Made it to Accra!
The second flight was on a small aircraft so we exited the plane using a
staircase like in the photos you see of the President climbing out of Air Force
One, then piled into a bus, which drove exactly thirty feet down the tarmac to
the door of the airport. The
baggage claim was a free-for-all.
People just grabbed a cart and pushed it as close to the conveyer as
humanly possible, smashing though ankles if necessary. No one could actually get their bags off the belt. I pointed and hollered from three carts back until someone
fifteen feet down the line grabbed mine and passed it, crowd-surfing-style,
back to me.
Customs was a joke.
It was harder to get out of the
States than it was to get in to
Ghana. They let me, and my two
bananas, skate right though.
Exhausted, dragging my luggage behind me, I heaved open the
manual glass doors. The
oppressively thick hot air engulfed my body like a slow moving wave. I could feel it ooze over my skin as
the air-conditioning became a memory.
The sweat was instantaneous.
I hiked up my backpack and pushed outside. Almost as quickly as the swampy-air hit me I was surrounded
by taxi drivers, swarming. “First
time in Africa?” “You need taxi?” “Pure water, 1 Cedi!” “Use my phone, five dollars!” You know in the movies, when the camera
does that swing-around thing, going in circles, showing you how overwhelmed the
protagonist is? Cue swing-around
thing.
I backed away, “No… no… no thank you, nothankyou,” and slunk
along the sidewalk, dragging my suitcase, away from the main crowd. People hugged and negotiated
rides. Newbies, not unlike myself,
got scammed into giving “small tip, maybe $10” for having their bags
carried. I just watched, and
waited for Elvis, the Cosmic Volunteers Ghanian Coordinator, and my point
person should anything go awry during my trip, to pick me up.
I waited.
He’ll come.
I’m not worried. I’m only
on the other side of the planet at the crack of dawn having just escaped from a
nest of persistent local entrepreneurs with an affinity for fresh blood. And, “Cosmic Volunteers” is a legit
business, even if I did find them through a Google search. I’m sure it’s fine. It’ll be fine.
Cosmic Volunteers.
If ever there was a company name that screamed “we’re going to drop you
in the middle of no-where and steal your money,” this is it. Months ago I spent an hour or so
perusing past volunteer blogs and conducted a thorough investigation through
the Better Business Bureau which left me feeling secure. However, when no one is standing on the
other side of the rope line holding a card with your name on it, you start to
wonder if sending a couple thousand dollars to an internet company you’ve never
heard of before was such a great idea.
And getting picked up by a guy named “Elvis?” Geez. Possibly
not the best decision I’ve ever made.
I sat on my suitcase, took out one of my contraband bananas
and ate. It was enormous and
tasteless, thanks to exorbitant western fertilizers. The cabby just down the walkway was staring at me. Actually,
he was staring at my banana. I
held out the other- “you want one?”
He walked over, took it, said thanks, walked back, and just stood there
rolling it over in his hands. How
embarrassing. This guy lives in a
place where bananas actually grow. Naturally.
They’re small and radiate quality that New Jersey Flavorists only dream
about. And now I’ve given him this
colossal disaster of a banana, which will represent America in his mind forever. Oh well.
And I wait.
Vladimir and Estragon have nothing on me.
Finally I decided to pull out the Cosmic Emergency
Phone Number and
waived over a cell phone wielding taxi driver. For a mere $3 he let me place a fifteen second call (he
wanted $5, but I didn’t give in!).
To my amazement, Elvis answered the phone (He exists! It’s not a scam!) Convinced that I wasn’t to arrive for
another two hours, Elvis let me know that Joyce would be there to pick me up as
soon as she could and hung up without saying goodbye.
Who the hell is Joyce?
About 30 minutes later a plump, middle aged Ghanian woman
strapped into a “Blondes Have More Fun” t-shirt, sporting a sleek, almost
shaved hairdo and red lipstick bounced toward me. Joyce. My host
for the evening.
After giving me a squeeze and grabbing my suitcase with her
worn, but manicured hands, she chirped “I will give you Ghana Orientation! Edem will pick you in the morning to go
to the Volta Region.”
Who the hell is Edem?
Joyce chattered about past volunteers she’s hosted, where
they’ve been from, and how much they enjoyed staying with her, while I watched
out the window of her Jeep as this strange new place flew by. The Accra roads were paved and we passed
two and three story buildings, billboards, taxis, and mini-van sized busses
that never came to a stop, yet people kept jumping in and out. People were walking and riding bikes
and sweating standing still. They
carried baskets full of vegetables on their heads, pulling their children along
behind them. They wore western
clothes, and they wore long cuts of bright, wildly patterned fabric wrapped
around their waists and shoulders.
They sold water in plastic baggies, dirty used shoes off of blankets
under trees, individually wrapped crackers. Business men and women in tailored suits bustled along,
chatting on their phones.
Twenty-somethings in imitation Dolce & Gabana jeans strutted and
flirted. Haggard, weather-beaten,
frowning parents in shredded coats dispatched small armies of filthy children
to beg at the elbows of passersby.
We drove by crooked little hand-built fences, supporting
dirty brown burlap sacks full of rice stacked six feet high. Faded orange, blue, red, and black
fabric hung on lines to dry in the sun.
Row upon row of tires were piled next to bench seats that had been
removed from flooded minivans, but still seemed to be for sale. Every corner had a little table the
perfect size for a child’s lemonade stand back home, with the words “Space to
Space” painted on the front, and seemed to sell cell phone credit. Living room sets were displayed
roadside, a man at the ready to towel them off for potential customers.
And then there was the smell. Like burning tires, campfire smoke, and body odor. And something sweet, like fried starchy
potatoes.
Joyce turned onto an unpaved road where cement buildings
were traded for metal transport containers and sheds with painted wooden signs
for “God is God Electronics,” “Allah’s Fast Food,” “Modern Creation” fashions,
and “All Mighty Ventures: Rent Chairs and Tables.” “Anointed Supermarket,” like every single foodstuff shop we
passed (and there were plenty), sold bunches of bananas, small green oranges on
wire displays, tins of tomato and fish, black bags of charcoal, individually
wrapped candies, toilet paper by the roll, single serving instant coffee, used
water bottles full of red oil, and plastic buckets.
We arrived at Joyce’s building; a comparatively fancy
bungalow made of cement blocks and a tin roof. She and her family lived on the second floor above a
shop. Up the stairs, from the
porch, I sat with her brood of four and watched the stray dogs trot by. After eating a dinner of rice and spicy-spicy-spicy
“stew,” which was mostly tomato puree, red oil, not-quite invisible bits of
onion and enough chili “pepe” to make my lips and my entire right hand numb, I
went to bed on my foam mattress. I
barely heard the chickens squawking me to sleep.
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