September 24 2010 / Takoradi, Ghana

It was a good thing Julie and I had agreed to call each other in the morning to make sure that we were both awake, because I was exhausted when my alarm went off at 6AM and was ready to roll over and go back to sleep when my phone rang.  I got up, grabbed my backpack and ate a carb-filled breakfast (protein? surely not!) before heading down to the Habitat for Humanity bus.  Jared and Julie had already staked out a spot in the back, so Caroline and I flopped down next to them.  And then we were off—it was three hours to get there.   For some reason, travel time does not really exist in Ghana, perhaps because you’re already so enthralled by looking outside and seeing everything that’s around you.  Time goes very quickly.   We stopped at a hotel to use the bathroom that was just shocking to go inside—the building was very modern, and inside it was just, FWOOSH—instant air conditioning cancelling out the tropical humidity.  Air conditioning alone is the ultimate sign of status here.  It was definitely strange to see a building that had that. 

We kept going down the road.  Many people were sleeping, but it’s hard to do so when the road is just riddled with potholes that send you flying up and down.  We finally turned (kind of near the Kakum area… definitely central Ghana), and entered a dirt road.  We were flung this way and that as the bus fought the road for dominance—everyone sleeping was shaken awake as tree branches scraped against the sides of the bus.  We thought we were going to flip over several times, or at least get stuck in the mud.  This was the most intense time where we were literally out in the middle of nowhere—this was an unmarked road, with shacks clustered randomly around.  When we’d gotten out of the bus because it wasn’t able to go any further, we hiked through thick rainforest, every once in a while coming across a clearing with a random house, a random school, and finally, a big clearing where there were several house foundations started. There were great big piles of sand for mortar here and there, and long rows of big stones made out of sand and mud.  Because we felt like being badasses, I as well as several other girls decided that we would be the ones to carry the big 50+ pound stones over to the house foundations from where they were on the ground (whether or not this was a good idea is up for discussion).  Many were covered with vines, HUGE snails, and all of them had earthworms, spiders, or crickets hiding beneath them.  If you dropped them, they would most likely crack into unusable pieces, so you had to kind of try your best to deal with the occasional massive spider or twelve.  I was filthy and covered in dirt within seconds, as you had to support with your chest as you carried as well.  Eventually we came up with the much better idea with forming a human chain where we could just pass the bricks from person to person, which was much more effective but also created lots of opportunities for accidental boob grazes.  It was all good though.

After a while we had a soda break under the tent that had been set up for us—warm Ghanaian Fanta is so much better than American warm Fanta, because at least it’s made with real sugar instead of corn syrup.  :)  After that, Jared, Julie and I decided to relocate for a little while to a different home that had more foundation walls already in place and were going to “level” the floors.  The floors were made of dirt, rocks, and tree roots, and we had a pickax and two shovels.  It was pretty tough to do—scooping up big scoops of dirt and tossing them to the other side of the room.  Oftentimes we would scoop up huge frogs and throw them as well—the frogs had buried themselves a good amount in the dirt, and we had to chase them out much of the time.  There were also gigantic blue lizards who bobbled their orange heads in some of ritual—was just so cool.  Jared and I talked about Dungeons and Dragons while we worked a ton—we really want to get a campaign going, as he’s a DM at his school, so hopefully we can get something like that going. 

We were only there for a couple of hours, and after a while we retreated back to the shelter of our tent, especially when the rain started up.  A woman from a nearby house had made us chicken and rice, the rice covered with a delicious tomato paste—it was so good, and much appreciated after the work we’d done.

When we were walking back after lunch, there were little kids running along after us who had been watching us work.  I got pretty excited because I had beanie babies in my backpack on the bus, so I was excited to go and get it and bring it out.  I knelt down next to one of the kids, a little boy, and held out the beanie snake.  He stared at it blankly.  Another little boy grabbed it, squished it.  “Snake,” he said, and handed it back.  Two other boys were looking at me, so I gave them two more.  They looked at them and didn’t say anything.  I walked away after a while, and one of the little boys followed me.  When I noticed, he looked at me and said, “Give me a cedi?”

I felt completely shell-shocked.  I stammered something about not having anything, and got on the bus.  The children waved at us and chased us as we drove away, and I could only wave back.  When they fell into the distance, I just stared out the window blankly.  For some reason, it did not hit me until that very second that maybe many of these kids that I give beanie babies out to aren’t going to even know what to do with them.  That maybe trying to give a kid something to play with wouldn’t matter if he didn’t really play in ways that I did when I was a kid.  That maybe kids had something a little more to worry about than whether they had a toy to play with, but whether they were going to be able to eat that night.  That maybe childhood was a luxury.  If I learned anything in Ghana, I’ve stumbled upon the humanity of poverty.  I felt completely hollowed, and really couldn’t do anything but look outside and think about how the rain meant that children wouldn’t be going to school.  I slipped into an intense depression when we were driving away, seeing overturned cars in the mud by the sides of the road…

It was better when Jared and Julie woke up and we could talk a little bit more about his book and writing in general, which perked me up a little bit.  Getting back was nice—took a nice hot shower, and we found a mostly empty classroom to have dinner in.  We tried to get Jared to come out with us, but he was pretty resolved to not go, so we (Julie, Lorelei and I) prettied ourselves up and headed out.  We decided to go across the way to the Duty Free shop to get drinks first.  So we had our peach vodka, guava nectar, and because I don’t enjoy feeling horrific (nor do I particularly enjoy vodka of any kind), a gigantic jug of water.  We sat down and hung out, various people coming in and out of our circle—Nick and his girlfriend, Margret, lots of other folks.  Unfortunately, while I wasn’t watching, Lorelei drank some ridiculous amount of alcohol.  She became very stubborn about things, such as wanting to get into Ghanaian people’s cars because she “spoke their language” and other things of that nature.  Alex joined onto our group and he and I sort of mother-henned on the way to Paragon, the nightclub we’d heard lots about.

Once again, at the club I just kind of followed after Lorelei, especially after the first time that she fell over.  Normally I would make a friend go home, but she is a New Yorker and I can’t really beat that with logic.  At one point she was dancing with a guy, and while she was walking away he tried to yank up her shirt.  He started laughing with some other guys about it, which was NOT okay with me, so I marched right up to him, punched him in the chest, and said very sharply “You don’t fucking do that.”  He looked very taken aback that I had called him on his behavior, so I walked away before anything else could happen.  So that was my moment of the night, though I got zero credit for being The Reasonable One in the group… like, ever.  Which is fine I guess.  But I like when people own up to the fact that they were acting like asshats.  Just saying.  =/

We were able to get home when Lorelei became convinced that it was 5AM (it was 2), and we all said that my goodness, it was 5AM and that we should leave, because didn’t she have to get up for a trip?  So I guess that all worked out okay.  But I will not be partying with Lorelei until we talk about that particular adventure.  No one likes being the momma hen.   

The moon in Ghana looks like it belongs in Apocalypse Now. I can't remember--did that movie take place in Viet Nam or the Congo?