Running Errands
Running errands in town is terribly time-consuming and often very frustrating. I'll use last Thursday and Friday as an example.
Our director Bryan made reservations to fly back to Arizona for a brief visit. Airline reservations cannot be made on the internet in much of Africa. My understanding is that it is due to the high number of fraudulent uses of credit cards. So after finally getting ahold of someone in the British Airways office and securing a reservation, I had to go out to pay for it at a local bank. Only 2 branches in Lusaka accept those payments (of course, they're on the other side of town). On Thursday morning, Bryan's wife wanted to pay with a credit card, but they only accept cash. On Thursday afternoon, I went to one of those branches with US Dollars. I stood in line for 15-20 minutes, filled out the deposit form (with 5 carbon copies), handed over my $100 bills and found out that they did not have the $26 in change that I would require. They told me I could go to the other branch which was very nearby.
I stood in line again for another 20 minutes. Filled out another deposit slip (5 carbon copies again), and handed over my $100 bills. They did have the change. But one of my bills had a small tear in it so they wouldn't accept it. I tried to reason with the teller. No. I asked to speak to the manager and went round and round with her. The response was still no. She explained that they would have to sell it for a lower value on the foreign exchange market. I tried to reason, I argued, but all to no avail. After more than an hour of trying to pay for the ticket, I went home empty handed.
The next morning, I picked up Bryan and we went back to the bank with a new $100 bill. After another 20 minutes, we had finally paid for the ticket. The teller said he would fax the deposit slip to the airlines which would confirm the reservation. I got a call the following Tuesday from the airline requesting that I fax them a copy of the receipt. Things simply move at a different pace here and expectations of customers are much different than those in the US. I'll get used to it.
Feel free to pray for me.