Tro-Tro Names:
Still Old School
Still Step by Step
(lots of tro-tros used "Still" after an indeterminate amount of time)
This Planet
In fact . . .
Naked I Came
Chastity is a Lifestyle

Business Names:
Charlie Pee Beauty
Pee Cola
Dressing to Kill Collections
Power Haircut

The last couple of weeks in Ghana passed slowly at first, since I contracted food poisoning just after I recovered from dysentery and spent a couple more days bored in my bedroom and weak. The last week, however, was fantastic.

At NetAfrique.com, we managed to complete a couple of lingering projects, and then we all went to dinner at a restaurant called Paloma. We sat at a round table under the stars and my co-workers debunked some Ghanaian song lyrics for me. For example, the song, "My Girlfriend Likes my Kelliwelli" is not about that great snack of fried plantains with hot pepper but rather something more intimate.

Over the weekend, I went on a trip to Busua, a small fishing village on the coast in the Western Region. To get there, I took a Benz bus from Kaneshi Market. After I bought my ticket, I boarded the bus and asked some of my fellow passengers when we would depart. They answered that we would leave when the bus filled up. At that point, there were only a half-dozen people, so I settled back in my seat and watched the activity in the market. There is a steady stream of vendors knocking at the window as you wait in any bus or tro-tro. I bought a bag of frozen yogurt from the box balanced on the top of a small boy’s head. This must be the best product to vend from one’s head, since there is dry ice in the box and bundles of cold treats.

Soon enough, the bus was full. I asked to sit in the front on a bench next to the driver so that I could see the sites along the way. I had to persuade the driver that I wouldn’t mind getting up and sitting on the dashboard when we let passengers on or off, since the bench had to be pulled up to give access to the door.

Along the way, we picked up a travelling medicine man. He boarded the bus, gave the driver a packet of pills in a paper wrapper with diagrams of the things the pills would cure—worms, malaria, coughs, knee aches, headaches, diarrhea, and heart disease. The medicine man wore dark sunglasses and said a prayer before he launched into a live infomercial-like performance to try to sell the pills. There were takers, which made the man in back of me chuckle. I smiled at him, and he told me it was a shame people believed the things the medicine man told them.

Busua is a small village on the western coast. There is a smooth road from the village to the hotel on the beach, with green palms and vegetation for miles around. Busua beach, supposedly the best beach in West Africa, was much cleaner than the others I had visited in Ghana. Still, it reminded Shara of the Jersey shore. (Shara joined me in Busua later that weekend.)

On one side of the beach there were fisherman with their narrow wooden boats preparing nets. I hired two fishermen to take me out in a smaller canoe, which was a hallowed-out tree trunk. I wanted to go to the small, rocky island with coconut palms that could be seen from the shore.

Once in the boat and riding over the huge waves, I was slightly afraid of tipping, since the undercurrents are very strong along the coast and I am not a strong swimmer. The big surprise, though, was the oar that was handed to me. My arms ached for three days, but it was exhilarating to move the boat along over the waves and into the rocky arms of the empty little island.

I walked from rock to rock, collecting interesting, fossilized seashells. There were small pools of water where sea sponges clung to the rock. Some looked like ripe cherries and some were spiky black balls. I sat under one of the two coconut palms on the highest point of the tiny island and turned pink under the hot sun as I watched fishermen in their boats further out at sea.
After I returned from Busua—this time in a tro-tro half-filled with barrels of palm oil—the last few days were a flurry of last-minute gift searches, packing the xylophone I bought without really thinking of how difficult it might be to get home, and helping Elliot, who came down with malaria. (He wasn’t able to catch it early, either, since the first time he went to the hospital to be tested he was not given correct results because the lab technician pocketed the fee and couldn’t pass him on to a doctor without being caught.)

Ghana Airways, the safe but uncomfortable airline (no frills, no "t-roll," or toilet paper, no movies, no snacks), delivered me to chilly and efficient New York City, where I was glad to eat a giant, mixed-green salad.


***

What I’ll Miss
The sincere friendliness of Ghanaians
Long greetings ("You are welcome!")
Elaborate hand shakes and finger snaps
Wild colors and prints on fabrics and signs
Humor, humor everywhere
Theatrical bargaining
Ghanaian children, who are brave and vivacious
Roasted plantains with groundnuts from street vendors
Stars at night in villages where there is very little artificial light
Auntie Rose, who made me laugh every day

Photos from my last week in Ghana »