In Which Zoë Gains A Matching Bedroom Suite From Circa 1976
on Zoe Page (Sierra Leone), 08/Oct/2010 05:38, 34 days ago
I have 7 missed calls from Junior before 8am. I honestly don’t hear, as I’m listening to the World Service on my wind up (get me!) but once I notice I ignore him. He can just wait. There is no reason for him to be here any way and it’s still early by most people’s standards.Just when I think I’m getting to grips with the money, my first proper trip to the bank throws me. Let’s sets the scene. The bank is just off the main road. To get in, you go through ‘just’ two doors (making my house more secure than a bank full of money...) Inside it is air conditioned. There are 3 lines fordifferent things: for checking balance, for withdrawing and for something we don’t quite know. There is a room off to the side labelled ‘Bulk Cashier’. I wonder how much constitutes ‘bulk’ when as a volunteer on a per diem but no salary I still make over 1 million a month.I join the central queue. It’s very squashed and the cashier serves two people at a time. I get out my laminated, hand written bank card. He asks how much I want and I say 400. He looks very confused. I repeat, 400. The woman who is by my side, and being served with me, laughs and tells him 400 000. This is the ONLY time youever add ‘thousand’. When they say four five here, they mean 4500. When they say twenty five they mean 25 000. I have 490 000 in my account (they charged me 10 000 for that piece of tat bank card a 12 year old could forge). He has already keyed in my account number so should have the balance infront of him. 400 wouldn’t even buy half an Ocada trip: is it really that hard to understand that I wand 400 000? I get a carbon paper receipt to sign. I sign the front and then, at helpful woman’s instruction, also sign the back, though I’ve no idea why. I get my bundles, mainly 2000 and 5000 notes. That’s sensible. I go to sit down and wait for Maria (who is off paying to close her account...) and get shouted back. Apparently I need to sign the back of both the yellow and blue slips. Seriously, why am I signing the blank backs? And why didn’t the carbon work?Back at the house, Maria and I are joined by the carpenter and his 2 friends, Mr Barry, Junior and the driver. How many men does it take to sort out a couple of tables for the kitchen? Especially when Daniel was supposed to be sorting it out yesterday. It’s hardly rocket science: one must be large enough for my stove, and preferably, y’know, have 4 legs of roughly the same length. The other needs to be big enough for a water filter and me to be able to prepare food. End of. After 45 minutes they leave and say they will come back at 5 or 6. Thisis the same carpenter who is doing the window meshes, of which there are still no sign. Susan asked me if the house might be ready by the time she gets here in Feb. At this rate, I’m no longer so sure.After an afternoon of sun, rain, more sun, a walk to buy bread, more rain and a few phone calls, Daniel et al are back and this time they’re (slightly more) serious. Suddenly I have not only dining chairs but also a table for the kitchen, and bedroom furniture too. The latter is half finished (they varnish it downstairs) and the ‘drawers’ for the bed are essentially bedside cabinets with no drawers, but lockable cupboards instead. The wardrobe proved elusive, so instead I have a ruck.A what? A rug?A ruck.Huh? A what? Oh...a rack.Actually, it’s quite nice. It has a rail but it’s not quite high enough for my dresses to hang nicely. It has yet more lockable drawers, plus an interesting rail along the floor. It does, it has to be said, match the bedside attachments, though I’d happily have taken delivery of it a week ago without it having to have the appearance of a matching bedroom suite from circa 1976 despite the carpenter only having finished it this morning...Daniel asks me if I want to grab dinner, so after a quick shower I get collected and driven to the guest house where he’s staying. It’s literally round the corner, and nearer than where I walked to buy bread (twice) today, but TIA. He has briefed them on my No Food With A Face requirements – an extended version of Vegetarian in a country where that could otherwise include chicken and/or fish. I get a vegetablesoup, bread and proper(ish) butter. It’s fun to be out somewhere and we talk about his law degree (online, but through a London uni), his first degree in Costa Rica (where he didn’t have to learn any Spanish) and life in California. There’s a TV on in the background, so I get the BBC headlines too, and get to nosy at a bunch of Pumwis who have come in and are sitting below the screen. I think they’re German. I get driven home (again, unnecessary, and feeling slightly wrong as the driver didn’t dine with us but, instead, appears to have been eating bananas in the car while he waited)and have fun unlocking my 7 million doors since it’s all very well sensibly leaving lots of lights on, but they really won’t help you if you then have a power cut...