Summer 2010 in Ghana

Friday, July 23, 2010

    Today we ran early, before school, and enjoyed some nice bucket showers before breakfast.  Our running is not particularly serious, and certainly not always consistent, but always a nice diversion and an excellent time to clear our minds.  We could tell, however, with the mugginess already setting in at 6am, that today would be quite hot.

    In school, we had a number of successes today.  I found “Go, Dog, Go!” in the small room of the school which functions as a library.  This was great, because the book has excellent illustrations and considerable charm, but vocabulary-wise is much easier than Dr. Seuss.  Clifford managed to ace his 13-word spelling test, and we read the book afterward as a reward.  To my amazement, he read it aloud in only about 15 minutes with very little help.  It was the first book he’s ever been able to read, and was very exciting.  Jonathan too, was able to read the book in about a half an hour, unlike the Cat in the Hat, which had taken over a week of tutoring to complete.  Additionally, Connie made origami paper cranes with Class Four, which was a huge success, and in my opinion, they are quite beautiful.

    During lunch, we worked on a crossword puzzle with Dornuki, and afterwards headed straight to Accra to meet Jimmy (our rasta friend from Faisal’s dance group).  Jimmy, Faisal, and Junior had arranged for us to spend Friday and Saturday night at Kokrobite Beach, a small coastal village about a half hour west of Accra, where their troupe was performing on Friday.  Unfortunately, our 45 minute cab ride to our destination from the mall quickly became what we fondly (and, I suppose, politically incorrectly) like to refer to as “a trail of tears”. 

    At first the ride was pleasant, and I happily watched the thin branches of the plains trees dance up and down in the breeze outside the cab window as we waited in traffic.  It seemed as though each branch was playing a different part of a large drum set, very delicately and rhythmically, and the sight was quite pleasant in the fading light, particularly because my other companions in the cab, Jimmy (who was recovering from malaria) and Connie, were asleep.  We passed through a small city and a boy, about ten years old, in a spiffy gold and brown school uniform was making his way down the dusty, crumbling asphalt of the sidewalk-on rollerblades.  I watched curiously as he tried to use the extremely special contraptions (perhaps a recent gift? I wondered) to make his way down the sidewalk, but it was too narrow and the surface too uneven, and he quickly fell behind the other uniformed boy he was walking with, who was on foot.  He seemed determined to use the blades, however, and kept them on, basically walking with extremely heavy shoes, and almost tripping every few strides.  Nevertheless, he was moving faster than the traffic I was in, so I watched his progress intently.  Finally his friend returned to collect him, and he agreed to take off the boots, but looked heartily disappointed.  I sighed, and the traffic picked up.  As we were leaving town, I saw two buildings the seemed striking, if not slightly amusing.  The first was a wooden shack with a picture of a naked male baby on it and a huge sign that read “Jesus Saves Circumsizer: He knows we cut under HYGENIC CONDITION”.  The second was a white shack about a block away, that was quite small, and tucked, almost hidden, between two slightly bigger booths.  It was all boarded up and deserted, but on the door it read in thick, drippy blue paint, “Gambia Consulate”.

    Our trip really only became a trail of tears when we realized that we had been in traffic for over two hours, that it was 7:30pm, Jimmy’s show was to start at 8pm, our cell phone had died so we had no way of reaching the other cab (containing Annabel, Kelly, and Will), and there was no prospect of food in sight.  The traffic was literally immobile, and outside it was pitch black.  After taking a highly questionable short cut to avoid the traffic that involved earth so deep with potholes that I doubt any car I’ve ever driven could have navigated it without getting a flat, and after disembarking our cab and waiting, at Jimmy’s request, on a street-corner for nearly a half an hour while he tried to borrow a cell phone from a local vendor, we eventually determined to take a different cab towards the beach.  The driver got lost a few times, but with the help of a number of local people for navigation, we managed to arrive at Big Milly’s Cabana at 8:30pm, just as the show was starting. 

    We reconnected with Will, Kelly, and Annabel, and situated ourselves on benches near the beach, under the stars to watch the show.  There were a considerable amount of other obrunis there, and the show was fabulous.  Jimmy felt too sick to perform, but Faisal and Junior were excellent dancers, wearing beautiful, flowing costumes and performing the traditional African dances with tremendous alacrity and grace.  Africana, the name of the troupe, also has a handful of incredibly talented drummers, who provided a beautiful song and rhythm for the dance.  Towards the end, an acrobat performed who did all sorts of thrilling tricks involving eating fire, balancing bowls on top of umbrellas resting on his tongue, and lots of cool flips, splits, etc, many performed while holding various flaming objects.  It was quite exciting. 

    After the show, we congratulated the performers and casually inquired as to our previously discussed accomodations for the night.  Faisal explained that he’d wanted us to be able to check out the prices, so he hadn’t booked anything in advance.  Unfortunately, all the grass-roofed guest huts at Big Milly’s were full.  The only option was to rent a tent on the beach from the local Rastafarian group for five cedis.  They set it up for us, and gave us a grass mat to make the sand more comfortable under the tent.  It was a three-person tent, they explained, but we assured them that all five of us would fit.  They instructed us to put all our belongings inside their white, locked gate (about a dozen or so rastas in Kokrobite live in this small white house on the beach, which has a courtyard and a locked fence on all sides) instead of inside the tent with us.  We were hesitant to leave everything we owned/all our valuables in their hands, so Kelly kept her purse in the tent, and Annabel and I kept our wallets with us.  Our new rasta friends locked the compound gate, we wished Faisal, Jimmy, and Junior goodnight, and the five of us packed into the tiny tent on the beach, and went to sleep.