Life in the 1st World

After returning from a hectic but wonderful time in New York City, visiting all my friends and doing some much needed shopping, Alan has now joined me in Athens from Ghana. And so together we are enjoying all the little conveniences and joys of living in the 1st world starting with the fact that everything, well most everything works in the US and you don't have to bribe anybody to get it to work. Alan relayed a funny story to me and my family after arriving yesterday morning about his experience in the Accra International Airport. Basically, we both don't yet have our resident visas stamped into our passports after 8 months of living in Ghana because someone has just decided they don't want to stamp it yet. Our passports have been sitting at the government office for 4 months and so finally, when it was time for us to travel here, we had to go retrieve our passports from the office. And because we have paid for them we were told that we could show a receipt to the immigration official at the airport to prove that we've applied for the visa. So when I came through immigration to come to the US, the immigration guys gave me a hard time but I just played ignorant and eventually after speaking to 3 separate men, they let me through. Alan had a harder time. The immigration guy told Alan, after Alan explained that he was told to just show the receipt, that Alan would have to give him a "gift" if he were to be let through. Alan told the guy he was not going to give him a gift and so the guy told Alan that he'd have to take him to the office (I guess that was supposed to sound scary). Alan explained that he was prohibited from giving "gifts" by his company and could lose his job if he gave something to him. Then the immigration guy said to Alan that he could give a gift to a friend (since they were best buds I guess). And although Alan acknowledged that they were indeed "friends," he could still not give a gift. So finally the immigration guy told Alan that he should buy him a coffee in the coffee shop then after he let him through and so Alan agreed, but of course as soon as he got passed went straight to his gate and without stopping for coffee. That is immigration "Ghana Style."

We've spent our first 2 days here together catching up with my parents, relaying funny stories from living in Ghana, and taking care of some doctor's appointments to make sure we don't have any weird diseases from West Africa. We decided to go to a doctor here in Athens who is known for being a great diagnostician and he agreed to do some research of diseases he should test for. So after some blood work and stool samples we should know whether we're in the clear. Hmmm...the joys of exposing our bodies to the African elements.