Out of Africa

Our last week in Africa, undocumented as it was via blog, has come to an end. That is to say, we have made it home to Seattle. The effects of the trip are still lingering though as I sit wide awake at 6:30 AM; after all, it is 2:30 in the afternoon in Ghana. At any rate, we have covered a lot of ground in the last week, both geographically and emotionally (especially in Debi's case, where the emotion range included sheer terror). I'm sure that has you friends of Debi clamoring, so without further ado...

The weekend started out slow, as we were unable to wrap up our accounting work until late on Friday night; we had originally intended to leave for the beach on Thursday morning (the story of Debi's life). Up yet again at 5 AM, it took all I had to convince Debi not to stop multiple times on the side of the road to add to her "roadkill collection." To answer your two questions: yes, she does have a repulsively large and getting larger collection of pictures of roadkill, and yes, I will be using it to help prove her insanity when she someday comes to using the neighbors' shower. We passed through a few gorgeous fishing towns on what I take to be Ghana's equivalent of the PCH and stopped in a small village called Saltpond for some photos from a hillside that overlooks the town and the Atlantic.

Our true wakeup call came four hours into our drive during our visit to St. George's Castle in Cape Coast. This "castle" is a former British slave checkpoint, to which Ghanaians were taken from the inland to be imprisoned prior to shipment across the Atlantic. The quarters for the men and women were classroom-sized and housed roughly 150 men or women -- as well as all of their bodily activity: sweat, urine, feces and worse. There was of course ventilation in the rooms... in the form of three miniature, barred windows angled upward so as not to allow vision of anything outside but the sky (see photo). The imprisoned Africans traveled throughout the castle in the darkness of underground tunnels, counted from above by British guards; rarely did they see anything more than a glimpse of the light of day. Those who misbehaved repeatedly were eventually deemed more trouble than the substantial amount they were worth; they were then thrown into a tiny room without ventilation or nourishment with a dozen others of the same gender and philosophy. After a week or so, the first prisoner would die. After two weeks, all noises and movement would cease in the room and the guards would open the door and force other slaves to throw what remained of the bodies directly off the castle walls into the Atlantic. The average length of a slave's imprisonment at the Castle was something like three months. Transatlantic ships arrived periodically, anchored and sent canoes to shore to shuttle 30 chained-together slaves out from the castle. Today the landing beach for the canoes houses dozens of fishing canoes that support the economy of Elmina, such as it is. In the photo below, on the far side of the canoes, you can see the remains of the wall that the British built to fortify their landing area. It was difficult not to feel indirectly guilty just by having the same skin color as those who subjected the people to these horrifying circumstances. Needless to say, it was a historically depressing beginning to our last weekend in Ghana.

We tried to lessen the impact by putting what we had seen in its historical context, and that impossible task was made ever-so-slightly easier by our lodgings on Saturday night. After our visit to St. George's Castle, we drove to Elmina, a sort of sister town to Cape Coast with an equally famous "castle." We couldn't bring ourselves to do more than just glimpse the outside as we drove by -- more of the same horrifying history. We reached our resort just west of Elmina in the early afternoon, and it proved to be the only legitimate resort of our entire trip. The gorgeous beach views, pristine pool and poolside bar, delicious seafood, and live jazz are better described in pictures -- you know what they say about pictures versus words (and I think you'll appreciate the 2000 words I saved by inserting photos). We even had the pleasure of watching -- you guessed it -- more soccer on TV! Needless to say, I was elated. Who would want to watch the NBA Finals as it stretches out to seven games with two of the storied franchises in league history when you can watch a bunch of flopping whiners flail around on a big green field, only to have the most popular sporting event in the world decided more often than not by an arbitrarily-decided call-or-no-call in the last minutes? We did at least get to see the U.S. tie England, the equivalent of a win for the overmatched Americans. But I digress.

Having finally experienced Ghana's superior lodgings and food, Debi and I moved on to our final tourist undertaking of the trip, driving the hour to Kakum National Forest and the famed canopy walkway. Let me get this out of the way to begin with so you know how hilarious this was: Debi is very privately proud of her unflappability, and is also deathly afraid of heights. The walkways were held up by nothing more than cords wrapped around trees and anchored to the ground in certain places for additional insurance; the actual footing was merely netting with a narrow metal ladder laid across the bottom, with a long wooden plank laid across the ladder to make walking easier. And we were probably 500 feet off the ground, with at times a direct view of the rain forest floor. So in sum, she was a strong gust of wind short of crapping her pants, pardon my imagery. It turned out to be for the best, at least from my perspective, since we saw no wildlife whatsoever and rivaled the often-serene views of the rain forest as the only available entertainment. Pictures don't do justice to the hilarity of her fear, but since I am far too lazy to wait for videos to upload, they will have to do for now. Oh, and being an unofficial journalist for the trip, I collected a few quotes from the hero of this and all other blog posts:

"I can't believe they attached it like that!"

"This was a stupid idea. I am going to throw up."

"It's slanting! Why is it slanting?!?!"

An unforeseen bonus at Kakum was that we arrived just as Ghana's soccer game entered crunch time. This meant we got to see their 85th minute goal and celebrate with the Ghanaians. Far more importantly, it meant that no guide was willing to go with us, which meant we got to do whatever we pleased in the park. It was hilarious coming from the liability-obsessed U.S. to be wandering around this park while the workers collected our money and then watched soccer. Certainly something that would never happen here.

We again had good lodging on Sunday, this time just East of Cape Coast at a beach resort with air conditioned huts right on the beach. The view from our door included nothing more than lawn chairs, sand, and the gorgeous Atlantic Ocean. We relaxed over dinner at the open-air restaurant as a bat swooped over our heads, protecting us from mosquitoes. We spent the first half of the surprisingly temperate evening sleeping in the hotel's lawn chairs before rain drove us indoors for the remainder of the night; still, it was an unbelievable way to spend our last night in Ghana.

On Monday we drove into Accra, took care of some administrative things for Burro, and boarded our plane in the early evening, laden with fabric, trinkets and memories. After a day barhopping in London (and watching yet more soccer), we arrived in Seattle nine hours ago; predictably jetlagged, I haven't slept a wink since; hence, this final, rambling, undoubtedly grammatically horrendous blog update about our busy last week.

In all, I can say that our time in Africa went off without notable hitches. We left with many ideas of how to improve the developing world, and a many-times enhanced appreciation for how day-to-day life goes by for Americans. It sounds cliche, but it's really not possible to comprehend and consider all the advantages we have without visiting, and to some extent immersing oneself in a third-world culture. I craved so many conveniences that I had never even considered -- menus actually listing food that is available; food being served in less than 90 minutes; food actually being what I ordered; food tasting good regardless (at final count I lost fourteen pounds in Ghana); reliable power; paved roads; usable tap water (it was an extremely odd feeling to use tap water to brush my teeth in London); understandable English (also hardly much better in England); hamburgers; real sports on TV; hot water; named streets; recognizable traffic patterns; addresses; credit card use; conventional methods of selling goods; grocery stores; any notion whatsoever of customer service; inspected and certified food; pedestrian right of way... The list goes on.

However, I don't think of these as merely complaints about Ghana (although you may, they certainly do sound that way listed out). Rather, they are things that I once took for granted to the point of not even considering their absence. I had a loose vision of what Africa would be like having never stepped foot there. But "poverty" and "inefficiency" do not begin to describe the disadvantages that many children (and adults) face. To almost all, the barrier to their success in the global economy is insurmountable without help. I am not ready to give that help today, but I am acutely aware of the need and many challenges, and maybe through osmosis and the ever-so-slight power of my writing someone else will be inspired to make the trip. I promise you it will be no more than 10% what you expected.

I appreciate everyone that stuck with me through ramblings, musings and soccer bashing. I hope the pictures did what my words could not do well enough -- give some power to our experiences. I consider it a favor to me from everyone who read about the trip, and I have to ask another from you: if you go on an adventure such as ours, or any other trip worth telling about, even if it's just to the grocery store, take advantage of the internet and record your stories. I promise you'll have my ear so long as I have your URL. Thanks for reading.

*** All representations expressed herein regarding the character "Debi" are true and honest-to-God statements of fact, no matter what verbal retractions or refutations she may be inclined to make after the fact.

Last Night in Kof-Town

During the last few days, I have realized I will be very sorry to be leaving Koforidua, which surprises me since it hasn't been the source of most of the trip's excitement. Yet as I sit on my makeshift bed (couch cushions laid out over a wooden bed frame) and listen to the Friday evening (ie early Saturday morning) music easing the town into the weekend, I realize how accustomed I have come to the office and the town. No longer is it a chore to run to grab something at the store or the market. I enjoy being hailed "obrohni" in a half-mocking, half-friendly voice every time I pass a storefront. Hell, I don't even mind waking up from heat and noise at 7:30 every morning. It really hasn't taken long to feel at home here.

This realization makes me a little bit remorseful that we leave so soon, but I am also excited for our last driving adventure in Ghana. Tomorrow (technically today) we leave once again bright and early for Cape Coast, a more touristy but by all accounts beautiful beach in southwestern Ghana. We have a day and a half there before we have to head back to Accra to fly home on Monday. Naturally, we had planned to leave Thursday to thoroughly enjoy Cape Coast, make a day trip to the nearby stilt village, and relax before heading home, but complications arose at work; naturally our commitment to doing things the right way and finishing what we started overrode our strong desire to escape to the beach.

Debi and I are both proud of the work we've done at Burro and we're excited to continue to track and potentially contribute to the future of the company. Their vision is strong and the goal is both noble and profitable; a great combination on which to found a company. And now, hopefully for good, they have some damn sound financials and bookkeeping methods, if I do say so myself. We were even kind enough to clean off our usually paper-strewn workspace before we left.

At any rate, this is me signing off the blog, potentially until we reach our hotel in London. I'm going to get some sleep before I have to get up at 5 AM and drive a stick shift for the third time in my life. I will leave you loyal readers (probably all of whom I'm related to by blood at this point) with one tidbit that I left out from last post...

The last day we spend in Kumasi, Debi wore two different flip-flops entirely on accident. The entire day. You may wonder how that's possible, and to be honest so would I if it weren't Debi. But she "forgot to change the other one," as if changing a pair of shoes is two separate activities. So aside from being a clueless bumbling set of obrohnis, our leader (in the literal sense but certainly not in title or spirit) was wearing one fancier brown suede flip-flop and one cheap blue beach flip flop. For eight hours. It may be a 'you have to have been there kind of thing' or maybe a 'you have to know Debi' kind of thing, of which there are many. But then again anyone who's been reading the blog pretty much does know her at this point...

Oh and she really really wanted me to let everyone know that she's 51 as of yesterday. Over and out.

Holy Mole

Precursor: some combination of the spotty internet and my inability to operate this website is causing some testy formatting on the blog. A smart man once said, "if at first you don't succeed, try, try again." I think even he would have admitted that to try indefinitely would be a major waste of time. Long story short, if some pictures look out of place or the formatting looks funky, I apologize. The technology gods are elsewhere right now. On to the post...

To those of you thought that title would be beneath even me, well you just overestimated me didn't you? It is as fitting a title as one would find, and for that reason I make no apologies. As a precursor to this post, as my good friends over the years would tell you, I have grown to shall we say eschew showers on trips of less than 4 or 5 days; it wastes precious time and within hours I'm always dirty again anyways. Suffice it to say that this trip fell perfectly (depending on your perspective) into that 4 to 5 day range. With that in mind, let's see if my average retelling abilities can begin to do justice to our breathtaking experiences.

We started off the weekend with a shotgun wakeup at 5 AM on Friday morning; for this occasion we actually moved our luggage to the office and stayed there. We awoke with Justin and Andrew, coworkers from BYU’s MBA program (and travel companions for the weekend), and set off. We had a great sunrise drive --beautiful enough to keep sunrise-ambivalent and sleep-loving me awake throughout. Our first day's driving was to be the longest as it took us all the way north from Koforidua to Mole National Park. We drove northwest to Kumasi, capitol of the Ashanti region, and got our first glimpse of what is truly a cultural and population hub of western Africa. However, we had time dedicated to Kumasi on Sunday and Monday so we took the bypass roads and avoided its infamous traffic. We headed north from Kumasi and were fortunate enough to have great road for most of the drive. When we began to get bored but were unable to turn on our music in the car, we played some of Andrew’s music over the loudspeaker mounted on top of our truck. Nothing like a little K-Ci and Jojo to serenade the mostly Muslim northern Ghanaians on a Friday afternoon.

Our drive was also broken up by a few of Debi's attempts at playing aide worker. We brought hundreds of pens and pencils, stickers, and other fun items to distribute to the children of Ghana. However, there is so little of that sort here, and white people are so rare in most parts, that once we gave one thing away everyone immediately catches on and a mob forms within seconds. It would be ideal to find a place where there are only a dozen or so children and nicely hand things out, but alas it seems like where there is one child there are a dozen (or in many cases, where there is one parent there are twelve children). The ratio of children to adults is through the roof already and prospects only look worse as future generations perpetuate the problem that worsens exponentially. At any rate, to keep the kids at something of a distance, I displayed my laser rocket arm in distributing footballs and characteristically overthrew them nearly every time (in fairness they're not exactly Randy Moss in leaping ability, timing or hands). In one town I drilled the local mosque with a toss and we decided that our missionary work needed to come to an end quickly.

After I took my inaugural lessons driving a stick shift (whopping success, no surprise there -- all minor hiccups were immediately and justly blamed upon the vehicle and/or road), we finally arrived at Mole National Park. It had been a long day of relatively boring driving, and we were ready to start seeing some damn animals; anticlimactically, that evening we saw only some amphibious yawners and an enormous whirring beetle (not the name of the type of beetle but rather a description of its size and favorite activity). To give you an idea of its strength: some drunk-for-the-first-time Dutch kid trapped it in an upside down glass and gassed it with bug spray; ten minutes later, the beetle announced its escape with the crashing of the glass to the floor and its signature whirring noise. Justice be done. Sick and excited at the prospect of seeing the baboons flood the park in the morning, I retired early and set a 5:30 alarm.

It was roughly three minutes from the time I got out of bed and the time I saw baboon number one -- this is the only precise baboon count I can give since they were so prevalent everywhere throughout the weekend. I stepped out of the door into the moderately cool African morning, only to hear rustling to my left as a baboon, unperturbed, picked berries six feet away from me (that is the brick wall to our room; I took the picture from our doorway). I eventually moved to the Mole Motel's lookout, which overlooks a huge watering hole and marsh area of the park. From there, I could see the many kob, bush buck and water buck (all members of the antelope family) grazing and drinking; watch the silhouettes of the crocodiles as they paced the surface of the watering hole; and watch the ever-present (and often annoying) baboons as they continued up the hillside in search of easily-obtained food. There wasn't too much time to spend watching from afar, because we had a walking tour planned for 7:00 that would take us up close and personal. More importantly we hoped to walk alongside some elephants, which besides being exciting in their own right would give Debi one less thing to clamor about. Here in Africa they call that killing two birds with one stone.

Osman, our fearless guide, followed through on his promise that we would see elephants by ignoring the other guides' warnings and taking us on an elephant-tracking expedition for the first 20 minutes of our walking tour. After many footprints and a number of increasingly-potent piles of elephant crap, I sighted the first elephant through the trees, maybe 60 yards away. The next 40 minutes were surreal. We followed two living, breathing elephants as they grazed and lazed the morning away. We then branched off toward the salt lick after our all-knowing guide promised us we would find the elephants again.

The salt lick is very important for herbivores as they don't get all of the proteins necessary without it; hence there are many bucks and kob to be seen around it. We also saw the imprints of elephant tusks deep in the salt lick, which reminded us: all these antelope-family creatures don't hold a candle to the elephants -- where are they? Our guide caught on to our lack of enthusiasm for his favorite animal, the bush buck, and we returned to the trail of the elephants, who were bathing (if one could call it that) by blowing mud from the swamp all over their backs. Still hands down the best shower I would have had on the trip, but hey. We returned to nap and at breakfast caught this monkey red (jelly) handed enjoying what someone neglected to put on their toast.

We spent a misguided afternoon in the notorious neighboring town of Larabonga, which boasts the oldest mosque in all of Ghana; however, it also boasts the most conniving, devious set of juvenile delinquents. And the mosque isn't even cool (see below). It wasn't even top five of the mosques we saw this weekend, and we couldn't enter it. At any rate, we barely escaped without bodily harm, property harm, or theft and headed back to Mole. Debi of course thought this ordeal was hilarious; I was slightly less delighted to risk any of the aforementioned things to glimpse a few pieces of only the most common type of fabric in the country. Which then turned out to not even exist.

Probably because of the psychological trauma associated with the prospect of defending my dear mother from these miscreants, my trip-long illness flared up and I was forced to miss the driving safari, which by all accounts was unexciting. In the evening we were able to see six elephants bathing in the water hole from our motel. Two of them remained for a long time and played with each other, wrestling with their trunks and dunking under water. Just another surreal experience to jot down -- little did we know the next day we'd be witnessing the elephants' bath from 25 yards away.

I've stolen a little of my own thunder here, but after an evening of watching the baboons fight for sleeping territory, a sheepish bush buck sneaking through the hotel seemingly unnoticed, and a night sky that included a particularly clear view of Mars, we again turned in early in order to wake up for our specially-ordered 6:30 AM walking tour. After witnessing another stellar performance by the baboons, we hustled to begin our tour -- we could already see six elephants in the watering hole from our room.

Twenty minutes later we were the envy of the entire hotel as we sat at water’s edge watching the elephants bathe and cool themselves. The many crocodiles in the water made sure to keep their distance -- apparently they can munch on the different members of the antelope family but not the elephants. We spent most of our allotted time simply sitting and watching the five elephants that had remained in the water and the one that had exited. We were also lucky enough to see a monitor lizard scampering to cover, hyena prints from that morning’s scavenge, a recently-abandoned crocodile nest, and the whirl and dive of one crocodile still on land and unprepared for his human visitors so early in the morning.

We sadly packed up to leave Mole, but we had another monkey sanctuary ahead of us and a good day of once-in-a-lifetime wildlife experiences behind us. I noticed as we left that my zipoff pants, which once had been comically clean on the bottoms since it was always too hot to zip them on, were now equally disgusting on the bottom after our Mole hikes through the muck. Which isn’t to say my lack of showering wasn’t taking its toll on the upper parts as well. Tired, dirty and sick is no way to go through college. But if you aren’t at least two of those three when you leave Mole you’ve done something wrong, and I was definitely all three. We said goodbye to our very lazy warthog hotel-mates and hit the road (IN FAIRNESS: if I were able and willing to eat the things that warthogs eat, I would also live a very sedentary life in the African heat, just saying).

Our only stop between Mole and Kumasi was Boabeng-Fiema monkey sanctuary, so-named because it is between the sister towns of the same names. We arrived there at around 2:30 and began a tour of the forested areas. Our hopes were admittedly low due to the fact that Boabeng-Fiema does not permit feeding of the monkeys anymore -- they had become overaggressive. I have to say after seeing it that it was still almost as cool as Tafi Atome. There are two different types of monkey -- the mona monkey (the same type we saw and fed at Tafi, but for some reason far prettier and with a shiny, greener coloring) and the black and white colobus monkey (which we had not seen before). The colobus monkey is far shyer than the monas, but it sits in trees dangling its beautiful, somewhat bushy white tail and seemingly taunting visitors to the forest. We were lucky enough to see the monas and the colobus monkeys playing together, although apparently sometimes they fight for territory. Halfway through our tour, we heard an as-yet foreign noise from one of the monas which turned out to be their leader calling them. To what, we wondered?

With that question fresh in our minds, we wandered to another section of the woods and saw a very old parasitic tree that had completely consumed its former host. This left the inside hollow and climbable, at least for the more nimble member of our group. Debi was content to snap my photo at the top of one of the more fun and underrated parts of the trip.

When we returned to Boabeng we quickly learned what the leader had been calling his subordinates to. It was time to descend upon the village to feed. Apparently this is a twice-daily activity for the monkeys, and since legend says that monkeys played an integral role in the founding of the villages, the villagers worship the monkeys and would never so much as shoo one away. They raided the food store rooms, ran freely about on the telephone wires, broke into houses -- one even used the cover on the electrical gauge on the side of a house as a mirror. (This may have (unintentionally) been one of the few sound economic decisions we've witnessed; by embracing the monkeys the villagers kept up their main stream of income -- tourism to the monkey sanctuary). The forest also contains a monkey cemetery, since allegedly no monkey ever dies in the woods, but instead wanders into the village to die so that it can be buried. I admittedly have little patience for such tales, and choose to believe it’s just because the monkeys eat in the villages, where the food’s so bad that sometimes it probably kills them on the spot. But one way or the other, monkey cemetery and monkeys raiding shack.

This is also the last picture my glorious camera took -- it had been running on one charge since we left the states. So sorry for the text-heavy conclusion to the weekend...

While Debi and I were exploring the sanctuary, our traveling buddies Andrew and Justin decided to save their legs and wallets. They struck up a conversation which among other unquantifiable joys yielded us a faster route to Kumasi that Brandt’s (NOT highly recommended) guidebook did not include. So it was goodbye monkeys, hello open road, and finally we arrived to a lovely hotel in Kumasi, with the amenities one can expect at an African hotel -- A/C, pool, and recently jacked-up prices that you don’t learn about until you arrive.

I am sorry to say that Monday was the last day of our trip, and even more sorry to say that I caved and showered before arriving home. I wouldn’t exactly call it running water, but the ambling water at the Ashanti Gold Hotel eventually got me clean. When the water eventually made it through my hair and ran off my body, it looked like I had just played catcher in a summer doubleheader in Death Valley. Fresh and somewhat happy about it, we explored the famous Kumasi central market. It was absolutely enormous, but even more amazing was how busy everyone was. Monday is a major market day in Koforidua, and the same must have been true in Kumasi. Debi of course wanted to peruse the stores for fabric, and as she spacily wandered back and forth through stalls the businesslike, rushed women of the market hurried to pass her. You got the feeling they would like to have given her the Sheldon Brown/Reggie Bush treatment but couldn’t quite figure out a way to do so without spilling the baskets on their heads. We did manage to pick out some amazing batik (essentially hand-painted tie-dye), both for ourselves and for gifts. We then headed to the famous cultural center, where many other art forms are displayed, usually by their creators. The way Debi was going, these guys could have sold her fire in hell, and I even caved and bought a painting of the stilt village that we are visiting next weekend. After two trips to the cultural center, the second of which lasted a calculated 800% longer than it was supposed to (135 minutes/15 minutes = 900%), we headed back “home” to Koforidua where I sit writing this now.

It is odd that our time in Africa ends in less than a week. We have a few days of work and then a loosely-planned (as everything is with Debi) trip to Cape Coast and the surrounding thrills next weekend before we fly home next Monday (through Amsterdam, London, Raleigh, and Chicago). I am excited to maximize this week but also to be home. I hope that all is well and that everyone gets and takes the chance to do something like this at least once. The time and the cultural differences make you think a lot about how we are built and what our role is in the world, and a great deal of my beliefs have been both confirmed and altered here. It is very easy to bury our noses and ignore the perspective that we’re lacking in our day-to-day lives as Americans. And the clichés aren’t correct; you have to see for yourself what constitute the “problems” and what “needs” to be done. Because the answers (and questions) I’ve come up with on my own are drastically different than anything I’ve heard.

I will quit preaching; for those of you who know me I think I do manage a decent job keeping my constant desire to philosophize -- which can get old -- out of this otherwise narrational blog. Everyone enjoy the NBA Finals twofold for me and quit pretending you care about soccer all of a sudden. You know who you are. And go USA.

If You Have to Skip a Post, Make it this One

As your dedicated blog writer and editor I feel obligated to introduce the following post, written by an elderly, ADD-riddled, possibly demented (in the clinical sense of the word) accountant. I figured hey, nothing's happened since Monday but I don't want to wait until next Tuesday when we return from northern Ghana to post again; why not let Debi post? It will allow our few readers to enjoy a transition between being entertained by reading to being entertained by the writing. Plus, she's annoying the hell out of me wanting to tell "her side," although of course I've been nothing but objective. So for her sake, I let her write a post; for your sake, this will be the only time. I have neither read nor edited any of what follows.

Here is what she first sent me:

Debi Nordstrom
Executive Consultant - Finance & Accounting
DebiNord@msn.com (206)898-4160

"The best things in life are not things."

---

The New Busy is not the old busy. Search, chat and e-mail from your inbox. Get started.

Once she figured out how to use this modern sensation called the internet, she was able to include what I take to be her true post:

An Elder’s Perspective

Of course, I taught the author of all prior Ko-For It posts nearly everything he knows (at least all that’s good), including how to be a better writer than his mother. However, I should elaborate on the experiences I have had without David, including jogging to work while he completed his 12 hours of sleep each night. The morning jogs bring about many thoughts and sensations. Being a more organized-type, my points are written with bullets. Even though they are not long, sensationalized paragraphs with condescending vocabulary and grammar, I think you get the idea . . .

- There are no real “stores” in Kofofidua. Goods are sold in stalls along the road with locals selling everything including roasted corn, fabric, handmade furniture on which they are pounding nails on location, elaborate one-of-a-kind coffins (In case I get eaten by an elephant this weekend, I want to be cremated with my ashes split between the low tide sand in Cultus Bay, the pond by hole 18 on the Grandview/Sunnyside golf course, in the Snake River at Fishhook Park, the yard at 706 E. Concord, and the top of the big chair at White Pass). Sorry, bi-polarism took over – back to the point at hand.

- Along the road to work, men are off-loading concrete bags (two at a time on their heads). I asked them if I could carry just one and they told me I was incapable. Why then, do only women have to carry all of the other products all day long on their heads? This creates significant sway-back problems for the women as they age.

- Hopping over the soft metal grates spanning the sewers bring about smells of the worst kind; the odors are even more potent when running by one of the homeless souls who is so thin he can barely stand. The extra high curbs meant to accommodate flash floods provide for a great step workout.

- We’ve seen maybe 20 Anglo-Saxons in 2 ½ weeks in all of our travels, including those with whom we work at Burro. Ghana is definitely not a vacation destination and it will be many, many years before it is.

- Same question is asked of me over and over, mostly by women – “Why are you running?” because they think someone is chasing me. When I tell them I am exercising or jogging, the more athletic men and many of the uniformed school children start running with me.

- I am confronted with stares from everyone and chants of obrohni (“o-bru-nee”, meaning white person) from every child. Their expressions all begin as frowns until I responded with a “Good morning”. The glares turned into instant, gorgeous smiles and a “you’re welcome”, meaning “welcome”.

- Women sweep the “highways” with hand wisks (no handles). However, there is garbage absolutely everywhere – obviously a completely different perspective from ours on what constitutes “clean”.

- I finally decided to respond to the children who demand we give them money that obrohnis will never give them money if they demand it and that we call it “begging”. To see the look of apology in their eyes and hear them respond with “God bless you, bye-bye” is heart-breaking when you realize that they have no idea that what they were saying was inappropriate.

- I’m so tempted to take one of the teenagers home with me who comments “when you go back to your hometown, take me with you.” Fortunately, Eric, the retired mayor of Alki warned me to not bring any of the children home, or I just might have been to the adoption agency by now.

When you look at all of Ghana’s natural resources, you realize it is not dissimilar to those of other lucrative tropical, equatorial nations, especially considering the hefty supply of gold that Ghana once had. Many of those resources have been depleted. We Europeans captured their ancestors, put them in dungeons and brought them to America and Europe under the worst imaginable conditions and extorted them into slavery. And today, we still bargain with them in order pay 40 cents instead of 50 cents for the biggest and best avocado or pineapple we’ve ever tasted. And yes, the Ghanaians still smile and say “welcome” as we pass by them on the road as we sport our $200+ in athletic apparel listening to our i-pods with our cell phones in pockets as they struggle to earn a dollar a day selling mangos.

How is it that many of us feel that it is unacceptable for Africans or any other non-US-citizen to be coming to the US to look for work? Aren’t we all just trying to survive the best and only way we know how?

I do have to say that it shouldn’t take rocket science to figure out that there needs to be something like a bi-annual ban on reproduction of the human species. What are the missionaries thinking who are telling people to not use condoms? There has to be least 100 children under the age of 12 to every person over the age of 50 in Ghana. Where does that leave the country in 30 years, considering Ghana is the size of Oregon and contains an estimated 22.5 million people? Expand that to all of Africa and the rest of the world and you wonder what situation we have created for our own children. Sorry, David and Kyle, I’m checking outJ.

Oh, and David! It should have been clear by May 1 that the visa wasn’t going to arrive and that something was wrong. As usual, if it weren’t for your mother, you wouldn’t be here now (or ever) and the lesson which should have been learned is not, “Don’t sweat it and it will work out”, but “Listen to, and do as, your mother says”. As Kyle put it, “the trip to North Carolina wasn’t much of a vacation”. That’s because it was focused around David, Kyle. Next one, we’re in charge. And I almost forgot about one of the many rules I tried to instill in your younger years but was overruled . . . you had to learn to drive a stick before getting your drivers’ license. Once again, you should have listened to your mother and avoided your having to be chauffeured around Ghana.

Although I got used to not checking e-mails, texts and voicemails in less than 24 hours, I still miss Kyle (or at least knowing I can get to him in 5 hours to whip him into shape which entails giving him a big hug) and Mom who is spoiling WAZZU, Kirby and Perlita to death (we’ll be there Fri, 6/18 to get them). I don’t miss you, House. I’m ready to retire from you, but do miss your beautiful views of the Sound and the Olympics, and, most importantly, the wonderful West Seattle friends you attract.

And you wonder how I raised a child who claims to be liberal, is as idealistic as they come, struggles in a third world country because he can’t get a Big Mac, wants to backpack South America on his own teaching English and coaching baseball, and plans to attend a top-ranked law school and become one of those despicable attorneys. Sorry for the schizophrenic and ADD genes, David. Fortunately, Kyle didn’t get themJ.

And of huge importance, good luck to the Coug baseball team in the post-season. I’ve never been to Nebraska and will be home in time to go!

Supersize Me

The last week has been a pretty uneventful one in comparison to our previous week, hence the lack of updates. We saw no monkeys, nobody glued any body parts to each other and we have actually hardly left Koforidua. Last week we had a very dedicated work week, including working through African Unity Day on Tuesday over my protests. I mean, when in Rome right? On the plus side, we have finished much of the accounting cleanup and have a long weekend coming up in which we plan to visit Mole National Park, another (better) monkey sanctuary, Tamale and Kumasi, the capital of the Ashanti region. Hopefully there is much to be seen in the form of wildlife and culture. Or if you ask Debi, elephants, monkeys and textiles.

The few notable events of the past week included: our first (and second) truly torrential rainstorms (see picture above of the runoff collection), which ironically cut the power for about five minutes (as opposed to the completely uncaused outages, which can last over an hour); another trip to the Thursday bead market, and correspondingly the ATM; Debi spending two days relaxing by the pool and beginning her first pleasure novel since roughly her teenage years (not surprisingly it prominently features eastern Washington and WSU); and my bout with a mystery illness that I'd rather not go into -- I'm just hoping it's not some tropical loveliness like malaria while of course stubbornly refusing treatment or a visit to the "doctor."

Since there is nothing really substantive to catch everyone up on, I figured I'd end this abbreviated post with a public service announcement for those considering travel to Ghana: do NOT come for the food. I have probably lost 10 much needed pounds, which I had planned on using for pushing around the huge eastern Washington boys at a three-on-three basketball tournament in late June. As tempting as it was to include this warning much earlier in the blog postings, I have held off in order to ensure that we had tried it all. Well, aside from the dried, grilled freshwater fish sold on the side of the road sans refrigeration in 85 degree, fly-infested heat, we have basically tried it all. Don't get me wrong, I'm somewhat adventurous with my meals and certainly no food connoisseur or stickler. But the only meals I would call decent are those covered in so much pepper sauce you can't taste the other ingredients. Oh, and the white rice is good. So there's that. That jackass who did Supersize Me (about eating McDonald's every day for a month) has no idea how good he had it.

I promise the next post will be more exciting and picture-laden after our trip to Mole, Kumasi, etc. And most importantly, I want to wish a happy birthday to my wonderful stepmom Mary Anne from 7 time zones away. I don't even know exactly how old you turn today but I know you act ten years younger. And I would have sent a card but I think it will be faster to just carry it home.

Why Isn't Kyle Here?

They say that time flies when you're having fun, but this weekend, our first full one in Ghana, seemed to last forever because of the multitude of places we visited and things we did. I hate to demean the rest of the weekend by picking a favorite, but two days ago monkeys fed out of our hands. Wild monkeys ate bananas out of our hands. Two days ago. We have pictures. We have video. It happened.

Let me start from the beginning. Friday afternoon we left work early and struck out for Logba Alekpeti, a small village strategically located 20 minutes from Tafi Atome, the monkey sanctuary. We wanted to be close because we heard that the earlier visitors arrive, the hungrier the monkeys are and the more willing they are to be friendly. Debi took the wheel first and stubbornly disobeyed the drivers-first-peds-second driving conventions of Ghana, which made our trip out of Koforidua slow and honk-laden. Eventually, she acquiesced and we began the long drive. I sat shotgun navigating and taking (mostly awful) pictures out the window. I couldn't help but try to capture some essence of the lush, hilly rain forest and enormous termite mounds, often constructed around the trunk of a tree. The road goes through many small towns, and all highway junctions lie within major villages and represent the main intersection for that village. However, in the smaller towns the power lines never descend to give the villagers power; driving at night made this more evident because some villages were completely dark as we drove through.

We arrived in Logba Alekpeti and waffled a bit at our sleeping arrangements because we could not find a decent place to stay and Rose does not speak Ewe, the local language. Tired and concerned more for the morning excursion, we settled on a horrifyingly disgusting hotel. They were powerless and we refused to use their sheets or facilities whatsoever; a party raged on outside pretty much until we awoke; I'd describe further but you can imagine what must be true in order to run a profitable hotel while charging less than $7 per room. Glass half full: we were all more than happy to get up and out of there at 6:00, and by 6:30 we had reached Tafi Atome.

It proved to be no myth that the monkeys are more active early in the morning. Responding to our guide's calls and the black bag in his hand, which they have learned contains bananas, the periodic crashes through the upper reaches of the trees began before we had even entered the woods that border the village. No more than three minutes later, two dozen monkeys surrounded us in the trees -- it was eerily similar to the compy scenes in Jurassic Park -- waiting for a chance to leap from the bushes to our outstretched arms for a banana breakfast. As we held the banana, the monkeys peeled it with their amazingly dexterous hands and used their lower teeth to scrape bites off. I am having trouble putting into words how amazing it was to have human's (almost) closest cousin feeding from our hands. Roughly 200 sacred mono monkeys live in Tafi Atome, and we must have seen 100 of them and fed 30 of them. Debi and I agreed that our entire trip to Ghana was worth this experience alone. I only regret that my baby brother Kyle didn't make the trip with us.

Doing the monkey sanctuary first unfortunately made the rest of our trip a bit of an exhalation, but we still had a great time. From Tafi Atome, we drove north through Hohoe to Wli, where we saw and stood in (arguably) the tallest waterfall in West Africa. On the hike to the falls, we saw a long water snake, making its way between somehow unperturbed ladies doing their laundry in the stream. There were also some amazing views through the overgrowth and some serious ant trails crossing our path. At the falls, the rocks were very slick from the constant mist, but we eventually made our way into the pool (ignoring the "never go in fresh water in Africa" rule) and underneath the falls. After a refreshing dip and a small side hike to the viewpoint to see the thousands of fruit bats that perch on the falls in daytime, we were on the path back to the car.

Our next leg took us back south to Ho for the Vegus Batik market, a disappointingly small house of ladies selling some nonetheless impressive Batik (a sort of tie-dye on steroids and with artistic merit). Even I enjoyed some of the patterns (and may even get Debi to make a bedspread for me out of the loads of fabric we purchased if I quit making fun of her in the blog). While the ladies shopped I learned about the Ghanaian attitude from a man who sat on the side of the road. He explained that in Africa, we are all friends, and he could walk from Ho to Accra without anyone telling him he can't. I considered the value of correcting a few of his misconceptions about the United States, such as the legality of walking, but it was more fun to hear him wax poetic about the African spirit. In a certain sense, although this is meeting him more than halfway, he has a point. At any rate, the Kente weaving market in Ho was unfortunately closed for the weekend, so we called it quits in Ho and began the hellish journey to Ada Foah -- the beach.

Let me first state the takeaway message: if anyone visits Ghana (or any part of Africa), do not use maps that are more than one or two years dated. You will regret it. We spent an hour trying to find the correct road going south, and eventually settled on one that, according to our map, actually left from a city 20 km west of where we were. Aside from that, the road was under construction, which looked more like demolition; long story short it took us two and a half hours to drive fifty kilometers. When we finally hit tar again, the going was much easier but the moods were not, especially since in my estimation much of the sidetracking was due to an unjustified lack of trust in the navigator. I had lost us no more than ten minutes total during the trip through sometimes-mapped Ghanaian roads when all of a sudden the rest of the car turned on me and began trumping my map- and GPS-guided directions with their gut instincts. It was like closing with Joba Chamberlain when Mo Rivera sat in the pen warmed up and ready to go. Okay, last year's Mo Rivera.

We reached the beach and hit the sack, waking up this morning to dip our feet in the other side of the Atlantic. Ada Foah is located between the estuary of the Volta River and the Atlantic Ocean, so there were a great many choices of what to do. As we waited for our breakfast that took an hour and a half from order to delivery (not unusual), we were entertained by a crew of three Koreans who took at least 30 minutes of photos on the deck. We finally received and ate our breakfast, added a few beers to our tab, threw them in a borrowed ice chest, and set out on our semi-guided estuary boat tour. It was neat to see all the mangroves growing out of the water, and the many kids swimming were excited to see us as well. We could hear the frogs and crickets in the mangrove swamps over the roar of the ancient engine on our boat. The neatest part of the tour was our stop at an island rum distillery, where the islanders (all 30 or so of them) used a diesel-powered machine to crush sugar cane and distill it into a very potent rum. They then sold it to distributors who came to the island to place orders. Of course, we couldn't leave without purchasing some of the African moonshine, and it sits waiting at home in the reused water bottle we bought it in.

As we showered and prepared to head back home, Debi dropped a bat, ball and tee off with the local children and explained how to play baseball (as best she understands it). Judging by the mass of kids chasing the ball and the very short distance that "rounding the bases" entailed, she may need to venture back to Ada for the next few weeks to really teach the game. But fun was had, which is what really matters (well, that and winning). We then got on the highway headed west, where we faced the traditional obrohni traffic stop (read: extortion attempt); unfortunately for the Ghanaian police, the situation had been described to us too many times. We managed to escape without fine for Debi's open-toed shoes after she demanded that the obstinate cop lecturing her "take us to court." Apparently, this stubbornness deterred the young man, who according to Debi "wasn't even alive when she started driving," and we were let off with a warning. We reached Accra, made a quick pit stop at the mall for groceries, and then it was on to Koforidua for a good night's sleep dreaming of monkeys eating out of our hands, island rum distilleries and towering waterfalls. Wait that was real?