Some Observations

Just as the head of a family is expected to take care of those in his household, employees paid by the Ghana government (for example, at the hospital) expect the same of their "head." However, as a result, many workers (certainly not all) with this mind-set often demand to be reimbursed for every little thing beyond the bare minimum of their "job description" - such as transportation, food, uniforms, cell phone credits, and of course any over-time hours. At the same time, those often "in charge" seem to be extemely lenient if an employee arrives late, leaves early, or simply fails to appear at an assigned location.
On the other side of the picture, employees at the hospital are sometimes not paid for weeks and even months at a time due to a financial glitch originating in Accra. Others work in temporary positions for long peroids, occasionally years, with no pay, just hoping that they will eventually be placed on an official roster.
The red-tape of bureaucracy is further seen in the frustrating amount of time it takes for certain things to get done. One example is the new intensive care unit created in the hospital here in Tamale well over two years ago when a good deal of face-lifting took place in the country with Ghana hosting the African Soccer Cup. The unit is still waiting for the necessary permit which would authorize it to be fully utilized - something about the contractors not yet being paid for their work and not enough trained nursing staff.
And yet, there are those three separate instances yesterday when a Ghanaian saw me trudging along with my packages and literally ran over to ask if she could carry them for me. Not a polite, ambitious youngster eager to pick up a few pesewas, but a teenaged school girl and two middle-aged women. As I was beginning to think I must be looking pretty old and seemingly in need of obvious assistance, my friend Hubertine reassured me that it was simply customary Ghanaian courtesy to receive such expressions of kindness. I decided to believe her.