If You Don't Hear from Us Again, Search Volta Region

In the last few days we have spent a great deal of time exploring the many different, rich parts of Koforidua. We are beginning to find the best places to shop and eat, and have had a great deal of fun in our expeditions over the last week. While boss Debi is off getting braids put in (she looks like a nine year old white girl getting back from Mexico for the first time crossed with Medusa) I figured I'd take 20 minutes to fill in our comings and goings and alert everyone where to find us if we don't return.

Wednesday was a normal day of work; the sometimes tedious and frustrating (and always indoors) accounting contrasts starkly with the excitement of being in Africa (Africa!) for the first time, and often it is almost too much to handle. After work we visited our first liquor store and discovered the absurd prices and previously unseen goodies. Captain Morgan Black Label costs 30 cedis (roughly $20) for a liter, which already had my heart racing. So imagine my reaction when I discovered not airplane bottles, but airplane baggies of whiskey and vodka (the price, you ask? 3 cedis for a bag of 15 or so). The best way to get clean water here is in ziploc-sized bags sold nearly everywhere for very cheap; in fact, I suspect bottling standards in the U.S. are all that keeps the practice from crossing the Atlantic. At any rate, I had never considered the incredible advantage this would have when applied to alcohol, but let's just say the Kenan Stadium security will have no idea what hit it when I arrive on 9/18 for the home opener. This discovery defined the otherwise uneventful Wednesday.

Thursday I finally succumbed to Debi's pleading to go running with her, since she is running in the half-marathon upon arriving at home. If anyone ever wondered whether youth, athleticism and gender overshadow dedication, fitness and training, you can put those concerns to bed. Even excluding the periodic stoppages to display her inabilities as a photographer (quite dedicated to her "training," you can see), Debi completed the 5 mile "run" with no less than 20 instances of slowing to walk. It was like watching interval training, but in frame-by-frame slow motion. Perhaps the most telling moment was when we ran by a group of children preparing to walk to school and -- unsurprising to those who know her -- Debi egged the kids on to run with us. It looked like bizarro Rocky, except if a woefully out-of-shape Sly Stallone had been overtaken by his fans (and they happened to be 8-year-olds in uniforms and backpacks). That, and the setting was a bit more rural, shall we say. She collapsed on her bed afterwards, exhausted from the 45 minutes of light to moderate physical activity.

At any rate, after the memorable "run," we headed to work for an eventful day in the office. We had just remarked about the dullness of the morning of work -- no power outages, no technological misfires -- when Max burst into our office with a few choice words, the PG version of which would be "oh shucks, I've somehow placed some darned superglue in my eye." Fortunately, he did not have to be "medevac-ed to f-ing Germany" as he feared, as numerous Google searches confirmed that superglue in the eye cannot do long-term damage. However, when we determined the specific clinic he needed to get to, the car had a flat tire and a flat spare despite being fixed days before; the truck simply refused to start due to a bad battery (NOT a Burro battery, for the record). Welcome to Africa.

Max was healed at the local eye clinic (it just so happens that the best, and perhaps only appropriate one in Ghana, is in Koforidua) and gamely followed through on his offer to serve as our guide at the famous Koforiduan bead market. Essentially, the market is a series of wooden stands covered in cloth in the corner of a park(ing lot). Some of the beads are centuries old, and even as a non-beader and non-bead-wearer, I must admit there were some neat beads and necklaces. Debi, as I'm sure you guessed, about bankrupt us buying beads; I made my first discretionary purchase of the trip when I found a few coins from the early 1900s. I have no idea if they're of value, but I couldn't resist once I found a 1925 British West African pound. Also, as one of the most popular attractions of Koforidua, the Thursday bead market was well-attended by the obrohni crowd. We saw about as many white people there as we had seen since we arrived in Koforidua.

After our 2+ hours of adventures in the bead market, we walked back to the the office. On the way, there was (as we later found out) a famous comedian in the median of the street, performing standup in Twi. Unable to understand him, we ignored the loud speakers -- until I realized that everyone was laughing and all eyes were fixed on us. I then caught a distinct "obrohni" from the speaker (one of the few words I do know) and it dawned on me that we had become the butts of his jokes. We graciously raised our hands and waved, causing one last uproar from the crowd; it wasn't the first time I was laughed at for language inabilities and certainly won't be the last.

In an hour or so we are scheduled to leave in the torrential downpour for the Volta Region, named after Lake Volta. The region is in eastern Ghana on its border with Togo. On our long list of waypoints is: another large bead market; Wli waterfall; Ada estuary beach; Kpetoe village, famous for its kente (some type of cloth that I can't tell from any other but is like heroin to Debi and my other female maternal relatives); and Tafi Atome monkey sanctuary. Perhaps at Tafi Atome Debi will finally, after almost 51 years, feel like she belongs. There is a great deal of driving over Ghanaian roads and at least one crossing of a Ghanaian bridge, so wish us luck. If all goes well Saturday will end at a hotel with a pool (after staying in huts on the beach tonight). Worst case scenario, as always, it will be an adventure. But if a post doesn't come early next week, most likely Debi decided to remain at the monkey sanctuary. And who would that really surprise?