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Greetings from Ghana

Tuesday, December 16, 2008

I woke to a light tap tap tapping sound outside my door and the sound of small voices talking. I was in a deep slumber with my ear plugs in, but somewhere in the depths of unconscious I was roused and popped the plugs out and heard a small voice saying, “We want to meet you!”

I stumbled out of bed, hoping my hair hadn’t become too wild in the night, and discovered three small children at my door. “We want to meet you,” they said again. I unlatched the screen and let them in.

They were dressed in blue and white Annbell Montessori school uniforms — a three-year-old boy (Kofi) and two girls (6 and 7 years old, Rita and Nicholina). The three-year-old was asleep in his mother’s arms when I arrived, and they all were eager to see the visitor upstairs before they went to school. They took me in with their bright eyes and then hustled off to school.

I slept well my first night in the thick hot hair. A very slight breeze occasionally found it’s way through the lace curtains of the window above my bed, and I slept deeply and soundly. No jet lag!!! Hurray! From Denver to Boston, I dozed off and on. Our flight was delayed over an hour, and although I had a three-hour transition between planes, that quickly vanished, and I ran with my luggage between the domestic and international terminals at Logan and checked my bags to Northwest 5 minutes before they closed off the baggage loading for my plane to Amsterdam.

Crossing the Atlantic, I sat next to a bright young man from Istanbul. He was with his school group from Robert College – a secondary, private school based in the United States.  I told him that coincidentally, I had brought Snow by Orhan Pamuk to read on the plane. Snow is the story of an exiled poet from Turkey who returns to the forlorn city of Kars, ostensibly to report on a wave of suicides among religious girls forbidden to wear their heads scarves, but he is secretly drawn there by memories of a radiant woman he once loved, now recently divorced.

The Turk informs me that Orhan Pamuk attended Robert College as well, and that this school turns out the brightest and best students from Turkey. We spend the next several hours discussing Turkish politics and popular culture and how everyone was so excited about Obama being elected President.

I slept then for a few hours before landing in Amsterdam. We arrived at 7:30 a.m., and I felt blurry eyed and almost sick from fatigue. I wasted a lot of time in the airport trying to figure out how to get train tickets into town – the machine wouldn’t take my debit card, and I had only Euro bills and needed change. Then I spent about 15 minutes running up and down the staircases to the train platforms trying to figure out which one I needed to take. I finally got into Amsterdam Centraal at around 9:30 a.m.

Outside the station, I walked aimlessly along one of the canals, not sure which way to old town. Turns out, I was walking along a main bicycle commuting route. Everyone — and I mean EVERYONE — rides a bicycle. It was quite chilly even in my down jacket, gloves and hat, and people – young and old – were riding their bikes! Hundreds and hundreds of bicycles! Everywhere I looked were bicycles – chained up along every bridge and railing — mostly ride cruiser bikes, and it put me to shame how I drive Daniel to school 5 blocks when it gets nippy.

I found my way finally to old town and enjoyed a large latte and some eggs before finding a  tour boat for an hour-long ride through the canals. What I liked the most in canals were the house boats. I think they said there are 200,000 of them along the canals. Some house boats look like boats, others are more like floating mobile homes – about the same size with shorter ceilings and not quite as long. I decided that I would be most perfectly happy living in one of this small tidy spaces, with plants growing on the roof and lights strung up in the windows.

Another funny fact of Amsterdam is that they make the staircases too small in the houses, so all of the furniture you have must be hoisted up from outside and brought in through the windows! So, every house has a “hoisting beam” mounted at the peak of the roof!

I didn’t have time to walk around the districts, unfortunately. However, strangely, most shops and cafés were closed even mid-day on Monday. Perhaps Monday is like Sunday. Also, I couldn’t find WIFI anywhere!

On the train platform, I met a man from Iran. He was asked me how to get to the airport. Suddenly, this lost American became a source of knowledge. “Yes,” I said, “the train to Schipool leaves here in 10 minutes.” We sat together on the train car and exchanged what knowledge we had of African politics, the election in Ghana, and the historic turmoil of the Congo. Kevin lives in Vancouver because Iran’s government is so screwed up. He said most people from Iran are very well educated but many of immigrated to the U.S. because they just can’t tolerate living in Iran. Mostly they live in California and the west coast.

At Schipool, they do the security at the boarding gate, so we stood for more than an hour to get through this checkpoint and then got straight on the plane. I met a man in line, Osei, who works for the utility company in Ghana and travels around the world to study the utilities practices in other countries.  Also in line was an American now living in Spain reading the 2nd book I’d brought along in my bag – Mountains Beyond Mountains by Tracy Kidder about a doctor who travels the world bringing medical care to those who need it the most.

After take off, I searched for Adjei and Kari, who were supposed to meet me in Amsterdam, and  couldn’t find them. I got concerned that perhaps I’d screwed up my schedule and booked the wrong flight. With my phone not working, I reached Phillip and Akramah via the SMS text messaging service available on the seatback on the airplane. They told me that Adjei arranged for his brother to pick me up at the airport. However, the mystery of Adjei’s whereabouts remained.

After landing, we walked off the plane straight onto the landing strip. Buses shuttled us to the airport terminal, where I found my bags and was paged to the information desk. A customs officer escorted me to Adjei’s brother waiting for me outside. The air was thick and warm and hundreds of people stood outside the airport waiting for passengers. Sam told me that Adjei had missed his flight to Amsterdam, because the plane at JFK was delayed two hours. I felt bad for Adjei but releived to know that my mind still worked and that I hadn’t screwed up the dates!

We got in Sam’s car and drove fast without seatbelts through the winding streets heading out of town. Along the way, I noticed many makeshift “store fronts” constructed of tin and/or plywood boards. A single flame from a paraffin lamp provided light. These stores contained everything from cell phones and DVD movies to bananas and dried fish. People walked and lounged along the roads, most wearing flip flops and western clothes.

I was so tired by this point having slept only 4 or 5 hours in more than 24 hours, I started to nod off in the car and felt completely secure with Sam’s speedy navigation. Finally, after about 20 or 30 minutes (?) we started heading up a very bumpy hill to Adjei’s neighborhood. We entered his courtyard where everything was entirely dark. I was informed that the electricity had went out that day (ironic that I’d been standing in line at the airport for an hour with one of the people responsible for ensuring that doesn’t happen). Adjei’s mom and siter-in-law greeted me and carried my bags and showed me to my room on the second floor where the only light came from a single candle on a small table in the corner.

I showered (the water taps apparently only run Sundays to Wednesdays so I was lucky to arrived on Monday) and enjoyed some tilapia and rice with Margery and Sam. Florence, Adjei’s younger sister, came out and teased me a little, saying “Akwaaba” meaning “Welcome” in Twi. When I replied repeating “Akwaaba” back to her she giggled at me and told me what I’d said. My response should have been, “Medasi,” meaning “Thank You!” Apparently, she was testing how much Adjei and tutored me before my trip.

After, dinner, I was so glad to fall down on those crisp blue sheets and then delighted to be awakened by the sound of bright children at my door the next morning.

Now, after a breakfast of mangos (that grow on the tree in the courtyard) and toast, and a short walk through the neighboring streets, I’m sitting on the bed, typing and listening to local music, loudly but beautifully coming in through the windows.  A slight breeze today plays across the sweat on my face and arms providing a very nice cooling effect.

When I took a walk earlier, the neighboring children were very excited to see this white woman walking around. Everyone smiles and says, “Good morning. How are you?” Waste water meanders down the middle of the road, and chickens and goats roam through the muck.

I met an artist, Bernard, in a little shack down the road who makes the most beautiful string collages. He takes photographs and places glue on boards and places the yarn in flat loops on the board to create beautiful artwork. Adjei gave me one of his pieces a couple years ago, now I’m glad to see where it came from. I’d love to get one for everyone.

There are three Internet cafés nearby. I’m typing this letter on the computer that I’ll be delivering to Krobo in a couple days, so my future emails may not be as long. The Internet cafes are small shacks about the size of a Tuff Shed chock full of antiquated PCs and CRT monitors. You pay by the minute. Before I go exploring the bandwidth possibilities, I need to convert the too many Euros I got to Cedis. Hopefully, I’ll be able to download a driver for my camera and hopefully can upload pics to my Facebook page. So glad I brought my flash drive!

That’s all for now! Adjei and Kari and Mireku arrive tonight. Margery is a professional cake baker (lots of little cottage industries in the neighborhood) and has made a cute kitty cat cake to welcome them home. Looking forward to that today!

I have no idea what time it is now, but my stomach says, “Lunch!” which also means it’s time for the daily malaria prophylaxis, so goodbye for now!

Love,
Angela

P.S. Napping after lunch, again a tapping at the door. The children have returned, “Thank you, Good afternoon, Angela. Please may we see you?”

(Back: Dennis and Mary. Front: Kofi, Rita and Nicholina)

We played and then I was discovered by a guy from the UK (Richard) and his two Ghanaian pals (Nii and Ernest). The rumor of a “Dutch” woman walking around by herself this morning spread quickly! Adjei does not arrive until tonight. My new buddies are showing me around and taking me to each of the Internet “cafes.” No coffee — just an internet link is served by the minute. My pals are teaching me all the basic language things I need to know: how to say, “how are you – ete sien” “I’m fine – aya” “thank you – medasi” “you’re welcome – akwaaba.”