Parting Words

My last afternoon in Ghana -- January has really flown by!

I thought I would write a final post to reflect on my trip this past week -- a little bit of Ghana, some Togo and a bit of Benin.

As my project was wrapping up in January a couple of weeks back, I was thinking ahead to the week of solo travel I was about to undertake. I had been gradually coming to the realization that I might be evolving out of the budget-backpacker phase of my life.

This transformation first struck me last December, when I started thinking about taking a week off HLS to squeeze in a trip to Togo and Benin. Although I ended up skipping school and traveling anyways, I found myself somewhat less enthuasiastic about the trip than I would have, say, a year or more ago. There was a long period of my life where I craved what backpacking had to offer: finding new adventures, crossing crazy borders, overcoming language barriers, walking far off the beaten path, making new friends and partying in strange places. And, to be honest, I actually liked certain parts of budget/backpacker culture (although I have *always* despised the pot-smoking/traveling kid/quasi-Rasta/hippie types that you meet at most hostels).

It's not like I hate traveling all of a sudden. I am still excited at the prospect of working in interesting locations abroad, but the excitment of traveling crazy places just to be there has worn off. Maybe it's growing up, or maybe it's having done so much independent traveling already. On the bus this morning, I figured out the number of countries that I've visited: it's 70+. The number is amazing or disgusting depending on how you look at it, but either way, it's a lot of ground covered.

For these reasons, I have treated the past week in some ways like my 'last' true backpacking trip. There is a certain symmetry in this formulation; in January of 2003 I came to Senegal, also in West Africa, which kickstarted my life as an independent traveler. Although I've covered fairly little ground in the past week, it feels as if I've done a sort of one-week West African redux.

There have been good things, bad things, and (as usual) funny things.

This trip has reminded me of the many pluses of traveling in West Africa:

- genuine hospitality (cliched but true; I have met many people in the past week alone who invited me to dine with them, stay at their place, meet their families, etc.)

- excellent dairy products (FanYogo in Ghana, lait caille in Benin)

- the music (acclaimed as the best in Africa. If you haven't checked out the following, you should: Senegal (Youssou Ndour, MC Solaar, even Akon); Mali (Salif Keita, Amadou et Mariam); Burkina (Ismael Lo); Benin (Angelique Kidjo); Ghana (Tinny and other hip-life artists).

- nice border crossings (in general)

- awesome and accessible sights: the stilt village, the vodou market, the crocodile pond, crumbling colonial towns, bustling cities, beachfront hotels, just to name a few options

- reasonable prices

The bad things about traveling (in this region especially) are also there. There are things you never really like, or get used to, no matter how many times you face them:

- the same relentless and irritating quasi-Rasta street hustler/drum instructor/souvenir salesman in every town

- the bizarre charges that people try to apply to the foreigner (e.g., a surprise "electricity surcharge" at my hotel in Lome where I had to pay $3 for use of the fan overnight; the 1,000 CFA pilfered by the Togolese border guard)

- cramped, shared long-distance transport (always inevitably with large individuals seated next to you)

- a very real chance of destruction at the hands of a zem driver, taxi driver, bus driver, tro driver, or any operator of motor vehicles

- starch overload; if I was carb-loading, I would have enough to run an Iron Man right now

- astonishing lack of respect for women (sadly, not limited to here)

Despite these irritations and drawbacks, traveling in West Africa never fails to make me laugh at least once a day. When I crossed into Benin five days ago, I lost track of my shared taxi and its driver (since they had no paperwork to complete). I looked and looked but couldn't find them anywhere on either side of the border. I felt sure that the driver had left without me and taken my pack with him. I wandered back to the Beninese side to find onward transport on my own and ran into the taxi driver. He said that he had been looking everywhere and that he whole carload was worried and waiting. I felt really bad at this point, and I suggested that we run back to the car (about a quarter-mile away) so as not to hold up the others any longer. When we were jogging, we passed two policemen who started blowing their whistlesand motioning us to pull over as if we were two speeding cars. Everyone around (including us) burst out laughing at the absurdity of a running white guy being pulled over by the cops.

My experience in Weta two days ago (see post immediately prior) was another reminder of the hilarity that happens when two cultures clash (in that case, those of American gangsters and Ewe villagers).

Even the shop names in West Africa have a sense of humor. Stores and vehicles have amusingly-worded religious titles: a taxi named "Junior Jesus," the "Let Them Say" canteen, "Havard Kiddie's University" [sic] (a primary school), and the profusion of "God's Time Is The Best" boutiques and restaurants. The small stand pictured below (in Weta) is typical of what you see around the region:

All in all, my past week was more interesting, more fun and less stressful than I thought it was going to be. Ending on a high note is a good thing.

It's probably premature to say that I've hung out my trusty backpack entirely, and I'm sure that I'll find myself in a budget hostel again before too long. It probably is fair to say, though, that I'm going to be looking for different types of travel from here on out.

Weta 4 Life!

Two days ago, I crossed back into Ghana from Togo. I faced a minor incident at the border. The half-mile stretch of road at the Togo-Ghana border has a number of vaguely official looking checkpoints, manned by officials in blue or green camo gear or police uniforms. I never really understand where I'm supposed to stop or what I have to do... I usually just walk straight past everyone unless a guard calls me to come over.

This time, a guard summoned me over right after I got my Togo exit stamp.

"What are you bringing back with you from Togo?" he asked.

I felt like answering "probably hookworm and malaria" but I decided that he probably wouldn't get the joke. I told him: a small fetish, some Ashanti masks, Togolese clothing. The guard said that he would have to check and see if any of the items were cultural relics being taken away in contravention of an international agreement called "CITIS" (at least, I think that's how it's written). I told him that unless priceless Togolese relics were available at the tourist market for less than $5, I was probably ok. The guard started to get mad and insisted that I take everything out and dump it on the ground. A sketchy-looking guy with bad teeth whispered that I should just give him 5,000 CFA (~$11) to shut him up, but I was having none of it. The guard was yelling at me and threatened to take away all my souvenirs but then saw a 1,000 CFA bill among my things and pocketed it. I looked at him, incredulous, but he said that I could leave and that I passed the inspection.

As I was stuffy my sandy clothes back into my bag, the guard shook his finger at the bedraggled man with bad teeth who was still lurking nearby. "Watch out for him. That man is a thief," he said, shooing the guy away. I think the irony was probably lost on him.

Before I went away, I decided to mess with Captain Corruption a little bit. I gave him a friendly, I'm-not-mad-about-the-1,000-CFA smile and got him to tell me his name. "David Esegma? I'll remember that. My uncle advises your President on matters of corruption. I'll make sure to pass along your name to him." This was perhaps a dumb thing to do, but it sure was fun. I haven't seen an African official look so unhappy in my life.

Facing petty graft by military officials is never fun, but I put the experience in perspective. This is the only time I've ever faced bribe-taking like that crossing a border -- not just on this trip, but across all trips to West Africa. It says a lot about the quality of ECOWAS' success at regional integration, in my opinion.

Once in Ghana, I decided to visit Wisdom, an Ewe guy my age that I met on the tro-tro to Togo a week earlier. Before we parted ways the first time, he made me promise that I would visit his village before I left.

Wisdom (his Evangelical Presbyterian baptismal name) lives in a small village called Weta deep inside Volta Region, a rich and fertile farming area bordering large stretches of Togo. I enjoyed relaxing and hanging out in the village. It was completely relaxing, since there was absolutely nothing to do except visit people in the village, eat dry Ewe biscuits, and drink Malta Guinness (a non-alchoholic malt beverage, made by the Irish beer company, that tastes like milk at the bottom of your cereal). Wisdom made me Jollof rice for dinner, and it was very good, but way too filling -- I was still full by the next morning.

There were some humorous highlights to the visit as well. Wisdom and his buddies (Debaris and Thomas) were very nice village kids. Wisdom described himself as a family guy and very obedient to elders, as well as a hard worker (which I observed to be true). He helps his relatives run the Weta town general store most days. But Wisdom also likes American hip-hop and gangsta' rap (his words, not mine).

I didn't pick up on the rapper-obsession at first, but it crept into the conversation when I dropped my stuff off at his house in the afternoon. We had been talking about Wisdom's involvement in the church on the way there.

"Nice house. Very big," I said.

"Yeah," he said. "This my muthaf*cking residence, niggah!"

You know those times when you really want to laugh, but know you shouldn't? This was one of those times. Wisdom, whose English was the best of his friends, wanted me to teach him the right way to speak "Negrin," as he called it -- basically, the way American rappers talk. I tried to do that with a straight face for about fifteen minutes, and they couldn't get enough of it. My main teaching contribution, I think, was to explain the meaning of "cap yo' *ss" and suitable places to use it, as well as describing the importance of "rolling deep," and how many people were required to constitute acceptable deepness. Of course, the fact that I was teaching young African guys how to speak in African-American slang has got to be pretty high on the irony-meter.

Here are Wisdom and I, somewhat at a loss for the right hand signals to make. (Where's my brother Calum when I need him?)



Before I left, the guys took me to see the massive rice fields growing outside of town. While we were touring the paddies, we met Richard (the "biggest gangsta' in Weta" according to Wisdom). I guess he's the biggest gangsta' because he had dreads and because he does that Rasta thing where you touch your chest after you shake someone's hand. Maybe that wouldn't cut it in Compton, but it's all relative, right?

Richard the Gangsta' was working the rice fields when we came along. His English wasn't great, but he could understand if I spoke slowly. I asked if he was the owner of the field next to us. He made a sweeping gesture with his arm. "Yeah, all this is my shit! Rice, man!" When we left, he went down to the hut to help his mother with harvesting.

Before I left town, I stopped in at Wisdom's family's shop to say goodbye to people. Or, as my host put it: "let's give a big shout-out to all my niggahs!"

Check out this homeboy. He was briefly the eighth-biggest gangster in Volta Region:

Gulders and Guns and Roses

[Radio silence for the past couple of days -- apologies. I'm now safely landed in Porto Novo, Benin after a few days of fun and travel.]

Last time I wrote I had just completed the bumpy journey back to Accra. From there, five of us traveled West to the Ghanaian tourist destinations of Kokrobitey and Cape Coast. We had a few adventures in both places.

Kokrobitey is a small little fishing community cum tourist trap just outside of Accra, but it feels like it's further because of the brutal traffic getting there. Like us, most tourists bypass the fishy-smelling Kokrobitey village entirely and head to Big Milly's Backyard, a backpacker hangout famous for its beach parties, quasi-Rastafarian hangers-on and spicy food.

Surprisingly, but thankfully, the area was almost devoid of quasi-Rastas, and the five of us spent most of the night sitting in comfortable beach furniture, eating Milly's incredible spicy chicken, and drinking Star beers. Note that it was Stars we were drinking -- it's relevant to later in the post.

The girls went to bed at a responsible hour, but Joe and I stayed at the bar well into the night, mostly out of morbid curiosity about the other bizarre types who show up at Big Milly's late at night. There were a few.

First, Alex, a massive German guy (as in 6'4" tall) who sat perched on the wooden bar stools in the most bizarre positions: first he had his legs twisted up under him yoga-style; later he had them splayed out sideways at a strange angle; later again they were in some new conformation. I would have taken pictures to post here if it wasn't rude. But despite this restless-leg syndrome, he was a very nice, polite guy who basically served as a foil to the stranger bar patrons.

Like Sam, a Brit with an amusing conversational style. In fact, his conversation was so unwittingly hilarious that it bears repeating some of it here. We were talking about art when Sam announced that he was from Stratford-upon-Avon.

Al (that's me): "The home of Shakespeare. Pretty awesome."

Sam: "Shakespeare's rubbish. No good."

Alex the German, confused: "Why does your shirt say Macbeth on it if you don't like Shakespeare?"

Sam: "What, no, see, this isn't Shakespeare, right. This is a Guns N' Roses album, that's why. They're my favorite band"

Alex: "Oh."

Joe, perhaps sensing something funny coming: "What's your favorite GN'R album then?"

Sam: "Greatest Hits, definitely."

Me: "What are your top three favorite songs, period?"

Sam: "Paradise City, November Rain, Sweet Child of Mine."

Others: silence, polite nodding.

Power to the guy if his favorite songs really happen to correspond with GN'R's top three singles, but hadn't he ever heard of the convention of naming non-singles when asked about their favorite tunes? (Or, in the case of hipsters, selecting the most obscure songs they can think of by the artist under discussion). But really, picking those three songs is really like saying that your favorite Led Zeppelin song is Stairway. You just can't do that, right?

But the night's Bizarreness Award certainly went to a foul-mouthed and diminutive Aussie who lived nearby. He showed up pretty late in the night and sat there chain smoking and presenting us with his fairly offensive perspective on women and relationships while he nursed quite a few Gulders. This was the sort of person whose chat would make you want to cover the ears of women and children if any were around. The guy was so over-the-top that Joe and I found him to be a constant source of amusement for days later.

In the end, however, the Aussie had the last laugh. When I got up the next morning, I found that my tab was bigger than any two other people's combined... and our bills contained a number of unexplained Gulders that none of us could remember drinking! Late the night before, the power in the bar died for a full ten minutes. Our guess is that the guy used the nightly power outage to doctor everyone's tabs and have himself a few Gulders on us. But we'll never know.

The next day, we traveled by Tro-Tro to Cape Coast, originally famous as the capital of colonial Ghana, but more recently famous as the site of Barack and Michelle Obama's first visit to Africa. Not too much to report there, apart from the Cape Coast Castle itself, a UNESCO World Heritage site that probably counts as the most famous slaving facility in the world. The Castle served as the administrative capital for multiple European powers -- English, Swedish and Portuguese -- that controlled the Gold Coast at various times. Underneath the charming and spacious administrative and military buildings, however, was the dark belly of the slave pits. The dungeons were able to accommodate over a thousand slaves at one time, often for months while they waited for the slave ships to arrive. Even today, it's easy to imagine the horrible conditions that people lived (and died) in below the castle: hundreds of people in rooms with almost no ventilation and no latrines, with very infrequent rations of food and water. Very moving just to be there and see the facilities where the slaves once stayed.

After the castle, we also did a little swimming, but I decided it was a bad idea after I had a taste of the local conditions. As in many parts of West Africa, the combination of undertow and crashing surf can be a pretty deadly combination. A few minutes of floundering in the surf was enough to tire me out for a while.

That was the coast. The five of us headed to a nice hotel on the water in Accra for what was most people's last night. I needed to save my energy for my big push the next morning to Benin. More on that soon.

In closing, my funny Africa moment of the day. This internet cafe I'm writing in appears to be very focused on cleanliness; for the past hour, one person has been occupied in dusting the computers and desks with a cloth at twenty-minute intervals. The problem is that he's so vigorous in his dusting that the computer tables keep shaking and throwing off my typing. Hilarious, though.

Headbangers

[Wrote this yesterday but haven't had internet until today.]

Yesterday was a big travel day. Can't say it was too much fun, but there were some highlights.

The cons:

- getting up at 4:30 am to get in the vans

- driving 15 hours on Ghanaian roads in a single day

- sitting in the back of the van with my legs pressed against me

- having a sore stomach

- hitting a speedbump in the dark at takeoff speed and hitting my head against the roof

The pros:

- meeting with the Minister of Health and the Director of the National Health Insurance Scheme over breakfast

- reaching Accra alive

Next time, think I'll fly.

Adventures in the North

Hi everyone! Back again, and writing from the North this time.

Yesterday was our day off from work, so we took a group field trip to some interesting places. Here's the rundown:

The first stop was the Zenga crocodile pond in Paga. Basically, it's a giant pond with a dozen or so big crocodiles living in and around it. The crocodiles aren't exactly tame, but they have a symbiotic relationship with the pond facility, which is administered by some sort of USAID-backed community organization. The way it works is that you need to pay an admission price of about $2 per person (not cheap by local standards) and buy a couple of guinea fowl to feed the crocs. Perhaps because they associate visitors with impending guinea fowls, the crocodiles are not very aggressive and are happy to let people hold their tails and pose with them (from behind the croc, nonetheless). But seeing the main croc eat the fowl we bought was a reminder that they are quite deadly creatures. The croc snapped its jaws on the guinea fowl three times (while it was still alive) and then swallowed it whole -- total time, 4 seconds tops.

Here, Noam Chompsky the crocodile:

I also took a ride on a horse while I was there. The last horse I rode was a stubborn old nag and refused to gallop or go where I wanted it to. This horse, however, was very good and responded to all my commands which made me feel cool.

After Zenga pond we crossed over into the no man's land between Ghana and Burkina Faso. Like most African land crossings, there is a strip of land several miles long between the customs checkpoints, which is theoretically neither under Ghanaian or Burkina law. We hung out there for a little bit and took the obligatory pictures of ourselves next to the "Welcome to Burkina Faso" sign. But to be honest, there wasn't much to see there, with the sole exception of an ancient Yellow Bird schoolbus which had been loaded so high with goods that it doubled the height of the vehicle. I spoke with the owner and it appeared that he was transporting dry goods and skins down to Ghana.

"I've got my car, it's as big as a whale..."

The last stop on the tour was Pikworo Slave Camp, a infamous site in the long slaving history of the Gold Coast. In the 1700s, at the height of the Atlantic slave trade, Pikworo was one of many facilities where newly-captured slaves were sent to be processed and broken before being sent to be sold somewhere else. Although the camp didn't have any structures left over from its slaving days, I found the site overall was more impressive than the Maison d'Esclaves in Senegal or other more famous slave-trade sites. Our guide told us about the musical performances that were common at the camp; apparently the slave-masters would provide gifts to the slaves so that they would perform a drumming and dancing celebration in order to lift the spirits of the captives. Different tribes would be expected to perform different nights, and the non-performing groups would simply dance. A group of local men gave us a typical performance by banging on a big rock with smaller rocks. Sounds simple, but the sound was actually really amazing. I have (of course) a video of this too, which I'll put on my youtube account at some point.

The scorching heat at the slave camp: not a good place to be tied up outside.

The greatest highlight of the trip was a spoken-word performance by Victor, my roommate here in Ghana. Obama visited the camp during his recent trip to Ghana, and Victor wanted to comment on the meaning of the visit. His performance was one of the most impressive and moving things I've seen in some time, and I fortunate to capture it on my video camera. I'll post a link to youtube here when I manage to upload it.

Our motley crew wrapped up Saturday at a nightclub called Soul Train, likely named after a popular American TV show that I've never actually seen. The club was pretty cool -- $3.50 entry, popcorn available (!?), free Guiness can with entry, and a musical selection that drew heavily on Ghanaian and Nigerian hits. I followed the signs to the VIP Suite and went in, but it turned out to be a dark room with three guys drinking beer, rather than what one might expect from a special facility for the most privileged club-goers. I also saw an Usher-esque dancer who had some of the slickest moves I've ever seen by a non-professional dancer. He also thought he was pretty hot stuff too, since he spent the whole night dancing in front of a mirror.