Life is a journey: Live it (Part 55)

The other autobiography
Half a year later…the story you already know…I moved to Frankfurt am Main, started my work with IIR, and worked in Singapore. However, I was unjustly and unlawfully fired by Sigrid Bauschert, the former Managing Director of IIR Germany, among other events. But now,” I paused and looked around. They were all ready to go to bed.

Hans Wilder reminded me the following night that I had promised them to share my experience coming back from Ghana and my love affair with chocolate. The campfire kept us all warm. The sausages were finished.

“When my wife and I decided enough nonsense of Ghana was enough and she had to undergo two surgeries which we wanted to be done in Germany as we were not certain about successful operations in Ghana…I mean you know what I want to say,” my look around proved they knew what I was up to. “Alberta had to fulfil certain criteria to leave Ghana for Germany. Being married to a German was not enough. She had to pass the A1 German language test. We enrolled her with the Goethe Institute in Cantonment. She failed the first time. Before she gained confidence to sit for her second test six months had passed. She repeated the class. Several students she met at the Goethe Institute had passed the examination with flying colours despite having hardly attended class and their German was less than A1 level. One classmate worked for Vodafone, had three children and was a regular traveller to Europe. To attend classes was not always an option for him. But he passed. My wife Alberta found out that the person responsible for the library of the school passed on bribes to the locals of the school marking students.

Alberta wanted to go the honest way and come to Germany not like her classmate having her father in Düsseldorf. They planned to marry him, come to Germany, and after a while file for divorce. Africans are not short of fooling white people right before their eyes. After passing the A1 test we had to find an apartment in Germany. German landlords want to see their tenants in person not only through sending emails as we are no longer students. They wanted three months' payslips. To get payslips someone must work in Germany. To work in Germany someone must have an address. To have an address means someone can have health insurance which is mandated in Germany. An address and health insurance are needed to get work. Presenting a company balance sheet when self-employed in a foreign country is for landlords not a guarantee to accept a new tenant. It would mean leaving the business behind in foreign lands and where to get the money from to pay for the rent in Germany?

We tried all options and failed. For Germans to leave the country and live abroad is a great chance while at the same time, going abroad not with a German company but on one’s own Initiative. To get the visa for Alberta meant to find an address to register us under. A friend suggested that we use a hotel as a viable address. Not the best solution, the German Embassy in Accra told us. They tended to deny the visa for Alberta. We were under stress and Alberta was down. To leave her behind, settle down in Hamburg before asking her to come was no option for us.