Strange New Memories
A Journalist’s Diary
Progress with my exercise in digging through old writing and experiences is slow but steady. One day at a time, I unearth memories that help me with the personal writing project I mentioned.
Some memories don’t tell me much; others mean the world. They are all equally fascinating. The value of journaling is that it allows me to observe past actions from a fresh perspective. And use those strange new memories to charge forward in life.
Revisiting the day I miscalculated a step on a Ghanaian street reminded me of the adventure that month represented and the importance of friendship, of not walking this planet all by myself all the time.
The last memory I wrote about saw me missing the action but experiencing Ghanaian politics first-hand. It showed me that even days that go wrong can have positives, even if it only shows years later.
The Puzzling Journal
There are still many memories — good and bad, long and short — to rediscover; from Ghana and other times. Some I’m vaguely aware of, others I can see clearly still, yet others I’ll only find through the documents I created at the time, precisely for that purpose.
The journal I wrote is still puzzling me, though.
It’s not because of the bad writing or the scruffy handwriting.
It’s the disarray of the whole affair.
I’ve already found two dates with separate entries in different places.
There are missing pages. I used the same notebook for reporting, and I kept those pages. Who knows what gems I’ll find in those?
I have yet to discover if I wrote anything at all for the first 10 days of my African month.
I find it hard to believe I didn’t. That type of writing was already too important to me at the time.
I know: I attempted to digitize the whole lot before. But I didn’t get far. Could I possibly have discarded digitized pages and then managed to lose the corresponding digital files?
Nah.
That wouldn’t be me at all.
Maybe it’s lurking in the rest of the notebook, maybe in the reporting notes. If not, I bet my reporting notes and hard copies of the newspapers I worked on will give me clues that suffice to recreate experiences from memory.
Early Days & Bad Pictures
The early days in Accra hold one such strange new memory. One of the first assignments brought me to a building somewhere in Accra. I barely knew how to not get lost, operated on adrenalin only, trying to get where I needed to go, trying to absorb as much of the strangeness around me (strangeness in the best possible way of the word).
That day, in particular, I’ll never forget because I shared the room with the future president of Ghana — unbeknownst to him or me. It was election time in Ghana.
Connected, I also observed the voter registration chaos that surrounded that election. And I do have visual evidence, the first news pictures of mine, if you will, even though they are really quite bad pictures.
Bad pictures I made a lot in Ghana. I wasn’t even consciously photographing at the time. That bug still had to bite.
But I had a small silver box on me wherever I went, for the newspaper or for personal exploration.
Just as on the day I journeyed out to the Aburi Botanical Gardens.
Or the weekend trips to Cape Coast and the Volta Region that my roommate Jon and I made.
Or the day my editor treated us interns to a Twin Festival, a colorful parade in the heart of Accra. That was the day my small silver box departed. Never to be seen again. Gifted me with one of the strangest new memories in the aftermath of its departure. I’ll tell you when I tell you.
The Longest Day, Pt. 1
However, back in the copy shop. I had to find a free computer to copy the website text into a Word document. PC right there… good, let’s go to work; the place is so overcrowded, I can’t find a good seat. Have to make strange moves to hit ctrl c/v to get the work done… ah, it’s fun…
The latest piece of writing I digitized includes work and personal memories, and bad writing all around.
But it was a long time ago, and personal journaling, so bad is quite okay.
The work at the “Trust,” was strange. The passage above describes one of the four longest days I had in Ghana. We always finished the week’s newspaper on Wednesdays. I wrote about what those days were like already.
That week, I entered the described copy shop, the location where the week’s work culminated in the finished newspaper, at 9:15 in the morning and left at 7:15 in the evening. I only left the one-room building once or twice all day.
Reading even the incomplete and clumsy descriptions from my past self brings back vivid memories of those days.
While navigating the sticky heat and train station noise levels inside that special newsroom, we typed the handwritten articles of the editors, edited each other’s work, wrote more, and organized all the material that built a weekly newspaper.
On my half-hour trip home that evening, I received a call. I barely understood a word in the muggy old van. I sat squeezed between a dozen passengers, warm wind streaming in from the windowless sidewalls. Various conversations were trying to break through the music blaring from the speakers.
It was my editor. He couldn’t find the image file that showed the logo of the Olympic Summer Games. I explained how I had archived all the files before I left. Keeping all digital files was one of my tasks because I had a laptop. I patiently explained it again.
“Ah, found it, thanks and bye,” I heard his voice under the heavy influence of music and inaudible voices around me.
I loved and hated my time with the National Trust. It was my first contact with journalism. It was raw. Very raw. An adventure that taught me invaluable lessons. The rush, the team effort, the creative outlet (that journalism represents to me despite having its home in the truthful and accurate realm of non-fiction), and the unexpected that awaits at every corner showed me that I love journalism.
The Longest Day, Pt. 2
The personal strange new memory occurred at the end of that same day on a beach. My roommate and I decided to check out a beach party.
It started strangely. It grew stranger as the evening progressed. It ended very strangely when we headed home.
We arrived at a gate that wouldn’t open. We squeezed through. I vaguely remember that the guy who sold us the tickets instructed us to do so after taking advantage of our unfamiliarity with the local currency.
But the writing is a bit sketchy, an adjective that describes the entire evening.
We were two of only a small number of white people on that darkness-enveloped beach. There was loud music, little light, and a certain sweet scent in the salty air. Mhm, curious.
We were instantly beleaguered by small groups of locals. I don’t remember the details. I do remember we soon became the point of their fascination and questions.
“You’re German? And you’re Canadian? Tell us, would you like…”
Sales pitches for trinkets, nicknacks, and weed. Fascinating.
At times, that I also remember, I couldn’t make out the people talking to me. All I could see were bright white teeth moving up and down in the darkness.
Teeth in the dark.
Do I really wanna be here right now?
Several hours, one beer, and one strange bathroom visitation later, the final adventure loomed as we turned our backs to the beach and searched for a taxi.
We found one quickly. Too quickly?
Jon jumped into the passenger seat, leaving the small vehicle’s rear seats for me.
We negotiated our trip with the driver, as is customary. And the car rolled off into the night.
Suddenly, the door to my right opened, and someone popped in, exchanging smiles and words that didn’t mean anything to me with the driver.
They knew each other, all right. Can’t be bad, then. Why isn’t he explaining who this is?
The new passenger was a woman. Her attention turned to me rather quickly.
“Nice to meet you. My name is…”
Most of her words were lost in my panicking mind as I felt her hands on my arm.
I inched closer to the left only to be stopped by the harsh plastic cladding of the door.
She kept talking, ever more interested.
I heard Jon’s giggles from the front. Oh really, now?
“Where are you guys from?” I think I heard her asking, getting closer still.
Leave me alone. I just wanna get home and sleep at last. I wanted to say those two simple sentences, but I couldn’t.
Jon addressed the driver. I don’t remember what exactly he said. My thoughts were focused on staying away from that strange woman.
But it worked. The car stopped. Looks were exchanged between the woman and the driver. She gracefully lifted herself out of the vehicle as Jon’s giggle turned into laughter.
I joined him — once we were at home, safe and sound.
That’s about how that evening has ingrained itself in my memories. We laughed about the whole evening, the ending included, for the rest of our time in Ghana and beyond. And that’s why it’s a good memory that I’m glad I made and recorded. Even though I wish I had been a better writer back then.
I’ll continue with the digitization and write updates along the way. Some of the memories I’ve teased today will surely get a more detailed treatment eventually. If not here, then in the resulting writing project.
I’m a little behind what I had planned, but I make progress, and after tomorrow’s second part of the What I’m Reading special on profiles (read part one if you haven’t already here), you can expect some photography.
