Visa Forms, Fraud Calls and Street Sausages in Abidjan

Tuesday, December 2nd

Good day. December 2nd. Today is another day to see if I can complete the Ghana visa application.

The 1MB Upload Challenge

Everything needs to be done online, and every single piece you upload has to be less than one megabyte. Once you know what you’re doing, that’s not a big deal—but the files come in different formats.

Some are JPEGs, some are PDFs, and some are PNGs. I had to do a bit of research to figure all of that out, but eventually I got it done.

Starting Over

Then I realized I had made some typos and entered a few things incorrectly, so I decided to start over. It’s extremely time-consuming.

Accepted at Last

The second time through, I surprised myself. I was accepted into the system, so I must have done something right.

After that, it was a matter of following up with the appointment time to go to the counter and deliver paper copies of some documents. That appointment is scheduled for December 3rd at 12:30.

A Fraudulent Bank Call

Something else came up that I hadn’t mentioned yet. I received a call from what was supposedly a bank or credit union about incorrect charges on my card.

Long story short, it turned out to be a fraudulent call that I went along with for far longer than I should have.

Common Sense Kicks In

In the end, common sense prevailed and I stopped communicating with them, as it clearly wasn’t helping my bank account.

It’s very strange to be in Africa and have this kind of thing happen. That feels like pure U.S. problems. It’s a really strange world.

Evening Street Food

In the evening, I discovered—or really confirmed from the night before—a place where locals go to eat out.

People barbecue all kinds of food: mostly chicken, but also fish and sausage. I decided sausage was the right choice.

A New Favorite Meal

I ended up doing that several nights in a row. It was very, very, very tasty.

Wine and Seating

There are also places for people to sit and drink wine, although my impression is that wine is fairly expensive here.

The Art of Braiding

One other thing that’s hard to capture in words is the popularity of braids. Braids are absolutely everywhere.

All the girls have them, and some are incredibly beautiful and very long. I asked how long they take, and the answer was all day—just sitting there having your hair braided.

I guess I won’t have that problem.