sounds so omnious, I thought. What else is there to know?
“Yes, he has.”
Jude smiled. “Good. It will be fine then.”
What will be fine?

As he led me into his office I wondered if he could tell I hadn't a clue what he was talking about. Three wooden desks were arranged in the shape of a digital U and three wooden chairs were in the middle of the open space. Jude pulled one of the chairs over to the side of his desk, which was parallel with the window. “Sit here,” he told me. He tossed the newspaper on his desk and squeezed between the middle desk and his. I wondered how many months or maybe even years it would take him and the others he shared the office with to realize they wouldn’t have to squeeze between the desks if they would simply move the desks farther apart.

I took out of my bag the folder containing all the necessary documents and handed them to Jude. He leafed through my passport. “An American, I see. That is my favorite country. So when are you taking me to the U.S.?”

When Ghanaians ask me that question, normally I answer, “When you’ve saved up enough money for your plane ticket!” But I couldn’t say things like that to this man, or anyone who works for Ghana’s immigration offices for that matter. I needed to convince him I will do whatever it takes to stay in Ghana.

“Well, I love Ghana. I want to stay here for long long time. But maybe after that you can come to the U.S.” Because I’m in Ghana on a tourist visa, I couldn’t carry on and express my love for Ghana by telling him I want to stay for two years – that would blow my cover. No one is a tourist for two years.

We really need to light a fire under our employer's bum to get us the documents we need for a work visa.

“July…” he muttered to himself, flipping through the pages of my passport again.
“Yes, July. I’ve been here long time.” Saying that probably didn't help my case, but he would’ve done the math anyway. He examined my passport for another minute, closed it and said, “Wow.”

Something was wrong.

Jude looked at me and shook the passport his hand. “You’ve already renewed your visa in Cape Coast once. You should have taken it to Accra this time.”
“Yes, and Eric said you could help me so I wouldn’t have to take my visa to Accra this time.”
He opened the passport again and flipped through the pages to my visa. “It expires on eighth of December,” he paused. “That is today.”
“Yes,” I said sheepishly. This was one of the rare occasions I was not a procrastinator by choice. “But I am going to Togo on the 18th of this month, so I can get it renewed when I am reentering Ghana – ” He looked up at me and I finished, “ – That is the reason I only want a one-month extension.”
Jude continued to examine the visa page of my passport. “Yes, you can only renew your visa in Cape Coast one time. I will have to talk to my boss about this.”
“Oh, okay. Also, this may not be an issue yet but I will need my visa back before December 17th because I am going to Togo.”
“How long you stay in Togo?”
“About a week.”
“You are going alone?”
“No, I’m going with a friend. He’s coming to visit me. And Ghana.”
“Ah, that is nice,” said Jude, sitting back in his chair as if to admire me. “Is he your darling boy?”
“What? No!” I started laughing nervously. I knew how to deal with Ghanaian men who are hitting on me, but not from this angle. “He used to be my – ” Despite all my might, I couldn’t make myself say ‘darling boy’ with a straight face. “ – Well, we started dating before I came here.” I paused and looked at him. “Wait, how did you guess?”
“A girl as beautiful as you? Of course you have a darling boy!”

Hearing myself laugh nervously makes me laugh even harder.

“So now you are single?” Jude asked.
I tried to regain composure. “Yes.”
“Whoever marries you will be a very lucky man.”
"You are making me blush!” And I’m making myself sick! I noticed he was pulling the familiar move of hiding his wedding ring by hanging him arms underneath his desk, but his secret was out. I had already seen it.

Jude laughed and leaned in. “Yes, I will go talk to my boss now. But it’s not easy,” he said, shaking his head. “I will need to tell him to make an exception for you. But in return you will need to dash my boss. I will make this happen for you because I like Eric, I like the white lady I talked to on the phone – you said, Kristy?”
“Kirsty.”
“Yes, Kirsty.” He smiled, “And I like you. You are very nice and very nice to look at. I like the whites.”
I smiled and said, “Thank you, I like you too.”

Jude smiled again. Then he gathered my passport, photos and other documents in a pile and moved it to a corner of his desk. He opened up the newspaper to the middle, picked up the pile of my things and placed it inside. He closed the newspaper, folded it once and then stood up from his seat. Wedging the newspaper under his right arm, he shuffled sideways through the six-inch gap between the two desks. “Get your money ready,” he said and left the room.

I couldn’t believe how dirty those last words made me feel. I know bribes are a big part of how Africans do business and I understand that some bribes are like trading favors, but this particular bribe reeked of injustice. Plus, if I’m going to break any law, I’d rather do it on the fly. Premeditated dirty deeds are so much dirtier. He might as well had said, “Get your gun ready. You’re going to shoot someone.”