Life is a Journey: Live it (Part 28)

The other autobiography
As he was not convinced the business would go smoothly as agreed, the business did not go ahead as intended. Nevertheless, Sven Erxleben decided to send a container of pre-sorted items from The Gambia, where he had a partner grading original used clothes into big bundles for us in Ghana to sort into 55 kg bags. When the forty-foot container arrived, it was anything but pre-sorted. At the Port of Tema, the container arrived around the New Year, and the port was busy wrapping up for the year. When the container was lifted, the scale showed more than the twenty-four tons allowed. It was overweight by three tons, causing suspicion by the customs office head. Had to see him in his office for questioning. The real weight I did not know; only the papers I held in my hands showed the correct and allowed weight. The head of the customs officer said the container can leave the port but must not be opened, but stay sealed for inspection at the warehouse in Kantamanto Market after the New Year celebrations. The customs officer in charge of the paperwork to take the container out of the port suggested to us that he could change the grading of the used clothes from good to waste material, which would save us money, when, in return, we put something small into his palm, which we did.

Part of the freight cost, all customs duties, and the transportation costs for the truck from the port to the sorting warehouse, we had to pay out of our pocket. When the container got unsealed, the female customs officer was relieved not to have found any machinery inside, seen as the cause for the extra weight, and walked off. Instead of finding one or two hundred big bags of pre-sorted bags, we found 720 waste bags, plastic bags with used items inside. Unsorted. The workers we had hired to offload the container shouted and complained that they had never seen such a mess before and asked for more money. The warehouse staff started sorting the goods. Besides broken jeans, single sockets, hats for winter, fur for winter, six to eight lady handbags, one protective gear for motorriders, and alike were all inside and dumped on a heap later sold as waste textile to be forwarded to Pakistan. What was left were 55 kg sacks of medium to good quality. Before the container had arrived, I asked all our customers and contacts to come and have a look at the goods. With high hopes, they walked into the warehouse and looked at the goods. They were not impressed. To recover our immediate costs just outlined, I calculated the prices per kg and communicated the information back to Leipzig to get the green light. We were running out of time, and our money got smaller and smaller. Each day the warehouse was costing us money, and we needed a buyer fast. Some only wanted to buy one or two sacks, not the whole, which would have put us in a very difficult situation. I called Sven Erxleben, explained the situation, to get instructions on what to do next. Together, he was willing to go down to the very minimum price.

I stood outside the warehouse when a call came in. Someone introduced himself as a pastor who had seen we were in serious trouble and offered his spiritual help. We sat in his church at First Junction opposite Fertilizer Road, which led to Greda Estate. In a makeshift wooden low structure, we sat around the altar. Telling him our story, he got out a little notebook. He said how much it would cost to help us. For his work, he would need certain items which he would have to buy, and he calculated how much each item would cost us. I knew he was a scammer. While my wife did not want to insult him, I was ready to fight him and tell him the truth in his face. Later, I will tell you of more such stories where people tried to scam us. Be very careful in Africa. It is not like here in Germany! Anyway, my wife and I left the church with a smiling face. The next day, we received a call from that fake Man of God trying to find out whether we had managed to get the money he had asked for. Again, I wanted to deal with him, but Ghana was not my country; I am only a guest. Back to the warehouse. My wife had meanwhile contacted her pastor, a lady who used to live in the USA and had returned from there to open her church in Ghana. As a businesswoman and pastor, my wife trusted her. She mentioned that she had a potential buyer, and in the afternoon, that buyer, with her husband, came to see the goods on offer. We agreed on a price, half payment before taking the goods away, and the rest after selling the goods. That was the best deal I was able to strike as the warehouse costs were running out of control. And our money was finished. I had to ask Mensa Bediako for a credit on my next commission, and he agreed. It turned out the buyer never intended to pay the rest. She insisted she was not able to sell many goods and could not give us the money. The pastor my wife had brought into the transaction took no responsibility for bringing such a buyer to us. She turned the issue against us.

Now we were completely broke and shattered. We lost hope for the future. I began to see Ghana with different eyes. While many Germans see Ghana as a peaceful democracy, not a perfect country, but better than most African nations, I have seen the dark sides of Ghana more than the good sides. Every country has its challenges, no problem, but Ghana has too many. More such issues with you people later.“

„We cannot wait to hear more about your time in Ghana. It helps us who were never in Africa to have a better understanding of the African continent. I am sure some whites have had very good experiences and love Africa madly. But we here see stories about Africa that we cannot understand and find more than disturbing. Therefore, it helps us when people like you, who came to Africa with great hopes and aspirations, did not make it. To hear the reasons behind it certainly is an eye-opener for most of us. In the end, I guess what really matters to judge a continent correctly is whether a continent has more good or more bad sides...speaking from our perspective. This, in the end, will also determine how much foreign investments go into such societies and how many stay away, not willing to face such devastating challenges...I guess that makes a great difference, “ said Frieda Schöngruber, put out the campfire, asked the others to collect the things we bought for the night, and we all left the place.