Day 1: Success

This suppose to be at the end!! Daibi's paintings

Daibi

First, a quick recap of my journey to Accra:

-Barely made it on the plane in BILLIINGS due to an exorbitant amount of people which the locals say is not the norm. To alleviate the tension I was starting to feel from the long lines and having to say goodbye to my nervous parents, a scene from “The Office” I just watched came to me... Dwight “delivers” a butter-coated watermelon baby in order give Michael practice coaching through labor which Michael, of course, drops. Hilarious.  

-I watched “Life As We Know It” from Salt Lake to New York and discovered Delta has an impressive musical and TV selection, which includes but is not limited to… GLEE!!

-Before I left New York, Gavin gave me the best pep talk I’ve ever had in my life.  I’ll never forget that. Galen had written me a letter “for the plane” and pulled that out after I got off the phone with Gavin, which continued my first and only sobbing streak of the trip. It’s probably my favorite thing I have ever read.

-NYC to Accra

As I was walking to my gate, I wondered what kind of people fly to Ghana, other than Ghanaian people, who are very good-looking people group. There was a guy in the gate area that should have been in a perfume ad with that handsome suit and handsome face. I’d photograph!!

Other than that, there were some humanitarian-esque looking people, some all-natural European girls who were apparently best friends with two Asian girls a few seats down from me. Such good friends they stayed up all night laughing and talking and taking pictures with bright flashes. Precious it was… just precious.

Needless to say, I did not sleep a wink the entire flight. I was too fidgety and uncomfortable and irritated with the Eurasian sorority in seats F-H. Honestly…

-Accra

The sight of Ghana from the air was so surreal that I had a chorus of sweet little Ghanaian children singing in the movie I was scripting in my head.

 I arrived in this sweltering pit at 8:08 this morning, got my luggage and set out to find the person holding my name tag. I was looking so intently that I had completely overlooked Jimmy, the Jimmy Johnson look-alike, on the way down the ramp out the airport. Dr. Jean’s network is impressive. There’s good people here and things work together nicely. We left the airport and went back to the guest house which is ran by Jimmy and his wife. Once I had regrouped and reduced my body temp down a few notches, I decided to make the best of this day I had in Accra. I wanted to walk along the African Atlantic coast in the worst way so I took a cab , hailed a taxi if you will, and did just that. Driving in foreign countries is an experience all on its own. There are vendors with HUGE crates balanced perfectly on their head lined up between lanes of traffic shouting “deals” to you, shoving every item you can think of up to your window. It’s nuts.

When I got to the hotel I thought Jimmy’s wife had said to go to because of the beach access, I quickly found myself walking a quick jaunt down the street to the correct hotel with the beach “La Pleasure.” I can hardly say that without laughing. I had to pay 2 cedis (~$1.50) just to walk on the beach.  It felt SO GOOD to stick my feet in cold water. I stood there, breathing in the cool air blowing from the sea.  I closed my eyes and smiled because THIS was awesome. And that’s when I heard someone yelling at me… again. The first time was a guy on a real-live stick horse- not exactly the gallant white steed I pictured galloping down the shoreline on. I was going to pay him anyway just so he could give that thing a hamburger. Oy. But the voice that broke my bonding moment with the sea breeze was a young artist named Daibi. I was going to dodge him like I did stick-horse guy, but he started to unroll his canvas paintings, scooping a handful of sand on to each corner so I could see his work. He wanted me to take a piece of his art back to the States to showcase his work to “my people”. I got that he clearly wanted my money, but I really actually liked his work.

Small canvas in hand, I walked off the beach with a smile. So maybe I shouldn’t have given, but this painting has a story now, and I like that.

Now, to get back to where I came from… I had asked the cab driver on the way to the beach how to tell my next driver how to get back (smart right?) but when I told driver 2 what driver 1 said, he had no idea what that meant. Good thing Jimmy had given me a business card with a map on the back! Nope. Still not really sure where it is. People don’t locate things by street names here, so I was really of no help. Long and boring story short, it took FOREVER to get back and this poor guy had to stop a million times, showing people my map and no one knew. Finally, we had come across something familiar and I knew how to get back from there because I am aware of my surroundings at all times and always look to see if someone is following me (Gavin’s request). The guest house has a big ol’ Dallas Cowboy star on it (not kidding) on the front gate because Jimmy is from Texas!!

The good part about this long afternoon was that I got to see lots of places in Accra. So fascinating.

The bad part about this long afternoon was that I felt so bad (which I shouldn’t have) about sending this guy on a wild goose chase and gave him way too much money and felt like such an idiot when I told the people at the guest house how much I paid him. I legitimately got scammed and didn’t even know it and on top of getting scammed, I gave him more than because I felt bad!! At dinner tonight, I had the pleasure of sharing the table with some really phenomenal people who have spent lots of time in Africa, and they all shared their stories about how they’ve all been jipped. When in Rome.. I mean, Africa…

Ok I need to sleep. I skipped last night and I just got really tired, so forgive me if some parts don’t make since. And no, I’m not writing this much every day, but I had nothing but time tonight:)

6 am flight and then a short drive to my final destination: Saboba AKA THE OVEN!! Lord help me...