Accra

I managed to submit the previous blog minutes before I would be out of internet access range for quite a while. Well... that's not entirely true, but for all practical purpose that was so.

Ernest and Kwami picked me up moments before the second big rain started. I said good-bye to my new dear friends and started my journey home. Checking in was simple, but the wait seemed really long. I was astonished to find out that the Tamale airport -- this TINY little place had FREE internet. I contemplated taking out my computer and working on the blogs some more, but felt I had to reserve my battery life.

The rain let up and then stopped completely but not before delaying the flights. I got in to Accra about 30 minutes late. but I found no one holding a sign with my name. I waited and waited. An annoying fellow started asking me questions and tried to "help" me with my bags (in order to make money on tips) and I had trouble shaking him until a uniformed man yelled at him and told me to pay him no mind. I waited a bit longer and another man approached me asking if I needed a ride. Having been asked the same question by several taxi drivers I told him I was expecting a driver. He asked me if I had called the driver and when I told him I didn't have a phone he took out his own phone and called Ernest for me.

Nelson and I stopped for fufu

It turned out the driver had been waiting in INTERNATIONAL arrivals instead of domestic arrivals. Nelson and I took off for a day of adventure in Accra. Nelson is just a bit older than Ben so it was almost like having a day out with my son. It was a national holiday so a lot of people were out and about.

First we went to the Art Market. There were stalls after stalls of the most beautiful things! It became apparent pretty quickly that I had not brought enough money for all of the things I would have liked to get. At each stall were one or two people trying to get my attention. Each of them saying things like, "Miss! I have beautiful bags, miss. No presha" (No pressure ... promising not give the hard sell that I found in Maputo.) I bought some lovely scarves, and some music for David.

Next stop was the memorial and museum for Dr. Kwame Nkrumah (the former president of Ghana.)  It was one of the smallest museums I have ever been to. It almost seemed like they really wanted to make a museum but didn't have enough things to go in it. There were several photographs and a few personal items of the President. The docent was terrific though, and Nelson and I learned a lot about Dr. Nkrumah's history. As we were learning I found myself thinking, not for first time, that I wished David were there because he would have helped me understand even more of the history and he would have a much greater appreciation for the context.

A peacock wanders the grounds in front of Dr. Nkruma's car

It was brutally hot and I was seriously dehydrated so we stopped for some water and shade to enjoy the day. As we were heading out, I was approached by a number of men with arms outstretched with products. I knew I was done spending money, but before I could think about it, I had bought this cute toy of chickens pecking at grain on the ground. This is what pining for my family made me do! Of course, if I had thought this through, I would have realized that this delicate thing was going to cause me great transportation challenges. I couldn't pack it or it would be destroyed so I ended up carrying it all day long, carrying it through the airport, through security, on the airplane, the various stages of immigration and customs, back and forth in the terminals in Atlanta and home. 

Fufu in groundnut soup.

The next plan of action was to find Fufu. This is the casaba flour and plantain mixture that is so popular in West Africa. One restaurant had been suggested to us, but it turned out that it was they didn't have the right kind of fufu. Nelson knew of another place not far from where he lived so we went in that direction and found a great place that was half the cost. The fufu was in a groundnut soup with goat. It was delicious!

By this time I was aware that the splitting headache that I had acquired could only be remedied with a cup of coffee -- good or bad. When I asked Nelson where I could get coffee he had no idea. He called Ernest who suggested that we go to the mall. Nelson suggested that we could first try the supermarket. It turns out that several supermarkets have coffee shops above them. The first supermarket we went to was a smaller version of our supermarkets. Upstairs they had a coffee shop and a department store but the coffee shop was closed for the holiday.

The next supermarket we went to looked like almost any supermarket in the US except for the coffee shop upstairs. This one was open. They sold espresso, lattes and American Coffee. I choose the American Coffee -- or at least their image of American Coffee. It was about 4 oz, rather strong and it was served with steamed milk on the side. Nelson tried his first chocolate croissant. While he said he liked it, I'm not convinced. Within moments, my headache subsided and we were ready to go.

Then we had a wonderful miscommunication. I thought we would go to the airport early since I couldn't think of anything else that we needed to do, but Nelson thought I wanted to go to the mall. I didn't realize until we had already arrived that it was our destination. The traffic to the mall was dreadful! He tried every bypass he could find but with only two lanes and hundreds and hundreds of cars we slowly made our way through the parking lots they call streets to the mall.

At one point a young man on the street made some kind of motion at me. I didn't understand so I just looked forward where we were going. Since we were stuck in traffic the fellow came up to the car. I couldn't understand what he said but he stuck his hand in the car and shouted something like "Yanko dis Africa!" It certainly did not seem friendly. Nelson rolled my window up and told me to pay him no bother. This was the only unfriendly interaction I had with anyone my whole trip.

The mall was very much like any mall here. It even had an Apple store. There was a supermarket attached that was like a Super Stop n' Shop with food and backpacks and mops and rice cookers. At one point I pointed to this bar that was about 18 inches long, 2 inches wide and 1 inch deep. I asked Nelson what it was and he looked at me with surprise and said that it was soap. Most of their soap bars don't come in paper wrapped in plastic packaging. It just an unwrapped bar that they cut to the length they want. How simple and practical!

At least their manikins look right

I didn't want to buy anything else so we just looked at the shops to compare things to the US. They had an Apple store, of course, and the shops were identical to anything you would find here. We had a little difficulty finding the food court. We thought it was upstairs, but instead upstairs we found the movie theaters and the gaming area. I tried to explain what cotton candy was and Nelson played his first video games. He tried a motor cycle racing game where you sit on a motor cycle and increase the speeds on the handles and tilt the bike to go around circles. He also played a shooting game. He really enjoyed the motor cycle racing game! I was so intent on cheering him on that I forgot to take a picture.

We finally found the food court. It was outside with a big kids' play structure in the middle. I offered Nelson a choice of getting to the airport early or playing one more video game. He shyly asked for one more video game and I thoroughly enjoyed getting to watch him play again.

The famous traffic in Accra

I couldn't believe it was possible that the parking lot was even more full than when we had arrived. There were cars just stopped in the aisles between the parked cars so we were stuck in our parking space in the parking lot for over 30 minutes before we were able to make our way out. They even had traffic control guys, but they seemed a little unclear on the concept as all they did was wave all directions forward instead of stopping one line of cars and letting the others go and then reversing it. One driver tried to "cut" in line and one of the traffic guys got furious with him and actually banged his car with a barrier!

This time we really were on the way to the airport. On the way we passed near George Walker Bush Highway which Nelson described as really "Neat!" because it has four lanes going either way. While this has done a great deal to help with traffic problems they would need more of these in order to resolve their issues.

I asked Nelson what he thinks of Obama and he likes him very much. In hindsight, I wish I had asked more people what they thought of Obama. Ernest says that he believes most Ghanaians supported Obama until he came out in support of gay marriage and that turned the tides against him.

We got to the airport and hugged good bye. It was a wonderful way to spend the day.

I walked into the airport and discovered that the line was almost out the door of the airport. I did one of those things where I got a line on that was already really long and someone tapped on my shoulder and said, "Uh miss... the line starts back there."

I stood on the line for 30 minutes and it hadn't moved at all. I found out that the people around me were scheduled for a flight that was scheduled to leave at 11. They had been actually been on a flight the day before that had been cancelled. My flight was at 9 and even though we weren't scheduled to leave for three hours I began to worry that I hadn't left enough time.

After all of that I ended up finding out that I was on the wrong line when a porter was helping another American and he explained why that man didn't have to wait in this line -- this line was only for the folks who had be scheduled to leave the day before. My line was much shorter! It was still slow going, but I was so impressed by the polite staff who were dealing with this huge throng. I took up conversations with the Americans with whom I was in line. They were headed to various parts of the mid-west after we arrived in Atlanta. One of them was named Jim and he comes here fairly often for his work.

I tried to get internet in the airport but couldn't get it to work. I went back to the vendor that I had purchased the pass from but instead of helping me get it to work he just gave me my money back. So I waited in the pre-waiting area until we moved to the waiting area and finally onto the plane. It turned out that Jim was across the aisle from me. Sitting next to me in the window seat was a large Liberian woman who slept almost from the time I arrived until we left. The only thing she said to me was she was trying to figure out what to put for first name and last name when she only had one name. (Africans don't use the terms first name and last name. They use their names in any order. Some use the terms given name and surname, but even that was complicated when one only has one name.)

I discovered that the hardest part about flying down to Africa was the unknown of the trip. Now this trip seemed almost easy in comparison. I was pleased to see that there was a charger for my iPhone so I was able to do some reading without worrying about rationing my power. The on-flight entertainment makes it so much more tolerable. The selection wasn't as extensive as on the way down, but I watched movies (Puss in Boots and a Japanese comedy that I highly recommend called A Ghost of a Chance,) and a few TV shows and TED talks even though the audio from my seatmate's screen was bleeding through my line. I wasn't able to sleep at all -- I just dozed for minutes at a time. I saved myself from the agony of compression stockings this time and I was much more comfortable and did take several walks around the plane. This was easier to do since I had an aisle seat.