Exchange Rates

Thursday, July 9th.

I had a restless, lousy sleep. Obed was up early and woke me up as he went for a workout in the gym. I couldn't sleep anymore so I 

e-mailed a few people. Had breakfast with the group and then Diane and I went to put our bricks of cash into the hotel safe. They used a counting machine that was fun to watch. After that we loaded up in the van. We arrived at GNAT by 9:00 and went to our respective rooms. The day passed without drama, but I was tired. The other three are working on their workshops and getting organized. Thomas brought us a couple of laptops to work on, one of which was Cameron’s teams with last year’s PowerPoints on it, which will be helpful. At lunch we all went to the touristy Arts Market so that the women could buy cloth to have more clothing made. GNAT's seamstress came along too. It was the usual chaotic but fun place with all the hawkers trying to sell you everything. Back to the room to continue working. We left at five to head back to the hotel. Diane and I had decided to pay for the room fees and the food so far in order to simplify and speed up checkout at the end of the week (Lyle's suggestion). The woman figured out the bill and wanted to charge us US$ but I said we had cedis so she was going to convert it at 4.4 to the US. I told her that we got 3.4 yesterday at the Forex and she said that we got ripped off and felt really bad for us. Neither Diane nor I are money whizzes, because we should have paid the bill with American as she was going to give us a better rate. Anyway we were upset so I phoned Ernest and asked him what we could do about the difference in rates. He said we'd talk about it tomorrow. So we decided not to pay and we had a meeting to figure out what to do. When Diane went to her room to get ready for dinner I talked to a tourist at the outside restaurant who was from the UK and here to deliver a workshop about power generation. We got talking and he told me that he changed money today for the rate of 3.3... So maybe we did not get ripped off after all. We had a good dinner and a couple of beers. Good time and the group are gelling really well. I talked to Brenda about her interesting diet of no carbs. We all had lots of laughs. When they all went to their rooms at 9:00 I went in the pool for a bit. It was really relaxing and enjoyable. Back to the room to e-mail and type up the day.