A Jog To Remember

On the plane ride over, three different flight attendants asked me what I was going to do in Ghana. Subsequently, one offered me unlimited free booze throughout the 11 hour flight, and another said I should be on some Anderson Cooper show I’ve never watched (I liked the first one; the other was a tad ridiculous). Despite the smooth flight and the wine, I didn’t sleep a wink.

At the small airport, I warded off about three dozen men welcoming me to Ghana and checking to make sure I had someone to pick me up (oh yeah, they were ALL taxi drivers). Eventually I found ‘Auntie Felicia,’ the aunt of my Dad’s former law student who gave me, a stranger, an open-ended invitation to her home in Accra whenever I wish to return from the countryside where I’ll be teaching. We rode to her house where we lunched on cassava, plantains, and fish with spinach and pumpkin seeds (the cassava had zero taste, but the fish-spinach dish had plenty of taste to go around).

In the afternoon, I thought I might go for a jog to stretch my legs, since I was told the area was safe during the day. Felicia told me the sea was a straight shot from the house, pointing the way. If I was not back in an hour, she said with a smile, she’d send a search party.

After jogging a couple miles along the road, the pavement turned to red dirt and the colorful, gated houses turned to crowded rows of aluminum shacks. Everyone I passed began to stare at me, some happily yelling things like “Boroni” (white man) while others laughed and muttered to their neighbors. I had to dodge the chickens meandering the path and the children kicking makeshift soccer balls.  I had long lost sight of the ocean in the crowded shacks, but an opening revealed that the sea was, in fact, parallel to me, and I had was not an inch closer to it than when I had set out! Tempted to continue, but remembering promises made to a few friends and my mother less than 24 hours ago to be careful for an entire year, I decided to keep my promise at least through the first day and return to the house.

Well, that proved to be more challenging than I thought. I must have taken a turned from one winding path to another after entering shack-land, but I could not find the turn because every path looked identical. I slowed down, thinking it better to walk rather than sprint in the wrong direction. The sun was beating down, and my shirt was soaked (although this happens to me in air-conditioning too so I really only paired these thoughts for effect). Trying to systematically check the paths from the point I last remembered, I began walking down one way until I was sure it was unfamiliar and then backtracked. Of course, those who were watching me (which was everyone) clearly thought I was either pathetically lost and/or off my rocker. At this time, I had no phone and I had not brought money (woops).

After almost an hour of this futile game, a stout woman approached me and, in a domineering tone, said, “Where are you going? I see you pass by me many times and I think ‘this boy is lost.’” I told her where I was trying to go, and she snapped, “You wait.” She then began asking several women around her about the street I was trying to return to, and then beckoned me to follow. To summarize the rest of this circuitous journey, she led me around shack-land, in seemingly no clear direction, frequently asking people directions to the street (in the native tongue) and, more often, seemingly explaining to them with a wry smile what the heck she was doing escorting this sweaty, white creature. Eventually, after introducing me to her daughter at a variety shop and to her first-born son in the market, we got into a taxi and drove a few miles until, at last, things looked familiar again, and the road became paved once more. Upon dropping me off, she exchanged a laugh with Aunt Felicia, wrote her number down for me, and gladly accepted my 10 cedis (more than three times the return taxi fee), although she had asked for nothing.

From this experience, I learned a few obvious travel lessons of which apparently I need reminding (don’t roam around on no sleep, carry some money, etc.). Also, my conviction was reinforced that it is a universal rule, wherever you are in the world, that you can always look to women to help you when you are in need, especially those with children—they just seem to get it.

 Oh yeah, and when I trying to find my way back, I stumbled upon the ocean, ironically.  The waves crashed on a narrow beach filled with children in their undies or totally naked, playing alongside men unloading fish nets from large kayaks. See, I was never lost.