The Registrar’s Concubine

So workwise I’ve spent the last 5 weeks or so visiting the courthouse every couple days to again ask the Registrar to provide me with the cases I need to complete my mandate here.

I sit in this waiting area until the Registrar’s secretary raises her right eyebrow at me, at which point I am allowed to enter the Registrar’s office (however, last week I entered following the eyebrow raise only to find that there was already someone else in there… so I hastily went back out to the waiting area where the assistant asked me why I didn’t go in. I explained to her and sat back down. The eyebrow was again graciously lifted about 30 minutes later so I re-entered only to find that there was yet another person in there so this time I told the Registrar that his assistant had sent me in. He told me to wait outside so back I went. 5 minutes later the Assistant came up to me looking quite miffed and demanded to know if it was me  who told the Registrar that she had told me to enter…. Now I’m in her bad books.)

 

 (My friend the Assistant is the one sitting behind the desk with her hand on the gate. Its really hard to monitor her eyebrow movements from where I am sitting...)

So two weeks ago, I took Tina with me to the Registrar’s office at the courthouse to go through my Assistant/Registrar routine. We were there at about 9:30am and when I finally had an audience with the Registrar, he told me to come back in an hour and he would have what I needed.

We returned at 10:30 and, when I finally received the appropriate eyebrow sign I entered, only to be told by the registrar to return at 1 because the list wasn’t finished. So we returned to Osu to have lunch and then went back to Accra for 1pm at which point the Registrar advised me that he had decided that the list really should be typed so he had given it to his assistant to do up for me…come back at 4. Sigh.

So we traipsed around Accra for 3 hours and returned to the courthouse at 3:40pm at which point we were advised by other staff that the Registrar had left for the day some time ago.

So using Tina as a decoy, I was able to convince them to get him on the phone. They called him and told him the white ladies were at the courthouse looking for him. He told me to return the next day at 8am and he would have what I needed. I told him that I was leaving for Cape Coast and Kumasi tomorrow in the morning with Tina, but that I would drop by the courthouse first if he would definitely have what I needed at that time. He promised he would so that was that.

The next day, after my french class I called the Registrar, who confirmed that he was at the courthouse waiting for me. I headed down there and had the following conversation with him.

“I have the list here. I even made two copies of it for you”

“That’s fantastic! Thanks”

“Where are you from?”

“Canada”

“How old are you?”

“…29…”

“Are you married?”

“Uh…what? No.”  (Wrong answer)

“Maybe you’d like to come over sometime”

“No, no, I don’t think so”

“You could be with me”

“No… umm… surely you’re already married …” (the man had to be at least 55)

“Oh yes.”

[Blank stare]

[assistant enters at this point to ask for something, at which time I thought it would be interesting to see if I could get a photograph of this guy by inconspicuously using my iPhone. It would have worked flawlessly except that I forgot I had the FLASH on! …. That could have ended badly, except that neither of them noticed it]

After the secretary left he looked at me again and said

“so… what do you think?”

“About what?”

“About what we’ve been discussing”

“No.”

“Ok.”

He then asked me where the other white lady had gone. I told her she didn't come with me because she was still in bed. He told me to let her know he said hi. 

And that was that.

Yeah.

This is the list he gave me though. You have to admit, it is very nicely typed...all that for one piece of paper though... and I still have to convince the Judicial Secretary to let me actually read the cases listed on the list and once I get his permission, I have to bring it BACK to the Registrar and convince him to actually give me said cases.

The folks at Enslavement Prevention Alliance West Africa (EPAWA) advised me to just slip him 50 cedis if I really wanted to get anything done.  :|