I don’t talk to smother much since she went back, it was nice having her around this time. The break between the last visit and this one wasn’t too long so I had a chance to remember all the little ways she may annoy me and ignore them. The emotional blackmail that she gave me the first time around was also bought to a minimum. There were a few longing looks at my cousin’s new born son and I could hear her cry ‘when is it going to be my turn’, but it was a lot quieter this time.

Even though I don’t speak to my family or friends everyday, there are two numbers on my speed dial. Ecobank, and ECG. The latter, I can’t do anything about them, but the former, once again is self inflicted doubled by laziness. I really need to change the account.

So what have Ecobank done this time. Well, I decided to do an online transfer. My 3 months pay-off from the company that shall remain nameless had finally comee through. I didn’t want to take any chances by leaving it in my account to long, so I sent half of it to the mortgage company, the rest, a mere £1,355 (thanks to the rate of 3-1) went to my UK account. With the way the cedi is depreciating and the fact that Nationwide allows free withdrawals from oversees, I thought more cedi for my pocket. I could use half of it to get to London, a third to go into my rainy day accounts and live on the third until I get myself a job. This was three weeks ago.

The money went out of my account alright, but it is now somewhere in limbo as right now, having managed to successfully live on £300 the past three months, I am now down to 52p. You would have thought a computer would get it right, but no, it is Ecobank from top to bottom. So now I am playing cat and mouse with the people of Ecobank, ‘we’re working on it and will get back to you at the end of the day’, of course they don’t. That would mean doing something other than gossiping and drinking tea.

In the meantime DUMSOR (off-on) has returned. Now it comes under the guise of ‘a feeder problem’, sometimes they do use the load shedding excuse but usually after the load-shedding comes the feeder problem so I am experience a near 24 hour light off. Yesterday went off at 10am, came back 12 hours later, but by 2am it was off again. How do I know, because I woke up in a pool of sweat and darkness around me. Yes, I have a generator now, but it’s noisy and if I use appliances such as the oven or the A-C it takes gallons of petrol. Plus with my money somewhere in space, I really can’t afford to buy the fuel right now. After almost 12 hours, I have about an hours worth of fuel. Yesterday’s call was a blast. I called the first time, chick didn’t know what was happening and so instead of telling me that she is as thick as two planks she gave me a reference number and insisted on getting my name. Really, in their customer service training, this is all they could come up with, ‘may I know your name’. No dumbass you may not, I just want to know when the light is coming back on.

But I deviate slightly, so I am given this reference number, and I call back, that’s when I am told it’s load shedding. So I ask why the other lady didn’t know, ‘oh Madam, even me, I am surprised, please may I know your name’. I wish I could get a contract teaching these numptees on customer service, first lesson, get your facts straight, second lesson, if all the customer wants is certain information and they are already annoyed with being given the wrong information, dont’ press on about asking for their name.

Well this is the goings on in the last 24 hours. I am signing out now as my battery has about 2 mins before it conks out on me. I’ll be back with more tales once normal power has resumed.

Au Revoir