One man in Ghana

The first time I caved and gave a guy my number it was to Kingsley.

The day I got off the bus after my trip down to Elmina, that long day where I had waited 7 hours for the bus, only to find out I couldn't get on it and had to take several tro tro's instead. Well, needless to say I was hot, tired and frikkin pissed that afternoon.Straight away some guy grabs my arm and I push him away quite aggressively and keep walking.

I think I walked for about 20 minutes when a young man walks up beside me and introduces himself as Kingsley. I had sweat literally pouring off me and filling up the angry creases covering my forehead - how could this guy be interested in chatting me up right then?

Actually he was quite gorgeous and not at all intimidating, but only 22 years old! I gave him my number so he would leave, what harm could it do anyway? If I had known then that he was the guy who first grabbed me when I hopped off the bus and then followed me all this way, I would have thought twice about giving him my details. But that was a fact he told me two days later when I coincidentally bumped into him in town again. When I gave him my number he left straight away but called me twice that night. I answered the first time, it was strange, he had absolutely no reason to call except to wish me a good night. So the second time I didn't answer, but knew he would call again the next day.

When I bumped into him in town he asked me if I would like to spend some time with him. I had nothing else to do so said yes, I think maybe I was also trying to make up for ignoring his calls. He showed me the mobile phone booth where he worked on the edge of Agbogbloshie (the slum). He introduced me to his brother and I bought him a soft drink so we could sit in the shade, mostly in silence. We hung out for only an hour, two max, before I made an excuse to leave. That was the last time I ever saw Kinglsey, but definitely not the last I heard from him. Every single day I got several calls and several text messages from him. Here is a couple of them:

'meeting you was fate, becoming your friend was a choice but falling in love with you i had no control over' (suspiciously written in perfect English).

'I'm afraid to lose you, i hope for us, two souls with but a single thought, two hearts that beat as one. Kia there is nothing i like more than just to have you'

This was my favourite:

'As u go 2 bed 2night, i ordered bats 2 guard u tight. i told so ghosts to dance in white, and 2 make sure u r alryt, i'll ask the dracula 2 kiss ur neck goodnight..'

If I thought he had regular access to the internet then I would have assumed he did a Google search for 'worst poetry to win the heart of a white woman'. He really is sweet though so I sent him a couple of messages saying that I am already in a relationship and even so I am only here for a short while. It didn't work, the messages kept coming.

My final message said:
'You can't contact me anymore, but you are handsome and sweet and one day you will make a woman very happy'. And I hope she makes him just as happy.

I have to say though that men from Ghana are surely some of the sexiest in the world! They all have these huge cheeky grins, deep set eyes and smooth, flawless skin. They are tall, all tone and muscle, and have very little body hair. They are born with rhythm and have a great sense of humour. Just a little side note for any woman or gay man considering a trip there.

Ghanaian Men

I went for a walk to the ocean and found this small trail that led from the main road into a park. I followed it through some trees and onto a wobbling plank of wood that formed a bridge across an open sewer... I could picture falling in that sewer... I practically flew across it.

The path continued past some small vegetable patches that were being raked by women as their men sat watching them from beneath the shade of trees. I stumbled on until I reached an enormous empty red field of dirt... a soccer field.

 

Very shortly after streams of men trailed in behind me. Each one stopped to talk, of course they wondered what the hell I was doing there and where I was from. They begged me to stay and watch their game. I told them I had never seen a soccer game before, they couldn't believe it. They said this was even more reason to watch them. They boasted in turn that they were the best player, and some of them took their shirts off and showed off their ball skills. I said that I would stay and watch the game, I said I was looking forward to it, and that wasn't a lie. They started stretching and warming up, I really do think that having an audience added pressure to the match, even though the entire audience consisted of one strange looking white woman.

 

The game began. I don't really understand the rules but it wasn't so hard to follow - they kick the ball and hope it goes in the net. I wanted the yellow team to win, I counted the hottest players on that team, and only a few hotties on the blue team.

 

Only a few minutes into the game this skinny man creeps up to me. No idea where he came from. He leans in and whispers "I like you... I promise not to make you pregnant"

 

I was gob-smacked!

 

I told him I have a boyfriend and even if I didn't I wouldn't have sex with him. He asked if I have friends at home that I could send over for him to marry, I said no. The conversation went on with him getting more and more on edge and me getting more and more on edge.

 

Him: I will marry her

Me: I don't know anyone for you to marry!

Him: Give me your number. your Australian number, you go home, find me a girl to marry, send her to me!

Me: It doesn't work like that. I wouldn't just send a girl to marry you. Australia is too far away anyway. None of my friends would want to marry you. Women aren't objects you just send off across the world. None of my friends are single anyway...  and... and... and... well... no... just no.

 

He would not let up. He just kept pestering me, standing so close I could feel his breath on my face. I gave up. He wasn't going anywhere so I realised I had to. I walk off and the guys on the soccer field yelled out "hey where are you going?", "you don't want to watch?", "Hey kai come back!".

In hindsight I wish I had just asked the players to tell this guy to rack off. But I was fuming, and I get pretty irrational when I'm angry so I decided it was better to just leave.

 

He followed me.

 

I turned around and yelled "Fuck off! Dont follow me!"

 

He continued to follow me. On the rickety bridge across the sewage I felt him not far behind, this time I wanted the plank of wood to break. He followed me until I got back to the main road. At the road I turned around to really make a scene but he was no where in sight.

 

Here is a typical conversation between Ghanaian men and me

 

Him: Hissssss... Hisssss. He'll smack his lips together a few times and hiss some more.

Me. Silence. Head down. Thinking 'fuck off already'.

Him: Hey lady! Madam! Lady!

Usually by now they are right beside me keeping pace

Me: [sigh] I mumble hello.
Him: You are very beautiful
Me: Thank you
Him: My name is [insert very Western name here]
Me: I'm Kai

we shake hands

Him: Where are you going?
Me: This way... home... to meet someone
Him: I like you
Me: You don't know me, how can you like me?
Him: Give me your number
Me: I don't have a number
Him:You don't have a number!!! But how can I contact you??
Me: You cant!
Him: But I like you, I want to be your friend... You have boyfriend?
Me: Yes I do
Him: But I like you too much!

The rest is him badgering me for my email address or home address in Australia or a date. Most annoy the hell out of me, being way too pushy, some become quite amusing or even surprise me by turning rational and saying goodbye.

I really don't know how you could live here as a white woman. Obviously there are some who do, but you can't step out your door without some man stopping you and starting that conversation, that exact same learned conversation, time and time again, word for word. Every time it amazed me to hear that exact same script fall from their mouth.

 

My 28th Birthday

It is February the 28th, my 28th birthday.

I tried not to think about it too much, I was fully aware at how fragile my moods were.  I always get sad on my birthday, I hate birthdays in fact, and I knew it was going to take a lot of extra strength to keep the birthday blues away this year. I missed my girlfriend even more that day and I kept my phone in my hand willing for it to ring and to hear her voice on the other end.
I decided to go to a little street cafe around the corner of my hotel. It looked super cute and David said he goes there all the time. It is just a table with 6 picnic chairs set up on the footpath behind a sheet of lace and an extra table for the woman to prepare the food. I ordered an egg sandwhich and my first cup of coffee since Sydney airport. It was instant nescafe with sweetened condensed milk, but I enjoyed the familiar morning ritual of sipping hot coffee and contemplating life.



Abigail's cafe



I started a conversation with the woman who worked there. Her name was Abigail, she was a stunning woman, she also had the scarred lines down her cheek bones. I told her I liked them, she scrunched her face up and said how ugly they are. She said she wouldn't do it if she had a baby. I asked her if she had children, she said no, I sensed a touch of sadness, or perhaps a deeper reason there, so I changed the subject and asked if she had a husband or boyfriend. She said that yes she was in love and it made her happy. She asked if I was in love, I said yes, but she couldnt understand why I was so far away from my partner (she assumed a man, I again just kept using the male pronoun to make life easier). I said that travelling is easier in a way knowing that he (she) was still there for me. She agreed saying love is strangth.

I trotted back to my hotel wondering if love is the same feeling for people world-wide or not.

Back in my room I was starting to feel the birthday sadness creep in and I thought I better do something to distract me. I picked up the map of Accra and studied it for something to do. There was a few museums I could check out, a memorial of some kind... and then I saw it. Right along the bottom of the map, way over the other side of town I see a street called '28th of February Rd'.

What are the odds of that?! On the 28th of February, on my 28th birthday, I see a street called '28th of February Rd'.



So naturally I decide that I must walk all the way across town and take a photo of the street sign.

So that is what I did.
And eventually I found it.
And I took a photo.

And this is what happens when you are forced to spend your birthday alone.
Though later that night David met me for a few beers and some dinner, and my 28th birthday was not so sad afterall.

Anti-gay Ghana

The driver picked me up at 9.30am, I went to the castle while he waited outside and then I got him to drop me at my next hotel. I swore then no more private cabs, for the rest of my trip I would only do local transport with the locals.
I checked in to the crocodile hotel (a place built on a swamp with crocodiles roaming around - how touristy kitsch!) Then I headed off to Kakum National Park to see monkeys. I didnt see a single monkey, but the walk through it on a 40m high canopy walkway was nice enough.
That night at the crocodile 'botel' I sat at the resteraunt perched over the swamp and ordered Western food. I'm ashamed to admit that is what I ate but I was so desperate for vegetables I hadnt had a single one the whole time I was in Ghana. The lights went out shortly after I ordered and the waiter lit a couple of candles at my table. I was the only person sitting on the deck, there was a couple at the resteraunt as well but they were inside. It was a warm, still night. I ate my soup and salad and listened to the gentle splashing sounds of the crocodiles slipping in and out of the water beneath me. It was the most content that I had felt since arriving and I hoped this night wouldn't end. It did end when the waiter came over and asked if he could have my phone. I said no, that I needed my phone, and he stood there looking hurt. He wasnt about to leave the table until I gave him something, so I slipped him enough cash to cover my meal and left.
The next day I get to the bus station at 7.30am, I was told the day before that my bus back to Accra was to leave at 8am. When I went to buy my ticket the woman said no the bus was arriving at 3pm. I had seven and a half hours to kill!! I went for a walk in the scorching heat, leaving my pack behind, but the walk didnt last long due to the heat and my anxiousness to be near my belongings.So I sat at the bus station and switched my focus between the slowly ticking clock and the TV.
At around 1pm a programme began that was not spoken in English but English words were continuously flashing up on the screen and scrolling across the bottom. The words kept exclaiming "homosexuality is a sin", "get rid of lesbians" and a heap of the usual crap - some bible quotes and images of crazed looking gays. There was a song in the middle of the show, it was upbeat and the people on the screen were clapping and dancing and looking pretty darn merry. The words continued to glide across the screen stating "gay people will go to hell".
Finally 3pm came... but not my bus. I go back to the counter and the woman says "bus is full".
"What!! What!! I fucking bought my ticket at 8am this morning and now you tell me it is full!" I did yell at her, I had just sat for 7 hours watching people singing that I am an abobination and going to hell, and now this insolent woman tells me I wont get my bus, and why the hell didnt she tell me seven hours ago!!!

"It starts in another city" she tells me "so we dont know if it is full until it gets here". I could have jumped across the table and strangled her, why sell me a ticket then if it might be full, isnt that why you buy a ticket - to reserve a seat?
I catch a share taxi into town then a tro tro (a beat-up old van packed with anywhere from 10 to 15 hot sweaty bodies literally sitting on top of one another) back to Accra, then a second tro tro to the main part of town, then a 40 minute walk with my pack on my back, sweaty dripping off me and finally I get to the hotel again.
I had the best shower ever that night, I was thinking how lucky it was just to have running water.

Never Eat Something If The Cook is Skeptical

The next day I grabbed my pack and walked back through the city to the bus station for my second attempt to get out of Accra to see the slave-castles of Elmina.

On the bus I met a Canadian archaeologist and his Ghanaian 'friend', we planned to share a taxi from the bus stop to a hotel. The first hotel we got to was fully booked. The second hotel we got to was fully booked. When we got to the third hotel only to find that yes, it too was fully booked, I started to get a wee bit nervous. It was Saturday, and Saturdays in Ghana is funeral day. If the person who died is old than funerals are huge celebrations and hundreds of people come to the party. There must have been a lot of funerals in Cape Coast that Saturday cause there sure weren't any hotel rooms!

The driver said he knew a hotel that would not be full, when we pulled up to a huge place on the edge of the ocean I knew I wouldn't be staying here. A single room was going to set me back USD$150 a night. I said goodbye to the guys and got straight back in the cab. It was dusk now and this ride was getting more and more expensive, I wondered if the drive around town was
going to cost me as much as a night in this fancy hotel that uses US dollars and not the national currency.

We tried two more hotels with zero luck and finally the driver suggests a small village about a half hours drive out of town.

I never got the name of this town, wish I had though. It was small and sat along either side of a highway. The room was big and cheap which made up for the price of my hour and a half long taxi ride. I asked the driver to come back for me in the morning, he was the only person on Earth who knew where I was, even I had no idea.

I got the distinct feeling that I was the only guest in this hotel. The owner asked if I would like dinner and I said I wanted to try kemke. I didn't actually know what kemke was but dozens of women were selling it along the highway and apparently it was the staple food of the town. He told his sister to prepare some for me and she covered her mouth and dramatically gasped
"aahhh!"

Ghanaian's have this amazing ability to make sounds instead of words to communicate. Before the 'ahhhhh' she made this clicking noise with her tongue. Her brother replied with a deep "eh'' and she replied back with a higher "eh". She double-checked with me that I really wanted kemke, I
should have taken this as a warning, but I was pretty set on trying it. If however I had listened to her subtle warnings I would not have gone through the ordeal of trying to swallow the stuff and ultimately having to dry-wretch two times. But if I hadn't gotten kemke then the feral cats would not have had dinner that night. Of course I told her I liked the meal, she seemed chuffed and asked for my number.

At 7am I left the hotel and wandered through the village. People were bathing in buckets out the front of their houses and many were already dressed in brightly coloured shirts and dresses, it was nearly time for church.

As people started to flow into the churches I followed behind them. There were three to choose from, they're all the same to me, so I just picked the one with the largest crowd. I couldn't bring myself to actually go in to the church so I sat outside the door, I just wanted to be close enough to hear the beautiful singing. Out the back a group of children were setting up chairs in the shade of a tree. They kept looking at me, waving and giving me a thumbs up. Eventually a couple of the older boys were coaxed in to approaching me. They asked if I have a camera and can I take their picture. I pull it out of my pocket and all the kids ran over. They  wave their arms around frantically or pose like American rappers. I would show them the image on the screen and they would all squeal and laugh hysterically and point at themselves. I took dozens of photos and as adorable as they were I feared that this game would not get old for them. Eventually the priest came and the children were called to start their little service under the tree.

I left the church to sounds of the singing from the children outside and mixed with the singing coming from the adults inside.

My Brief Introduction to Corruption

After the day in Agbogbloshie (the slum)  David and I jump in a cab. As the driver is pulling out he nearly hits a policeman on a motorbike who was coming down the street on the wrong side of the road. He slams on his brakes and the cop swerves and although it was a close call I am certain that there was no impact. The cop gets off his bike and starts yelling "you stupid driver you hit me!"

This cop was a high-ranking officer, you can tell because he was wearing a white coat. He calls another cop over, this guy is in a military style uniform so you know he is a lower  rank. He says to this cop: "He hit me, you saw it, he hit me!" Of course this cop who was no where near us at the time says that yes the car hit his bike, and we know for sure that the driver is in trouble now. How can he argue with two police that say it happened, especially when the supposed victim is higher up in the food chain?

The bastard in white tells the cab driver he must give him  20cedi, which by our standards is not much, but I imagine it is a couple of days earnings for this guy after the cost of petrol. I wonder if the whole 20 cedi went in his pocket or if he shared it with his alibi... I am quite sure he pocketed it all himself.

This was the second time in the first week that I saw police behaving badly. It definatley was not the last time either, this was only my introduction to African corruption. The first time was when two more high-ranking men in white tried to break up a group of boys gambling in the street.

They both had whips in their hands and were chasing them down the busy road striking out at them. I saw one boy get two blows in the back, the rest were luckier enough to be faster runners.

Feeling a mix of serious empathy for the poor driver and anger toward anyone with too much power, we drove on to the hotel. The driver got a bit lost, he seemed really flustered from the whole debacle, and pulled over to ask a man for directions. The man says he knows where the hotel is and gets straight in the back seat beside me saying he will take us there. I figured he wanted money and wondered how much the going rate is for a self-nominated tour guide. Or this was going to end up like Eben on my doorstep and I pictured walking down the street holding hands with this guy later. He led us to the hotel and as soon as we pulled up he jumped out and waved goodbye. He didnt ask for money, or our numbers, he didnt even ask us to pay for his ride back. Some people really do go out of their way to help strangers... just not those in powerful uniforms.

That night in the hotel I was sitting in my little room at my desk writing in my journal when the ceiling fan flies off the roof, smashes into the wall before hitting the ground, one of its arms striking my leg on the way down. It scared the bejezus out of me. Two of its arms were bent right back on itself, it was quite an impact, thank god I wasn't standing up at the time, I like my face the way it is. I was just sitting there looking at the crumpled metal on the floor at my feet, with my hands cupping the stinging on my leg, the noises and smells from Agbogbloshie were still running through me, the anger from the cops still had my my blood hot and I thought with a smile: "This is Africa!".

My Day in a Slum

This is a long one, and for that I am sorry, but there is so much I feel needed detailed descriptions. I won’t do it again!

On February 25 I saw one of the most incredible things I have ever seen in my whole life.

Up until that day I had felt nothing but vulnerable, lost and disheartened. I was seriously wondering what the hell I was doing in Ghana of all of the places in the entire planet that I could have been in! But on this day I found what it is that all travellers (not holiday makers but travellers) are in search of: That unique, raw experience of a life that is foreign to the one they are paying thousands of dollars to get away fromAnd that is what I found.

I was back from the beach and once again in the dirty throbbing heart of Accra. My bags were packed and I was walking to the central bus station to get a bus to the tourist town of Elmina where the old slave-trade castles still stand. On the way there, right in the centre of town I cross a bridge and am appalled by the site of piles of pollution floating on the rivers surface. I decide to brave it by taking my camera out for the first time in Accra. I snap a pic and before I know it there is a guy standing only centimetres away from me. It’s funny that so many men have stopped to talk to me and yet something in my gut with this guy was screaming ‘he’s just not right’, he felt creepy and I wanted to make a damn-quick escape. As I was unsuccessfully trying to manoeuvre my way around him, my internal alarm bells screaming ‘get away’ this other big black guy slides up behind me and snarls angrily. In a deep aggressive voice he says something to the creepy guy in words I don’t understand but I assume it was along the lines of “rack off”, it worked because the creep quickly slunk away.

The big guy keeps walking and I barely got to mutter my thanks. From behind me an Aussie accent asks “are you ok?” I turn and see a man’s friendly face and we start a conversation.

I ask him what he is doing in Ghana. The answer being that he is here alone to make a documentary film. He says to me “do you want to see what it is that I find so interesting?” Of course I do.

We follow a train track along the dirty rubbish-filled river and David asks me if I have heard of e-waste. I hadn’t but then neither had he until a few months ago. He explained that it is a kind of waste system where each year between 20 and 50 million tonnes of electronic waste is systematically dumped by so-called first-world countries like Australia, the US and Europe in to developing countries like India and Ghana.

David is taking me passed a place called Agbogbloshie. Essentially it is a slum and no, I won’t look for a more politically-correct name, it isn’t a town-ship it is a slum. Small shacks jumbled together made from pieces of scrap material like plywood and plastic and corrugated iron. Apparently 40’000 people live here. There were people everywhere, sitting in groups talking, or wedged between make-shift shacks asleep in whatever sliver of shade was available, there were children running in and out of the small dark dwellings. It was fascinating. Everyone would stop what they were doing to watch us as we passed. But some of them new David and would call out “hey white man!” and he would reply “yes black man!” I didn’t believe him when he said he had only been here three weeks, he glides through the place like he’s lived with them for years. We didn’t actually go in to thick of the slum (not this day anyway), we followed the river, and as we walked the place got noticeably dirtier and dirtier. The river was slowly flowing, but you couldn’t actually see any of the water through the layers and layers of rubbish. I can’t possibly describe it in a way that would conjure up an image even close to the reality of what I saw. It was a solid mass of plastic, paper, soft drink cans, and old pieces of broken furniture, old appliances and piles of decaying grey matter. I don’t know how deep the layers of filth were but it got to a point where the rubbish on the river was so thick that people were walking on it. I was ashamed to be human, the way we have trashed this planet is unforgivable.

I was grateful for David taking me here, I thought that this is what he had wanted to show me. I was wrong, there was more. The river just set the scene for what was really about to blow my mind and also give me another perspective on my always cynical attitude toward people.

He lead me on to a place with a vibe like the hectic market place, only here people were not selling anything, instead they were gathered around old electrical goods, car parts or piles of metal and twisted wires, and they were essentially destroying them. Tearing old fridges apart, banging away at old motor parts or sifting through small pieces of metal separating the bits they want from the bits which can then be tossed away.

At first sight it looks chaotic, but it’s actually not, it worked like a factory line, everyone has a spot and in that spot everyone has a particular job, as I hung around I found out it was very structured and even hierarchical.

It was explained to me like this.

Only fifteen or so years ago the people living in the slum started collecting the e-waste from the ships that arrived at the harbour. These days the rubbish is delivered to them by the truck load. Apart from these trucks it is also some peoples job to go around to houses in the city knocking on doors and asking the people there if they have any old appliances to be thrown out. They’ll take mostly anything it seems. You often see groups of boys and men pushing carts loaded with dozens of fridges or TV’s.

All the collected appliances and car parts get brought to one area where it is sorted in to various groups and the items are ripped apart. This takes muscle, these guys are trying to separate parts that were welded together with only basic tools. And let me remind you that it is HOT and there is zero shade to work in. It is the metal and electrical parts which are of value for these guys, the plastic casings either get thrown into the river or taken to a whole other ‘plastics’ area which I will go on to describe later. The people here know their metals, they can easily tell what is copper, what is bronze, what is aluminium, what is steel etc what is useable gets bundled together and the rest they pile together to be burned.

The burning is a job that no-one wants. Apparently those who have migrated here from Northern Ghana or Nigel will not tell their family what they do, and very few will let David film the burning process because of that shame. They literally set piles of metal on fire. I dread to think what this is doing to their health. To the health of the whole city for that matter as the thick black smoke-clouds visibly waft for quite a distance across the city.

At the end of this gruelling process the valuable parts are taking to another area to be weighed and the boys are paid an average wage of 5cedi (roughly $3.30) for their 12 hour day is 5 cedi. The valuable metal bits are put back on the boats and shipped back to the West.

I find out that the food they buy costs 3cedi a day which really doesn’t leave them with much money, especially considering most of the boys and men are there so that they can save money for their families back at home. They work seven days a week. On Sundays the Christians will take some time off to go to church. The Muslims take their prescribed prayer breaks each day. It is refreshing to see Muslims and Christians living and working together in peace.  Also on Sundays everyone buys new clothes, they will wear this new outfit for the rest of the week until it is so putrid with oil grease, dirt and sweat that they need to get more. The clothes are also a by-product of the West. All of those clothes that you have donated to local charity bins…. it too ends up here to be sold to poor locals. It was quite a contradiction seeing these poor people in the slum and streets doing such dirty work whilst wearing Von Dutch caps and Gucci t-shirts.

We kept walking, I still had my 18kg pack which David and I shared the load of, and we passed an onion market. Millions and millions of onions, no exaggeration, piled high in an undercover area the size of a football field. I have never seen nor wanted to see that many onions in my life!

Then we get to the plastics area. This is the domain of the women, where the metals area is men’s work only. All forms of plastic end up here to be washed, sorted in to colours and types of plastic and then it gets shredded and re sold.  Groups of women sit hunched around bath tubs scrubbing old bottles and containers with rags and their bare hands. The women are delighted to see David, it is obvious that he has made a few admirers. The first thing they ask is if I am David’s wife, when I say no we are just friends, they seem to be happy again and I am liked more for it. The plastics area runs just as smoothly as the metals area, though I think the women here give it a much calmer vibe. I am astounded at how easily these women can tell the different types of plastic, I didn’t even know there were different types of plastic! The other thing I find interesting is that on the way to this work area the women come dressed in their best clothes. They change into work clothes while they are here but then to go home again they put their best back on, even though home is the slum just a five minute walk away. People in Ghana do take great pride in their appearance that is for certain.

Back along the river on the edge of the slum we stop to see one of David’s new friends, Abdur-Raheem. He fixes broken mobile phones for money. He is a chubby eccentric guy who made me laugh. With him is a young girl with tribal scars on her cheeks and a boy who spent the entire time teasing a bright blue comb through his hair, they all seem to be in their mid-twenties. When I asked people’s ages most didn’t know how old they were, especially those who came from small rural areas. They said they could potentially work it out if they asked their parents how the crops were the year they were born. The three kept saying that they want us to take them to Australia to make money. When we ask them what they would do in Australia they say fix mobile phones. David explains people don’t fix phones they throw them out and get new ones. We tell them that there are poor people in Australia too and they simply don’t believe us. They say God will get them money if they keep praying. We asked them about life in the slum. There is a school in there, shops, bars and brothels. Apparently the bigger the sex workers bottom is the more money she costs.

Just ten meters away from us, on the dusty banks of the pollution-filled river children have congregated to do acrobatics. My jaw drops as I watch them do triple-flips and summersaults and back-flips and always land on their feet. I can not see much difference between the skill of these 10 year olds and what I see at the Olympics. The kids here are clearly fearless. David does some hand-stands to the squealing delight of the kids. Abdur-Raheem says he is too fat to do it now, but that he will practice and in a few days we should come back so that he can show us his hand-stand.

From there we attempt to head home, I am obviously not going to Elmina anymore but have instead decided to get a room at David’s hotel. We are stopped on the way just one more time. Sitting amongst a pile of car tyres is another group of guys who have already made David’s acquaintance.  The guys give me a seat in the shade of the tyres and they ask the usual questions about whether I am married or not. They are fun guys though and we have a laugh. Eventually the topic of immigration comes up. The guy who seems to be the leader of the pack tells us that he has taken the route that most immigrants take to escape to Spain. As he talks he draws a map on the dirt. He explains that people from Niger, Nigeria, Chad, Mali and other parts of West and Central Africa use smugglers to hitch through Libya and the Sahara. Apparently there is only one smuggling truck a week to pick you up from and take you through the desert, if you miss it you are stranded there, if you are stranded there you die. He said he was lucky enough to get that truck, and as he drove through the desert he passed over 80 dead women, children and men who were not lucky enough to have gotten that one weekly truck. He believed that once in Spain you are held in detention but only for one week, then you get your papers and you are free. I don’t know much about Spain’s illegal immigrant policies but if they are anything like they are in Australia these people are screwed whether they make it there or not.

I am truly fascinated by the people here, their stories, their dreams their resourcefulness in regards to making a days earnings. They are working themselves to an early grave, they live in filth, and breathe toxic air and yet they still laugh and chat and have hope. They work together in relative peace while their children do black-flips. As a collective whole they taught themselves how to transform trash into a day’s wage, how to fix mobile phones and sell used car tyres. They help each other too. When one guy was explaining to David that he buys his parts for 10 cedi off that guy over there who buys it for 5 cedi from that other guy just over there, David interjects and asks him why he doesn’t just skip the middle man and buy the parts directly for 5 cedi. The man is confused and replies “but what about the man in the middle, if I did that then he would earn no money”. These people have very little, but they welcomed me in, they gave me their seat, they watched my bag when I walked off and three times that day I dropped my sunglasses and each time someone picked them up and gave them back to me.

I feel a this strange rush, like an addiction to the place and I cant wait to go back!

Get me out of here and get me to the beach!

Ebem at the beach

GET ME OUT OF HERE AND GET ME TO THE BEACH!

Jet lag is something despised and dreaded by most people. I love it! It allows you to be a part of the time of a day that is usually considered aberrant, but when you do get the chance to witness 4am as a sober, wide-eyed explorer, it is a mystical hour, and to witness the start of the day makes you feel like you own the day and everyone who comes in to it later than you is just a guest… well, that is how I felt anyway.  

After a cold bucket-shower and a packet of biscuits for breakfast I was out of my room by the first hint of light, around 5am. By 7 am I found myself totally and utterly bewildered in a mass of people, noise, colours and stomach wrenching smells. I had found myself quite by accident walking in circles in Makola market. This place is huge, and it sells everything! Out doors in the already scorching morning heat they were selling tomatoes and onions and plantains and dried whole fish already blanketed in swarms of flies. There were buckets full of rice, bags of bright red spices and rolls of brightly covered material piled 6 and 7 foot high. There were sections under cover with teeny tiny alleys leading you further and further in, past racks of clothes and tables of toiletries, the more I tried to get out of the market the more I found myself lost in its maze of mass confusion. I didn’t dare pause for too long. As I walked passed people would grab my arm or call out “hey white lady come I want to talk to you”. Not at all in a negative way, they seemed curious, they would ask what I am doing there (again I was the only white person) and they would have a laugh and a joke amongst themselves in a language I didn’t understand, then they would try desperately to make a sale. People were friendly, not at all intimidating, although I definitely did not feel like it was safe to take my camera out. After the hundredth person tried to grab me I was ready to get the hell out of there. More and more muddled in the chaos around me it honestly took me a good hour to finally get to a main road, after that the street sellers and the arm grabbers continued for a few blocks. Finally the air was not so heavy with the smell of human body odour, cow’s hooves and the already rotting flesh of the semi- live chickens whose legs were bound with string waiting to be sold for a meagre 15 cedi, that’s about 8 Australian bucks.

So after my ordeal on day one, and after my ordeal on day two and after my market experience on the morning of day three, I figured I really needed some time-out to recompose myself, sort my head out, surmise a Plan B. Poor little me  was feeling a little overwhelmed. So I jumped in a cab and headed about a half hours drive up the coast to spend a night on the beach.

Lonely planet had recommended a place that was owned by ‘an American female who is also an artist and a vegetarian’… hello! That just screams lesbian!! I was sold! On the way there bumping along un-even red-dirt tracks the taxi driver got lost and pulled over to ask a local guy for directions.

When we did get finally get there I got out of the cab and three small children ran up to me and hugged me around the legs… it was adorable! It was right on the beach and my room had an ensuite and running water… heaven! But to my luck the obviously lesbian owner was away for the week. I was still just happy to be out of the craziness of Accra!

I locked the door of my room, flopped on my bed and berated myself for choosing to go to West Africa on my own! What the hell possessed me to come here?! I was totally out of my realm.

Finally I composed myself enough to go for a walk along the beach. I locked my bedroom door behind me and got two steps away from my room when who should I bump in to? Ebem - or so I find out his name is. He was the guy that my taxi driver pulled over to ask for directions. He had walked to the hotel in search of me. Of course he knows where I am, he told us how to get here! And so he had just sat for some time outside my hotel room waiting for me.

He asks if I wanted to go for a walk along the beach with him. I said yes. What else did I have to do?

He asks if I have a boyfriend. I said yes. I really did not think that telling him the truth was a very wise idea - that I am a big lesbian with a girlfriend at home. But I also did not want to deny her very existence, so I just swapped the word ‘she’ for ‘he’ every time I mentioned her… him.

He says he likes my tattoos and stretched ears. He said he has only seen stretched ears once on a Kenyan woman but she was a lesbian. He went on to rant about how it is illegal in Ghana and that that is a good thing because it is so wrong, and a sin and she will go to hell. I say nothing. He asks if I agree. I pause for a while longer whilst I try to decide if a lecture in gay rights will result in him and his mates on the doorstep of my hotel with flaming torches. So I skirt around it by neutrally saying that in my country it is not illegal to be gay and that no one cares if people are or not (not entirely true though it should be). He mentioned gays and lesbians a few more times on our walk, each time I tried to ignore it and changed the subject.

He insisted on holding my hand. I said that in my country only lovers hold hands. He insisted that here friends hold hands too, even two men, so then I found myself walking romantically on the ocean’s edge holding hands with a homophobe.

He told me that my ‘structure is beautiful’ and that if I was African I would be queen. I’m not sure if he meant as in royalty or just really popular with the boys. We stopped at a beach hut and had a malt drink – I paid of course. Then he took me to his shop to show me his paintings, they were quite good, and then of course he asked which ones I would like to buy. He told me to take them all home and think about it and bring them back tomorrow – that was trusting! Then again, he obviously knew where to find me.

I told him I had to go home and nap, and he said that I should come back tomorrow not only for the paintings but so that he could take me to a reggae party on the beach.

We walked back to the hotel holding hands and he asked me if we were friends forever. Again what else could I say? So after a long pause I said “yes”.

DAY NUMBER TWO IN GHANA

My diary starts with this:


"I am sitting on the side of the road fighting back tears"


I had 20 cedi and 70 peswas, that is approximately AU$15, in my pocket left from the US$60 I exchanged at the airport. I walked to nearly twenty ATMs and in to four different banks and not one of them will accept MasterCard or Plus, the only 2 cards I have with me, they all take Visa and Visa only. In short, I am fucked!


I have just enough money to get me a half an hour on the internet and three-quarters of the way back to the airport. I don't know what else to do but leave. I cant even afford a hotel for the night. I can't get cash transferred because it is the middle of the night in Australia and by the time someone is up and able to do it it will be dark here and I will be out on the grotty streets.


I finally walk into a Barclay's Bank and the guy there suggested I try the Stanbic Bank over the other side of town. Another hour's walk in 38 degree heat, sweat trickling down my back and legs, I make it to the bank and guess what... it takes MasterCard! I am so happy I could hug the security-guard standing beside me at the ATM... except that he has an AK-47 slung over his shoulder, and I generally avoid hugging big men with big guns when I can help it. So I ask him how many Stanbic Bank's are in Accra. He asks a lady behind the counter and she writes all six of them out for me. Not six in Accra, but six in the whole of Ghana. In short, I am no longer totally fucked, just semi-fucked. As long as my travel itinerary sticks very close to these ATMs I should be OK. I did not know then what I know now. That ATMs in Ghana are much like lights and running water and people in Ghana: sometimes they work. But sometimes, nay often, they don't work.

But at the time I felt pure, simple relief. So I attempted to eat my first full Ghanaian meal. The day before, my first day in Ghana, I had bought breakfast from a street seller who must have been good cause she had a queue of people wanting breakfast from her. I asked her for what everyone else before me had bought. Though appealing it was not, I figured I would eat what the locals eat. They had all ordered 3 golf-ball sized deep fried balls, a lot like donut holes, squished into a plain white bread roll - all the vitamins and minerals one could ask for.


But the woman said no. She said I should eat porridge. So I said ok, I will eat porridge, it didn't sound like I had a choice. She filled a plastic sandwich bag with warm spiced condensed milk and handed it over. I bit the plastic corner off and drank through the small hole. I had two mouth fulls before I ditched it. My second attempt at eating was bought from a guy pushing a wagon with something bright yellow and pastry looking. I bought one. Had one bite. It had a similar fate to the porridge.


So on the second day I sat at a 'chop bar' named "By God's Grace". I didn't have a clue what anything on the blackboard menu was so I avoided the choice entirely and told the guy to bring me his favourite dish. I had decided that while in Africa I would give up vegetarianism. I was about to eat meat for the first time in years.


I sit and am given a bucket of water and a bottle of dish-washing liquid to wash my hands, in Ghana you eat with your fingers. Then I am served two plastic sandwich bags with a warm white, starchy, sticky mass I later find out is either fufu or banku. It doesn't taste like much, but sure is hard to swallow. It comes with a dollop of very hot red chili oil and a chicken leg that had to have been deep-fried several times cause I have no idea how you get skin that think. Then I wonder to myself if this leg once belonged to one of the millions of chickens hobbling around the streets and in the open sewers. I sit and ponder how long I can survive in Ghana if I don't eat another meal the whole time I am here.


There was a cardboard box on the counter that said 'suggestions please' and I wondered where I would begin.

HOTEL CROWN PRINCE OFF CASTLE ROAD

That is what I should have written before I left the hotel at 1pm, If I had then I would not have spent five hours lost and looking for it. More specifically, I would not have had to trek the entire frikkin city looking for my luggage that I left in the hotel room with no lock on the door.

I would like to blame my arranged escort from Siasko Beach Hotel who was meant to be waiting for me at the airport but never showed. Or I would like to blame the taxi driver who chose this crappy, out-of-the-way place that nobody knows about. Or I would even like to blame the guy at flight center who timed my stop-overs so badly that I was traveling, and thus sleepless, for over 36 hours! But I cant. I only have my vague, thoughtless, useless self to blame!

Who goes to Africa, alone, a woman, and on their first day goes wandering aimlessly without taking note of the address or even the name of the place they are staying??

ME!!

Eventually, after hours of exasperated walking, with the sunset now threatening me with the imminent presence of darkness, I decided to get in a cab. I told the driver that I lost my hotel and I need him to help me find it. This was followed by a series of questions from him and mostly 'no' answers from me: 

"Do you know the name of it?", "The area it is in?", "Any land marks near it?", "Did you get the business card?", "You don't have much experience traveling do you?" 

I did however remember that it had white walls... or pink. Definitely either white or pink walls.


But somehow we found it. An hour of driving around in circles in the dark we found it! And I was so grateful I promised him a date the next night. I could do worse, a) he helped me in my time of need b) he was not ugly and c) he wanted a date with me even though I am clearly stupid... or maybe that is why he wanted a date with me? Anyway, I took his number but wont end up doing anything with it. I had at least 83 guys in the first day try to hit on me and ask for my number. Actually, I think that was a gross understatement. It is hard work being the only white girl in Accra. Though at one stage, like seeing a mirage on the horizon in the desert, I thought I saw a white man off in the distance, but as quickly as I saw him he was gone.

ARRIVING IN ACCRA, GHANA

As the plane descended for landing I squashed my face against the plastic window to peer down below, not without first spending a great deal of time wondering what the little hole in the window does... air pressure? Anyway, what was stretched out below me, coming increasingly closer, was all red dirt bar a few narrow paved streets. There was a lot of half-finished buildings, with no roofs and no windows or doors, I saw more buildings with no roofs than those with a roof. 

But what really struck me as different, what really made me feel like an outsider in a whole new world, was when everybody got up to impatiently join the stand-still jam in the aisle, I noticed that all of the women on the plane (I was the only white person) had put the yellow complimentary socks on over the top of their shoes and were going to leave the plane, and presumably the airport, with socks on the outside of their shoes. I am not talking about just a few women here, but the majority of them! Not the men either, just the women.

The arrivals terminal in Accra airport was little more than a big room. Picnic chairs were lined up and most were occupied with slumped sleeping men, their heads dropping off their shoulders, their open mouths threatening a pool of dribble.

I had arranged for an airport pick up from the hotel I was booked into. A few men were holding torn pieces of cardboard with names scrawled on them, but 'Kai' was not one of them. I took a few minutes to absorb my surroundings. Mostly I was gauging peoples reaction to me. The tattoos that cover my arms were visible in my t-shirt, my short-cropped hair clearly allowed my 12mm stretched ears to be obvious. Was it as clear to people here that I was a dyke as it is to the well-trained eye of Sydney-siders, the gay capital of the world'? Was I about to get lynched?

Funnily enough it was not my tattoos, my facial piercings or my stretched ears that got attention, but rather my khaki pants. "Are you a soldier?" I was asked several times, even by airport security. That was my first lesson: Don't wear Khaki in Africa!

Every few minutes the lights would go out and a noisy generated would kick in.

I figured my shuttle service was not about to show, so I jumped in a beat-up taxi with the guy in pink who had been harassing me for a good ten minutes already. Too stubborn to go to the hotel that never came to collect me, I told him he could take me to any hotel... that was mistake number 1. No lock on the door, no running water, and at about 9pm the lights went out. But I had been in transit for 36 hours - thanks to lengthy poorly planned stop-overs, and all I wanted to do was sleep... after I stacked the chairs against the door (my mothers one piece of advice before I left Sydney: "Always push furniture against the door for added safety").

But before we arrived at the hotel I was fascinated, and over-whelmed, by the city streets. The smell of shit from the open sewage was the first thing that struck me through my open taxi-window. Every time I smell human waste I will be transported back to my time in Accra. Second was the amazing, and somewhat amusing, sight of all the women walking the streets with large, heavy, awkward loads on their heads. Everything from plates of pineapples to buckets of water and 20kg bags of onion that hung down to their shoulders. Many of them had a baby strapped to their back. If the woman was large and the child young than the baby had the awkward pose of arms and legs outstretched, like an old Warner Brothers cartoon when a character hit smack into a brick wall.

In an attempt at a joke I said to the driver "good thing these women don't have twins!"

"No!" he exclaims seriously. "But a woman with twins would never be alone. She would always have help"

I knew straight away how poignant that was, I knew then that throughout the trip I would reflect on this, scrutinize its accuracy and compare it to life back home.

ON A PLANE HEADED FOR ACCRA, GHANA, WEST AFRICA

The first entry in my travel diary: Feeling restless. Not excited. Not scared. Just restless. I really did expect a torrent of tears and emotions that have not hit me yet, I am cautiously aware that they soon will.

I have no idea what i am in for. I imagine Africa to be a place where time ticks slower. I hope for a certain stillness. The sort of stillness only possible in big, open, empty spaces... I imagine Africa has lots of those. I want to be lost for a while. Lost from my life in Sydney, lost from the people there, lost from my obligations, lost from my routine, lost from myself. I wonder if I can ever be satisfied. I have this insatiable drive for more - to know more, to see more, to do more, to be more.

I am drawn to Africa for a multitude of reasons. First it is poor: Has my guilt around white privilege turned me into a traveling-masochist? I am seduced by all the images conjured up just by the word 'Africa': From vast plains filled with exotic animals; to famine; to silhouettes of lone traditional warriors in red dress and rainbow beads, in a red desert in front of a red sunset; to the images of boy soldiers and war-ravaged villages; to African drums; to apartheid; to the Congo, ever shrouded in mystery and an air of doom. The beautiful and horrific compels me to see it for myself. I just hope I survive. I want to live to tell the tale, but I also want it to be a good tale. I just hope my guardian angels have packed their safari suits and are prepared to work over-time... hopefully they are taking up the two otherwise empty seats beside me.