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

Daily life in Ghana, at least where I'm settled, is a far cry from what I've seen or done anywhere before. I'll start with what has become my one and only truly persistent gripe: dust.

The heat and humity are bad, but nothing I didn't experience in Japan. The standard of living is low, but nothing truly untenable. Food, drink, music, people: all very much enjoyable. But dust is the bane of my existence.

I've got dust in my eyes, dust in my clothes, caked into my skin, dust in my bed sheets, in my hair, you name it -- it has dust. There is about 30 minutes to an hour each morning after I take a shower that I enjoy a dust-free hiatus, and then the other 23 hours of the day are spent in a state of more or less perma-filth. I love Ghana, but I've never felt so permanently unattractive in my life. Women of the world bemoan their lost Kevin. That is, however, really my only gripe, so let's move on to the good (unique?) stuff.

Breakfast every morning is what I've lovingly deemed bread'n'spread. I get two slices of bread and spread on it whatever happens to be available. Usually just peanut butter, but I found the dregs of a gnutella the other day. This is usually served with tea/hot cocoa/instant coffee, which I usually have to let sit for 20 minutes or so anyway because at 8am its already too hot to enjoy. Speaking of 8am, the typical day around here goes from about 7am to 9pm, and anyone who knows me knows that such a schedule in the world of Kevin should be laughable. Be that as it may, with minimal electricity after dark, and mosquitoes being attracted to any lightbulbs, I have indeed found the motivation to fall asleep relatively early. That, and the heat has usually sapped my energy anyway.

After breakfast is my daily shower, definitely one of the top hi-lights. The term shower is used liberally here: there is a room where its okay to throw water around and its got a drain in the floor. There is no running water, so you gather buckets of water from the massive tin drums in the back of the house, fill up a bigger bucket in the shower room, then use a smaller bucket to drench yourself while soaping up. Probably the most water conserving bathing I've done in my life. If I'm in a good mood I can pretend that its just another Japanese onsen (bathhouse) where bucketing oneself with water is already comman fare. Also, knowing that I'm not the one who has to drag water from the main cistern to the drums in the back every morning negates any sort of indignation I might have otherwise felt (that unfortunate job is left to Tina, I think).

So water is conserved as much as possible. There is yet another, smaller, bucket for clean water used for brushing teeth. This water tastes, lovingly, of chemicals. I'm not usually a fan of chemicals in my water, but I'm even less of a fan of malaria and dysentery, so the chemicals are here to stay. There is no running water for the toilet either, of course, so the system is as follows: number one isn't flushed, and for number two you have to bucket water into the back of the toilet, do your business, but also make sure to throw the toilet paper in the side trash and not down the tube. Not my favorite method, but not impossible to live with either (I am spared the horrors of the outhouse the other families in the compound use).

But Kevin, you're asking yourself, if water is so scarce and its so hot, surely you must be dehydrated and etc, how do you ever possibly survive? That's a good question, and one of the most entertaining aspects of Ghanaian culture so far. Since tap water, were it available, would be unfit for consumption anyway, how do we get our daily fluids? In other countries, such as Thailand, I had to buy bottled water, but in Ghana the bottling process (and thus the end price for consumers) is too expensive for most people to afford, and therefore almost all water for consumption is delivered in small 12 oz baggies. Bite a hole in the corner of the bag and suck away.

Definitely strange the first time, but by the third you'll forget you ever did it any other way. The advantages are good for everyone: the hawkers can stack them more easily than bottles and for buyers they're dirt cheap. As I learned the other day at the parade, they make excellent impromptu water guns. The standard price is 300 cedis, and at 10,000 cedis to the dollar that makes a whopping 3 cents. Its so convenient, in fact, that it's a problem. You'll find these empty baggies strewn about everywhere you go in Ghana. The triple Rs of recycling haven't quite made their way here yet. When they are ever gathered up, they are usally burned, with all the wonderful environmental implications that burning plastics typically entails. Quite unfortunate.

Getting around is another set of adventures. There are a few interlocking phases to any travel, each with its own unique system of "will I die today" possibilities. Start at home: from the compound we're pretty much in the middle of nowhere, so we have to get to the main road (conveniently referred to as "Roadside"). You could walk, but it would take a good 30 minutes to an hour, and with the aforementioned dust and heat you'd basically wish you never started. To solve this problem there are a series of unmarked taxi stops. There is one near most centers of activity and thus one for my neighborhood, creatively named Camp 2, not far from the Big Mama's compound. The taxi takes you to the main stand at Roadside for 2500 cedis (25 cents). Definitely doable by any measure. You pay for what you get however: taxis are four wheels and a steering wheel in the best of circumtances. These tin cans on wheels make NYC drivers look like tame by comparison. As the dirt roads are laden with potholes and divets, there is typically only one relatively safe and less bumpy avenue for the car to take, so the driver is serving left and right as necessary while beeping at pedestrians just soon enough to save them from imminent death. Its every man for himself here. The real pinnacle of excitement, though, comes with oncoming traffic: the good stretch of road is usually only wide enough for a single vehicle, so the two drivers play a mini game of chicken before swerving just enough at the last minute. The excitement is a steal for the money.

Roadside is an even more elaborate circus. There is basically only one road out of Accra along the coast, and so anyone going anywhere is there. So many people that taxis would clog the roads to a halt. The solution is the tro-tro, which I assume is some contraction of the word "trolley". Tro-tro are basically gutted out vans, refitted to seat a whopping 16 people. Each tro-tro has a driver and a door man. If the tro-tro has any free seats, the door man hangs out the side when passing a crowd and shouts the name of the final stop. If its your stop, and you're quick enough, you jump into the tro-tro and take your seat. Once inside, at some point the doorman-now-accountant will take your fare, usally about 3500 cedis, making a one-way adventure to Accra cost about 60 cents.

The flow of traffic here is like a slow moving river. It never goes too fast, but it never really stops, either. Drivers will gun it if given a good opportunity, but the usual congestion and the age of the cars deny much speed. Usual traffic-stoppers in North America, however, such as breakdowns and accidents (and there are plenty of breakdowns), don't even phaze other drivers. People just flow around them, off road or into oncoming lanes as necessary. I had the questionable pleasure of experiencing firsthand a broken down taxi after the parade the other day. At first the driver pushed from his door while in neutral and kick start it that way. When that failed, Kendra suggested we get out and push too. Mack and I mumbled an affirmation, but failed to move at all as she jumped out enthusiastically to help. By now the broken taxi full of foreigners was attracting the much-amused attention of passing Ghanaians, so when our third attempt failed we were invited for a free ride by some passers-by who thought our company was worth the show.

We were thankful, because after the 50th Anniversary celebration we were all dead tired. I've never had heat stroke but Tuesday had to be the closest I've ever come. Mack has some foreigner friends who work for a local radio station, and this radio station had 3 floats that were going to be in the parade. We were invited to be on the floats, but the catch was that we had to get into Accra and be ready by 10am. We had done some welcome-Kevin-to-Ghana drinking the night before, so not the easiest wake up. Humidity is not a hangover's friend.

But we did indeed make it to the floats by 10, but the word float is used liberally here. They were actually 18-wheelers converted into massive flatbeds, fenced up and loaded with speakers. There were three trucks: one for hip hop, one for something else, and one for reggae. We were on the reggae truck. As soon as we arrived we were decked out by the locals in Ghanaian colors, green, yellow and red. People were dancing like crazy, they had guys walking on stilts, everyone was having a good time, but sadly we weren't going anywhere. Apparently our trucks weren't joining the parade until 1pm, so after sweating it out in the sun for a few hours we decided to go sit down until it was actually time to leave. We unfortunately didn't make this decision until about 12:30, so we were huffing it make to our floats soon enough anyway.

Before I continue, I believe I owe the readership a due explanation for what partying in Ghana truly entails: in a word, dancing. Doesn't matter who you are or how you do it, but to party in these parts you gotta strap on your dancing shoes. And I can assure you, Ghanaians know how to dance.

From the very young to the very old, dancing here is a national past time and enjoyed with reckless abandon. Just to give you a taste, I will do my best to describe the lesson given to me by Samuel, a ten-year-old compatriot aboard the Reggae float. He started with a shuffle step; simple enough for the white boy to follow. Then a few arm-hand motions, presumably for uniform exercise of all four limbs; this far I kept up easily enough. The hips came next, and it was here Sammy started to lose me. I know I have hips and I have a good idea on where they are, but their absolute mastery is beyond me. That said, I did well enough for an obruni (Twi for white man). Then Sammy turned it up a notch: he started throwing in his shoulders, mixed up his shuffle step, seemingly disconnected his elbows from his arms and his knees from his legs, all the while bobbing his head with rhythmic ticks that might otherwise been incredibly disconcerting were it not for their harmony with the music. Sammy left me in the dust, but not before I stole just enough of his moves to give a passable performance for the rest of the parade.

Sammy was my boy and we got along well, and he is a great archetype for what I like to call the Ghana mosey. While riding the tro-tro I'll see kids roaming down the street at their leisurely pace (almost no one runs in Ghana. It is simply too hot/dusty, and it's likely that whoever you are rushing to meet is also taking their time), every so often passing a store front. You're average person taking such a walk might smile faintly and bob their head if they enjoy the song being played; not so in Ghana. Especially the children, the slightest opportunity to dance evokes the greatest of responses. Said child will be walking along leisurely, suddenly burst into spectacular spasms and, astonishingly, as soon as the farside of the storefront is attained, reverts instantaneously to that lazy amble, conserving as much energy as one can, I guess for the next euphoric episode. I love it.

Back to the 50 Year Jubilee timeline: having already exhausted a great amount of energy, the parade had finally begun. The reggae/obruni wagon was in full swing as the front of the three trucks, breaking paths and blazing trails to hoards of onlookers. Unfortunately our DJ seemed to know only 4 or 5 songs, and while they were entertaining enough, by the sixth and seventh go-round it became tiresome. Think back, if you will, to any time you may have had the life-force-sucking experience of working in retail, preferably during the holiday season, when you have to listen to the same 40 minute holiday track X number of times in an 8-hour workday. While Ghanaian reggae flies far and above this tasteless torture, even a music lover such as myself can only take so much.

The funniest part of float had to be the great dichotomy of frenzied dancing by all and abject boredom 3 or 4 little kids who laid, sprawled out, in front of the speakers at the front of the truck. Having fought my way through the dense crowd to an open space, I was surprised to find this situation: little kids on a mat, sprawled to full wingspan and seemingly unaffected by the riot surrounding them, half-heartedly playing with empty coke bottles. In years to come these children will be told how they participated in Ghana's joyous celebration of 50 years of freedom, and I wonder if they will remember the rhythmless white people they displaced. Considering the pace of events I was surprised that no one got stomped on or such, but no one else seemed concerned and the children seemd amazingly adept at avoiding injury.

By around 3 pm had made it to Independence Square, the main event site. We (and this 'we' refers to obruni only) were all pretty exhausted by then and ready to get down and refresh ourselves. Our truck pulled further and further into the square, and as we reached the executive viewing post we gave it one last hurrah in anticipation of being done soon. We did our thing, raised the crowd, put on our happy face, and then slowly our truck made its way back out of Independence Square. Kendra and I, especially tired, asked one of the locals on our truck where they'd let us off. With a quizzical look, she told us we had to finish the circle around the city and then go back to where we started.

Enter Kevin's potential bout with heat stroke. I thought the rejuvenating effects of water and food were forthcoming so I had just done my utmost to make my new Ghanaian friends proud in their Independence Square. Denied my deliverance, I succumbed to less fortunate aspects of equatorial life. Although water had been plentiful, food had not and the only real thing I had eaten all day were my two slices of bread'n'spread from that morning. Between that and the drinking the night before, I was in no good position to me shaking my money maker all day in the sun. I had applied sun screen in the morning, by then it was far removed. By 4pm I was taking a sitdown and 4:30 I needed the ride to stop. Unfortunately the only alternative was to get off and walk, and beyond that it was my third day and I had no idea how to get around on my own.

Just when the point of no return was creeping up on me (I was, strangely enough, feeling some chills), Kendra and Mack decided it was time to go too. I think we had actually made it to a main road by that point, so we took a journey home in the taxi-that-couldn't. Shortly after we got in it the engine sputtered out and we had to jump out and push it into second gear.

This behemoth of an email has been a two-day affair, so I think its about time to stop. I know I said it'd be mostly about daily life, but I had to get the Jubilee story out before I lost most of it and the daily stuff happens, well, daily. But that, my friends, is how I did such and such and Learned to Love 50 Years of Ghana.

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.