Reverend Jesse Jackson Flies Delta or, How I Learned to Stop Worrying About Communicable Disease and Learned to Love 50 Years of Ghana

There are only two flights a week from JFK direct to Accra, the capital city of Ghana. Even so, I didn't expect it to be overbooked by 20 or so people. That was the case, however, when I arrived at the airport last Saturday. I think if I'd gotten there any later than I did it might have been an issue, but fortunately my seat turned out to be safe and sound, if not too spacious.

I had a celebrity run-in while we were taxi-ing on the tarmac: I was reading my Economist and lamenting the fact that I had no music for this ten-hour flight, when all around me women started gasping and fanning themselves with copies of Sky Mall, and even a single "Jesus, Hallelujah!" I looked up to see Jesse Jackson strolling down the aisle past me. It took a second to remember who he was, and then remember that I had my digital camera right there in my bag, sans batteries, and finally remember that I wouldn't have much use for a blurry picture of Jesse Jackson in an airplane cabin. This written testimony will have to suffice. Jesse, for his part, seemed to understand my quandary. As he passed he gave me the nod, and with that we had made our peace.

It wasn't until I stepped off the plane in Ghana, however, that I figured out why Rev. Jackson was on his way to Ghana as well. Ghana was liberated from British rule on March 6th, 1957, thus making March 6th of this year the 50th anniversary of their independence. As always, my timing is fool-hardedly impeccable. The entire country has been covered with celebratory decorations and the like, and two days after I arrived was one of the largest celebrations in Ghanaian history. But I'll get to that later.

It is apparent that you are in Africa the minute you set foot off the plane. Coastal Ghana, where I'm at, is extremely drab and dusty, and with the summer peaking it is hot and humid to boot. Everything looks, at least on the surface, to be exactly what you might expect from a 3rd world country. Imagine those depressing "Save the Children" adds with hovels and half-clothed kids playing in the street, but stretch it out for miles and miles in every direction. That being said, having spent a few days here, that sensation was only topical and was of the first preconceptions/stereotypes to fade away.

Which didn't stop me from feeling a bit overwhelmed when my entourage picked me up from the airport. After crappy sleep on an uncomfortable plane, being thrust into the reality of my new living condition was a bit much. A women named Gloria came to pick me up. All I knew was that she was connected with my organization, and that she knew about what I was supposed to do that I did. So we get to the car, throw my bags in, and then... nothing. We have to wait for the driver. Okay. Kofi, the driver, strolls by a little later and we finally get going. Airports are often a little bit outside the main city, and I knew Accra is the capital, so the absence of those things I associate with cities was not all that disconcerting at first. Tall buildings, commercial centers, urban infrastructure; these are things that make a city for me. So as we drove further and further out, into the mass of one-story dirt-road cinder-block ghettos, I slowly resigned myself to the reality of the situation. People were teeming everywhere, everything looked drab and run-down, it was 8'o'clock in the morning, and I was trying to figure out if I could even make it through my first day.

We finally pulled up into one place. It might be described as a compound of sorts: its got one main building with four partitions and to the left of that building is a slightly smaller barracks, also divided into four partitions. There are 5 or 6 families that share this location, including the nomimal family of Big Mama, my home away from home.

I still don't have an exact grasp of how exactly everyone is connected here, but here is what I think I know: Big Mama is the matriarch of this household. She is from another region, managed to bring herself out of poverty, made various connections with people in other countries, and is now a sort of half-way house manager for foreigners coming to do goodworks in Ghana. Next there is Gloria, who picked me up from the airport, who is about 27 or 28. She has a regular job in the city, but also doubles as a liaison for foreigners coming in and out (Gloria has excellent English while Mama's in somewhat lacking). There is Melody, 24, who I don't see often but I thinks lives in the house; she too has an outside job. Tina, 20 or 21, performs a general household manager role, and to the best of my knowledge has cooked all of my meals and gathers all the water. Finally there is Annie, 10, who basically runs errands for all the other women when not at school. All of the girls live together, but I don't think they are blood-related. I think they've been invited to stay with Mama at various times to have better schooling opportunities in Accra.

In addition to the girls, there is Kofi, 26, the driver. We were off to a shaky start, mostly due to my jetlag/exhaustion and his brooding silence, but after engaging him in a more relaxed setting I was happy to discover he's just another dude trying to get by. There is Osei, an older guy who has been my orientation guide, and another guy whose name I don't know, but he's from Togo and speaks French not English. Kicking myself once again for not learning more French in Montreal. None of these men live in the house, but they do live in the area and Mama's house seems to be a sort of communal location.

I was relieved there were two foreigners already at the house, and they've been immensely helpful getting me situated and surviving the ins and outs of Ghanaian life. Mack, 23, is actually from near-by Westchester, NY, though he looks like a typical West coast surfer dude through and through. He's here between pre-med and medical schools working as a doctor's aide in a local hospital. He's been here since early January and is staying until the end of May. He's provided the wealth of useful information on getting by around here, and is also connected to the other foreigners in the area, so I've been tagging along behind him the majority of the time these first few days.

Kendra, 25, is from San Diego. She's only here for 2 weeks but she did 3 months or so a while back so is really only here just to say hello and enjoy the celebration. When she was here previously she did the same program that I'm about to start, so it's been good to have her around to question about that. Her crazy story is that her last time here she was living in a different city (Aka-tsi, near the border with Togo, where I'm supposed to move this weekend) and took it upon herself to take a local epileptic homeless child off the street and get him situated in a psychiatric hospital. She showed me some pictures of this little guy when she first found him, and it could be described as nothing less than horrific. His pinky and ring fingers on his right hand were worn to the bone with infection, his upper lip split to the nostril with the same infection, and teeth actually growing out through his right cheek. A face only a mother could love, you might say, and since he had no family to speak of she took it upon herself to get this kid into hospitals in Accra, had initial surgeries on his cheek and hand, and is now awaiting doctor's approval to have surgery to fix his upper lip. Quite an extraordinary story. I went with her to visit him this morning and he's quite a spunky kid. He was showcasing his dance moves and the little bit of English he knows -- she took some digital video of him dancing and then played it back for him, and he basically flipped out with excitement. He ran around the ward with the camera playing it for anyone who would pay attention, often two or three times over. Very charming.

So those are the people who make up 90% of my interactions. I have about a million and one things to write about daily life and so on, but I must save my strength for dinner. To be continued anon.