Daytrip to Ghana
So here I am in Ghana, in the middle of the night, with no one to meet me because the Balkan Bulgarian Airways flight is twelve hours late.
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“Irie, Rastaman!” says the tallest of the taxi drivers trying to handle my luggage outside the gates of Katoka International Airport.
“We Ghanaians love Jamaicans second only to Reggae,” says another.
“Not surprising,” says his smiling friend, squeezing my hand and snapping fingers. “Our ancestors were taken there many years ago. You are welcome!”
Hours later, and still reeling from culture shock, I’ve given up searching for the road to the house of my old friend Kwesi with whom I had come to stay. If I had been riding in a taxi in the dead of night in America, England or Jamaica, I might have been robbed of my luggage, travels’ cheques and expensive camera equipment by now. Instead, I’m puffing on a genuine 100% ‘Po-po Stick’ and counting the stars in the yard of the bar at the Ebony Hotel, Pig Farm. It’s been recommended to me by my friendly taxi driver, and grateful I am to have a place to rest.
The night is hot, and the stars are many. One exceptionally bright star is hovering above the head of a man sitting on a stone in the corner of my vision. He is slim, tall, blacker than the night, with a face old and wise as the ground beneath his slipperless feet. He wears a silver-blue gown of a material that makes him sparkle like the moon in the darkened sky.
Resting on a mat at his feet is a shirtless man of equal blackness, fanning himself from the enveloping heat and the kiss of mosquitoes. I have a sudden urge to read the Bible; then, perhaps the Koran would make more sense here on second thoughts.
Two men beside me are talking very loudly, but I don’t understand what they are saying. Not even enough to know if they are talking about me. Another man has joined. They are definitely not talking about me. At least, not now. They seem not even to notice my presence. Am I a ghost, a mere shadow of my former self?
Children enter with two barking dogs. The atmosphere changes.
“Good evening,” they say, one by one.
“Good evening,” I reply.
Then as quickly as they entered, they leave — the dogs follow. Two of the three men are still talking actively. A fourth man joins them as a fifth man enters to sit alone.
“You are welcome!” they all nod to him in unison.
“Madasi!,” he replies and orders a beer.
The Stars are many, and the night is black. Light from the hotel’s kitchen window casts shadows twisted across the yard. Could I live in this place, among these people, learning their ways and languages? Two couples to my left are retelling the story of ‘The Chief’s New Clothes’.
“Eh! … until a small boy came and said, ‘The King is naked! The King is naked!’ … You know small boys have much to learn!”
After ten minutes, they have finished discussing Women’s Liberation in Ghana, with the two men concluding that “women do as much work as men,” but from what I can see, women are the backbone of Africa.
Can I live in this country, ‘a small boy,’ and my own man? I want to run The Mole Game Park in Damongo. I wonder if the President, Flight Lieutenant Gerry John Rawlings, could fix it? I wouldn’t ask for much, just a twelve-month trial period, a self-contained bungalow, food, transportation and a small commission on increased sales. I know I could send profits shooting to the stratosphere.
The stars are out and bright tonight.
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