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.