After a good night’s sleep (first night is usually the sleep of utter exhaustion from the travel) I was up and read to meet Mr. Horchak for breakfast. I had almost no internet connection in my room, so I came down to the lobby a little early to see if I could connect and take care of a couple things before breakfast. Connection was better, but still not great. Sadly, that is the trend I’m seeing all over Ghana. I don’t know if the network is not being well maintained of what, but it doesn’t work like one would expect.

After breakfast I called up an Uber to take me over to the Shoprite Mall, where there is a good, secure Forex Bureau to change some money. I don’t get the black market rates (don’t misunderstand, black market money changers are not illegal, they just aren’t limited by the rates of the government backed ones). But the circumstances around many of the black market money changers are not comfortable for me. Going into the back room of a storefront with several suspicious looking characters to change a sizable amount of money isn’t something I look forward to again…so I’ll use an official Forex Bureau as often as I can.

My usual driver, Edward Sake, was here a little early. That is also usual for him, but very unusual for a Ghanaian! He pointed out that I have been using his services for approaching 15 years, and I’m grateful for his ability to help us like this. This will likely be my last time to use his services, but Paul Carter has already begun to seek his help, so his connection with the Church will continue for some time.

At checkout we were informed that their credit card reader (a smaller hand-held device) had stopped working, and they had a new one on the way if we could be patient. After waiting close to half an hour we were told “just 5 more minutes.”

Unfortunately, the real-world translation of “5 more minutes” is “I hope it will come today.” We have too far to go, and too much traffic to navigate to wait a long time, so I decided to pay with some of the funds I had just changed, knowing I’ll now have to change more later – and likely will have to go to a black market trader to get it done. But it was either that, or we keep waiting “just 5 more minutes. ” So, I settled the bill and we were on our way.

We have to go down the coast to Winneba. We are scheduled to have a Bible study there this evening, and I booked us into a nicer hotel in town. The ones I’ve used here in the past often don’t have hot water and/or a/c, and I wanted to have a slightly better place for Mr. Horchak this time. The place I selected was certainly not the most expensive, but it looked like a good choice, so I booked it before we left the US.

For the last several years there has been a lot of road construction between Accra and Winneba. It used to just be a two-lane highway, and they are clearly trying to make it a 4-lane divided highway. In one or two places they are even building elevated overpasses, though it isn’t clear why. One section of overpass would be about 2 blocks long and towers a good 70 feet in the air – but it seems to be in a very odd place, since there is no major road underneath, and both ends hang up there far above the ground with no clear plan one can yet see of how it is going to connect to the rest of the new highway. Thoughts of a “bridge to nowhere” rolled through my mind…

We made it down to Winneba in very good time – much faster than I had anticipated. So then we started looking for our hotel – and came to a disappointing conclusion: it isn’t actually in Winneba.

Silly me, I hadn’t looked that far into it, just seeing a nice place at a reasonable price, and it stated clearly that the address is Winneba. The reality is, this place is another 25 minutes down the coast, and over a rather rough dirt road taking one down to the shoreline. It is a nice hotel, and seems very new and so far well-maintained, but it isn’t conveniently located for what we needed. Even if I were going to still be traveling here, this would have to be a one-off stay just because of the inconvenience of the location.

Before the trip began I had contacted a man I’ve known since I first started coming here before the trip to see if there was any chance we could meet one last time before I quit coming. He agreed, and we stayed in contact. As it turned out, he and a co-worker were in Winneba today, so they agreed to come over to our hotel to meet with us.

They’d already eaten, but we needed to grab something to eat before leaving for the Bible study. So we all met on the rooftop patio (beautiful and nice breeze). Mr. Horchak and I ate while we all talked. Very enjoyable conversation!

Because we are well off the beaten path, I asked the receptionist to please call us a taxi to get back into Winneba. She promised he would be there before 5 pm, and the study was to start at 5:30. By 5:15 it was apparent that wasn’t going to happen.

When I went to ask her, she said the first driver “disappointed me,” so she was going to call another. But my friend, who has his own car, offered to take us back into town with them, so we gratefully accepted the ride in. And the 5:30 Bible study began promptly at … 6 ish. But as such things are common here, nobody was particularly bothered by it. Including Mr. Horchak and myself we were 32 in attendance.

After I made a few comments at the beginning, thanking them for their faithfulness and encouraging them to continue, Mr. Horchak gave a Bible study on the message of what eating unleavened bread symbolized. Even with some lighting in the building (not bright by any measure) by the end of the study he could barely make out the words in his Bible. Yet another factor one must account for when traveling here.

Following the study and many hugs and goodbye’s we were ready to find our way back out to this nice but somewhat remote hotel. I asked our pastor, Joseph Baah, if he could help secure us a taxi for the trip back. But to my surprise I discovered he has been able to acquire a small SUV and was able to drive us out himself. We were very grateful for the ride. With the windows down and the noise of the vehicle and road we were unable to converse much on the trip, but their service was greatly appreciated!

Mr. Horchak invited me over to his room to chat a little bit as we unwound from the day, and it was pleasant to sit in an air-conditioned room and talk with a good friend before I returned to my room to turn in for the night. I was able to call my wife, then get ready and get into bed – or more properly ON the bed. It is so hot and muggy here, and the a/c is rather anemic, so that getting under any kind of covers was out of the question. But with its attempt at cooling combined with a ceiling fan, I was able to rather quickly fall asleep.

At some point in the night it got cool enough that I apparently did get at least partially under the bed cover, and quite surprisingly for the second night in country, I slept rather well!