![\"\"](\"http:\/\/www.overlandrover-westafrica.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/05\/Landrover-purchase_20110205_002.jpg\" "\\"Landrover")
<\/a>Counting the money. You would think with so many cedis on the table there would be more smiles<\/p><\/div>\n
Buying it is one thing, getting it home is another altogether.\u00c2\u00a0 First, I had to buy the battery, which calls into question the term \u00e2\u20ac\u0153a driveable vehicle\u00e2\u20ac\u009d.\u00c2\u00a0 An 18 plate battery is what is called for and they don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t come cheap.\u00c2\u00a0 So much for it being a driveable vehicle.<\/p>\n
I decide to take Gomez\u00e2\u20ac\u2122 offer of delivery.\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0 It took him two days to get it to me, I am still not sure why.\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0 Westerners criticizing the sense of time of people in developing countries is a terrible clich\u00c3\u00a9, I have lived in the Caribbean and Latin America and am quite familiar with how it is more clich\u00c3\u00a9 than reality.\u00c2\u00a0 However, there is a uniquely Ghanaian sense of time that I am gradually beginning to appreciate, \u00c2\u00a0actually far worse than I have seen elsewhere.\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0 Here, if someone says, \u00e2\u20ac\u0153I am on my way\u00e2\u20ac\u009d, \u00c2\u00a0it does not necessarily mean they are physically seated in some means of conveyance located between where they are and where you are.\u00c2\u00a0 As often as not it means that they are thinking of leaving the place where they are soon. It may well be that they are going to pass by a third location to do something else before they get around to actually heading in your direction.\u00c2\u00a0 To remove the uncertainty about when someone is coming I have learned it helps to seek as much precision as possible about where the person is at that moment and what they are doing. \u00c2\u00a0\u00e2\u20ac\u0153I will be there soon\u00e2\u20ac\u009d or \u00e2\u20ac\u0153I am on my way\u00e2\u20ac\u009d do not mean what it does in Calgary or Paris. Unfortunately I had not yet assimilated this wisdom when I was trying to get my Landy home.<\/p>\n
Gomez \u00c2\u00a0told me about 9:00 AM one Saturday they were bringing it that morning.\u00c2\u00a0 \u00c2\u00a0It is only about a half hour drive, so when at noon no-one had arrived I called to ask what was going on.\u00c2\u00a0 It became clear that they had not left Bubiashie yet.\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0 By evening there was still no Defender in my parking lot.\u00c2\u00a0 I was told they had had some mechanical problem and would bring it in the morning.\u00c2\u00a0 Two fellows did arrive about noon the next day, I was never really given an explanation for the delay.\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0 There were a number possible problems they could have had, which became all too apparent later on.\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0 One of gentlemen (in the tam hat in the photo below) was the fellow who had pretended to be Gomez the day I went out to look at the vehicle.\u00c2\u00a0 This was the guy I gave the money to, which was ironic.<\/p>\n