Another Tale of Broken Electronics

Having a cellphone while in Ghana is very important to me. Really, it’s my lifeline. I use it to communicate to people at home and in Ghana in addition to using it for e-mails, internet, homework and work documents. 

You might remember me discussing my great used Blackberry purchase at a special place in Accra called Kwame Nkrumah Circle (locally known as Circle). In my first post I mentioned how overwhelming Circle was on the first day I was in Ghana - in hindsight, perhaps not the best choice to go to Circle while jetlagged and absolutely clueless but we managed. Circle is essentially a central transportation hub with a huge tro tro station (and at least 3 auxiliary stations that I have stumbled upon), STC and VIP buses have stations here, there is a Post Office and several markets. Circle is also a great place to buy used things like cellphones and bicycles. 

The purchase of my used BlackBerry Bold 9000 for what I thought was a pretty reasonable price was amazing. I couldn’t ask for more from a phone. It was pretty banged up when I bought it and it was quite remarkable that it worked perfectly despite its age. I will admit that it was very big and heavy and often got dropped but I tried to take care of it. I was hopeful that it would last the 8 months of my placement. Sadly, that was not meant to be, as it died forever on Sunday February 26. I couldn’t believe that it was dead dead even though it resetting itself constantly over the weekend. This was a bit of a problem because I had been working on an assignment for work on the phone and lost all the work. A reminder that relying so heavily on electronics is perhaps not the smartest thing (eventually I will learn this).

I had to do a great deal of soul searching about what kind of phone I would purchase for the remainder of my placement. I had two options: buy another used BlackBerry and run the risk of getting a garbage phone or buy a cheap, disposable phone to text and call without all the fancy extras. In the end, I decided the BlackBerry was the best option for me despite the fact that I will only be in Ghana for another 52 days. Could I have survived without the fancy phone? absolutely, but I didn’t want to.

So decision made and with my budget in mind, off I went with a friend to Circle Tuesday morning to once again buy a phone. I promised myself that this time I would shop around and not buy the first phone I saw like last time. I promised not to buy on impulse and make sure it was worth buying before handing over my Cedis. Ian and I hadn’t gone too far down the road before we saw a guy with nice looking BlackBerrys in his little glass case. We stopped to talk to Isaac and saw a BlackBerry in good condition that looked alright. Bargaining is like a sport and it is quite addictive. Within a few minutes we got him to cut the price from 200 to 150 and we quickly tried making a phone call and making sure all the buttons and camera worked.

I lost my desire to shop around and handed over the money and became the owner of my new BlackBerry. I didn’t realize until I got on the tro tro to come home that the buttons have what looks like Arabic characters in addition to the regular characters on the buttons! woops!! Never mind, I replaced an ancient Bold 9000 with a Tour 9630 2009 model.

So far, the Tour has been alright. It seems to be a cross between the Curve and the Bold. Having owned both models before, it seems to combine the features of the Bold in a smaller, lighter handset. So far the Tour is alright, it isn't my favourite model and I miss the bigger screen of the Bold but really, I can't complain.

My wonderful little purchase will only be mine until the day I leave as I’ve decided to return to Circle and sell it back to one of the boys on the street so that someone else can enjoy it. Right after buying it one of the other boys asked me if I was interested in selling it. I’ve got a better idea of how much I can get for it so we’ll see what happens when the time comes!