Damn you computers!
So the blog was doing well until Ghana, where computers just took too darn long. And I thought surely, SURELY in Morocco these machines would be lickety-split and we'd be back on track. And they ARE lickety-split, but they won't load my photos! Quelle domage! (But at least I can check on the Cubs now.)
The highlights of the last few days in Ghana?
1 - Sam and Carl coach rugby at a local school; let's join! 3 tro-tros later, we get off at Pig Farm (no joke), and... man I wish I had photos. It's tough to explain how excited Ghanaian kids get at seeing abruni. They just stampede right at you. Teachers came around with switches to keep the kids off me, and I still ended up with a trickle of blood running down my cheek from a zealous boy who needs to clip his nails. I bought some oranges and juggled for the group (I think Sophie got some photos of that), and threw the oranges one by one into the crowd afterwards. Sam was just staring at me in disbelief, like "what made you think that was a good idea?!" You'd think these oranges were winning lottery tickets. Little girls were being trampled underfoot; it was like a soccer riot. It was positively surreal.
2 - Colin Powell, the geography whiz from whom I bought some masks and stuff, stopped by Crystal Hostel and had a few beers with us. That's very Ghanaian. People are just instafriends. It's wonderful.
3 - Headed down to Labadi beach in Accra for Reggae night. Bonfires, live Ghanaian music and dancers (how good are African dancers?!) and wading in the dark African surf. It was a blast.
4 - The sink in Labadi beach's bathroom didn't work, so a worker was there ladling water from a bucket for you to wash your hands. The worker told me the bathroom was 50 cents -- it's common for public bathrooms to cost money; in Egypt some had admission tickets, like it was a train -- and I only had a $1 note. He said thank you, and I said no, I need change. So okay, let's go to the bar and get change. I start walking and he half-follows, then slinks back. This is very not Ghanaian. I say, aloud, "Hey, you owe me change." Suddenly one of the other workers gets angry with him, "If you owe him money, give him his money!" and a middle-aged woman starts hitting him over the head with a stick, furiously reprimanding, "Kofi, you know that bathroom is free! Give him his money back! It is not right to cheat people! Give him his money!" Wow.
5 - Folks told me a cab to the airport should cost about $7. In most poor countries, a cabbie would see that I'm white and going to the airport, and demand $20 and it'd be a 5-minute ordeal. In Ghana:
"To the airport, how much?"
"$6."
Honesty makes me so happy. I gave him seven. At the airport, my $2.50 snack became $2 when there was no correct change. Thanks Ghana. You get an A-.
Why the minus? Ghana's bugs are pretty unbelievable. The flies are irridescent yellow and green and blue. They're the most gorgeous flies I've ever seen. I took pictures of them. But wait, that's a plus, not a minus! No, the minus comes from the the deet-resistant biowarfare mosquitocopters. The bites are enormous; I looked like a smallpox victim. Even with anti-malarials, one person at the hostel got malaria. And the poor sap who didn't bother with anti-malaria medication? She made it about 3 days before the inevitable.
Despite that somewhat serious health hazard, I'd go back in a heartbeat. Never did I think I'd see such an amazing marriage of poverty and happiness. It's absolutely inspiring.
On to Morocco.
After a red-eye to Morocco, I found a hotel and spent the day in Casablanca. The weather in Ghana, Egypt, Dubai... actually, this whole trip!, well, comparatively, the breezy 82-degree Moroccan air was absolute heaven. But street-side cafes and friendly locals just weren't able to compensate for Casablanca's concrete aesthetic, so I took a very 1st-world train to Fez, which is where I am right now. I damn near cried when the train doors opened and I was blasted with 104-degree air -- why can't I escape this extreme heat?! -- but the old medina in Fez is AH-MAZE-ING. It's lauded as the largest car-free area in any city in the world. Why no cars? They simply don't fit. The old medina is 1200 years old, with cobbled streets and markets and the tiniest alleyways all winding tortuously around like exploring ants. It's gorgeous gorgeous gorgeous. And while Hotel Cascades was sorta full, you can sleep on a mat on the roof terrace for 50 dirham ($7) a night, which is just too cool for words (though I'm not a fan of the "ALLAH AKBAAAAAAAAAAAR MUHAMMAD RESULU ALLAAAAAAAAAAAAAH" calls to prayer ringing out in the worst hours of the night). Last night I used a small melon as a pillow. I figure I'll spend the rest of my trip right here.
And they have vegetarian food!!! Oh how I miss you, rare variety!
Today is the 4th. Assuming my flight issue gets worked out (shifting flights have shortened my NYC layover from 3 hours to negative 1 hour), I get home on the 8th. Oh America, with your hot showers and potable tap water and sit-down toilets and bearable heat, how I miss you so! But I love love LOVE traveling, and I don't want this to end. I know I won't be home 3 days before I wish I were exploring again.
But wait, right now, I'm in the ancient walled medina of Fez, with alleyways pulsing with culture and history and a million lives, and I'm sitting here at a computer?! No no no, this is all wrong.
I gotta go explore.
Monday, August 4, 2008
Monday, July 28, 2008
shhh, on our left is the elusive African Internet. approach slowly.
I found an internet!
This is the third internet cafe I've found in the last 4 days, but it's the first one that, you know, was connected to the internet.
Let's just jump into it: I really like Ghana. On the one hand, there's not a ton to do, but on the left hand, doing nothing has never been so fun! The main activities are crossing the street, catching a tro-tro, trying to find a market, hunting for a chop bar that has egg sandwiches. Life is so public here, it's a blast. Every morning the curtains open and smiling characters come flooding from stage left and right and center. Kids play with hoops and women carry baskets of fabric on their heads and men weave between tro-tros as the tro-tro mates give their bizarre, nasally calls. (Want to go to circle? Listen for the mate yelling "sec sec sec sec sec." Darkuman? "daku daku daku juuuuunc, daku juuuuunc.") You just walk outside and become part of the production. Every street's a theater.
Of course, a LOT of places I've been have had that "every street a theater" vibe -- poor places with high populations, like Egypt and India and Cambodia -- so why is Ghana holding a special place in my heart? It's the PEOPLE!!
It's a miracle of statistics. The small but omnipresent minority of hustlers and hasslers and cheats in any given country, they can really ruin it for the traveler. (And they probably irk their honest compatriots more than anyone.) In Ghana, though, I have YET TO MEET A GONIFF! It's truly a miracle of statistics. I've not ONCE been asked an ignorant-foreigner amount for a cab fare or a tchotchke souvenir or a chop bar meal! I've not ONCE had a hard sell or an overly-pushy come-to-my-shop! NOT A SINGLE ATTEMPTED COMMISSION at my expense! It's heaven. Ghanaians just have a culture of being wonderful, wonderful people.
How to pass as a Ghanaian:
1 - SMILE.
2 - Greet everyone (salutations are important here).
3 - Laugh at every sentence like it's a really funny joke (this one can be confusing at times).
4 - Confuse foreigners by not distinguishing between pre- and post-redenomination currency: does "twenty" mean 20,000 old cedis, which is TWO new cedis, or is it 20 new cedis?
5 - If an abruni looks remotely lost, drop everything to help them. (In the absence of a gender-neutral third person singular, I'm using the plural. Deal with it, Mom, Lois, and all you other grammar pedants.)
5 - When someone asks directions, never point. Walk them to the destination, no matter how far. One guy walked me over half a mile to a restaurant. One woman walked me over the footbridge and down a block to find the right tro-tro, the whole time casually balancing a basket of water packets on her head. (Thirsty? A would-be-rude-in-America hiss gets a water-toting woman speed-walking, basket on her head, straight for the open tro-tro window. You give her 5 cents, she reaches up and plucks a 500mL sachet of water from her head. You have to bite it open, and about 50mL spills all over your pants.)
6 - Call all white people "abruni." This literally means "white person" in Tchwee. It has no positive or negative connotation; it's just as if they're all named "abruni."
7 - Wear LOTS of colors. African skin looks good with lots of colors on it. Wrap yourself up in a Ghanaian flag (green, red, yellow) and you look like a million bucks.
8 - Be ready to dance at the drop of a beat.
9 - Be totally unable to guess distances. It's like a national disability.
"Hello sister (suppose she's about my age)."
"Hello abruni, how are you?"
"I am well. Do you know which way to Kumasi station?"
"Straight down this road."
"Thanks; do you know how far?"
"You can walk or take a taxi."
"Is it 1 kilometer?"
"Like that."
"5 kilometers?"
"Yes."
"10 kilometers?"
"Maybe."
It's a phenomenon every single abruni I've chatted with has found. It's bewildering.
10 - Love your country as much as the Thai love their king. That's a LOT of love.
I know there were two number 5's.
The vibe of friendliness totally extinguishes hesitancy. Walk around alone at night? No problem. Once Sophie and I got lost... well actually that's a little story.
Sophie, a volunteer from Milwaukee, and I wanted to find some shirts and pants and stuff, so we catch a tro-tro to Keneshie Market ("kah-nesh kah-nesh kah-nesh!"). If you're looking for cooked fish, live crabs, huge crawling snails (yum!), the biggest mangoes you've ever seen, bizarrely half-peeled oranges, or FanIce, this is the market for you. But for the life of us we can't find clothes. So, filled with FanIce and mangoes, we decide to head to Circle, which we know has a clothes market. We start making the Circle motion (places have both calls AND hand motions, your choice), and a tro-tro mate pulls Sophie into his van. I barely make it. After maybe 20 minutes, the mate asks us where we want off (to get correct fare, in the 20-40 cent range). Circle, we say. Not in this tro-tro we're not. Well, apparently we got on the wrong tro-tro, so we get off and we're very lost. Sophie searches for a cab while I make the circle hand signal and keep tro-tro watch. A random dude in a car sees my hand signal and waves me in. Sophie, let's go. So this good Samaritan, lord knows where he was planning to go, says he knows a place to get clothes. Awesome! 15 minutes later, and we're there. Thank you nice driver man! You're very welcome, enjoy Ghana! Sophie and I are dumbfounded to see that we're literally across the street from the Keneshie food market. We're still munching on the last pieces of mango we bought from the lady not 20 feet away. And that's how you cross the street in Ghana.
Now Sophie, Carl, and Sam all volunteer at schools. I wanna tag along, just 'cause why not. Carl and Sam, how far's your school? 20 minutes by tro-tro. Sophie, your school? 5 minute's walk*. So I went to school with Sophie.
* - is that possessive or plural? I think I'd say "one minute'S walk away," so it's possessive. That's it, I'm going back and adding an apostrophe.
Sophie could've maybe prepared me a little better than "this way to school." I get there, and am MOBBED by screaming 3-6 year-olds. I mean MOBBED! I am just manhandled. One poor tyke is balling his eyes out, just too terrified for words. Sophie then remembers, "oh yeah, you're probably the second or third white person a lot of them have seen. It took about a week for them to get used to me." They pet my hair, stroke my chin. They think my farmer's tan is up there with Legos and Playdoh for fun stuff, they trace the blue-ish veins on my arm. They're all talking in unison, trying to introduce themselves or name body parts or tell me their ages. Everybody wants to hold my hand, so each grab a few fingers. The best part was when they started dancing around me and chanting "pink and white! pink and white!" It was weird. Sophie got some photos of it.
School itself was a little what you'd expect, except there were more songs and praising Jesus, and the teacher would bust out her drum and they'd dance to the songs. They did some math. The 2-4 year-olds would come over to the 5-6 year-old side of the classroom to sneak a white-man arm-touch. They'd walk up to you in that clompy haven't-totally-figured-out-walking way, and they're just staring in a way only fascinated little kids can, and they'd touch your arm and then quickly retreat. They were adorable.
Kindergarten and 1st grade graduation photos were scheduled for the day I was there, so this guy comes with a camera from like 1975, and I got to pose as the guy handing out diplomas for some of the shots. So in India, on some family's wall, there's a photo of their trip to the Taj Mahal, or the Kailasa Temple or Srinigar, of the family and me. And soon, in a village on the outskirts of Accra, near Darkuman in Ghana, there'll be some kid's graduation photo, with him or her looking as cute as ever, and I'm handing out the "diploma." I like that idea.
Wanted to take some photos of the school, so I pulled out my camera. Woah.
I don't quite get it, because it's not like we were in some tribal village. Accra is the capital of Ghana, with 2 million people, and there are computers and cell phones and cameras and abruni, and we're not all that far from Accra proper. But an abruni, with a digital camera, with an LCD screen? It was like a ghostman with a magic box. The kids just flipped. I have some great videos of me sitting down, and kids just swarming and yelling "and me! and me! and me!" and half the video is just of hands and fingers on the camera, and I'm trying to spin it around because everyone wants to see the LCD screen, so they're all kinda racing out of the frame to get behind the camera. It was a lot of fun.
When I finally said goodbye to the kids, when school was over, they mass-hugged me. I'll be back. They were so cute.
While walking back through the village, a group of seamstresses wanted to say hello. I walked over and they all just started dancing. Can't explain it.
This is getting to be a bit long-winded, and for that I'm sorry. I'm a little excited to find working internet, and slow as it might be, for 60 cents an hour, I can afford the luxury.
In brief, I went from Accra to Cape Coast, where I got to see a pair of fortresses used to store and transport slaves during the Triangular Trade days (fascinating, but a bit too uncomfortable and depressing to "enjoy," so I didn't stay too long). The trip to Kakum National Park was pretty decent, with a crazy Ewok-style canopy walk compensating for the lack of exploration-inviting trails. The little park entrance slash mini-museum was really informative and well done. I appreciate that.
The park entrance was 2 cedi (almost exactly one-to-one with the US dollar), and I only had a ten. For some reason, in lots of countries, the ATMs dole out inconveniently large bills. Egypt was the worst: it's 100 pound notes (~$20) were accepted almost nowhere. It's like walking around the States with 500-notes; you're technically rich but you can't buy anything! Anyway, the guy didn't have change for a ten, so he just said I could pick up the change on my way out. Now, I wouldn't trust that anywhere else in the world, but in Ghana? Lo and behold, he had 8 cedis in a rubber band waiting for me on return. Honesty is just part of their culture. It's wonderful.
Now I'm writing from Kumasi, where I came on a bit of a lark. I have no idea what I'm doing here: just kinda exploring and meeting Ghanaians, which seems to be the thing to do. Tomorrow I'll pro'lly head back to Accra, go back to school, say hi to Colin Powell, and have some good times around Crystal Hostel's green table again. That sounds perfect. (Not as perfect as a hot shower, a clean bed, and a banana milkshake, but I bet I'm not home two weeks before I start wishing I were traveling again. The table's always greener...)
Sorry, by the way, that I have yet to find an open, working post office in Ghana. I admit I haven't really been looking, but, yeah, sorry. Tuzin Yowis, I actually have a postcard to you that still has an Egyptian stamp on it. Okay, that's it. Today I'm finding a post office. I have a mission.
Prediction: lots of folks stop to help me, a few kids yell "hello abruni!" from across the street, I end up getting a FanIce, everyone's happy to give directions, nobody knows how far. Chances of actually mailing stuff: 60%.
Goodbye, rare internet! Goodbye, small connection to home. I don't know when we'll meet again.
As a sort of post script:
I'm happy to see internet here, but I'm only half-joking. The net goes down all the time. It's really a luxury. You know that 3 days ago, Accra ran out of water? Yeah, all of Accra, 2 million people and the capital of Ghana!, it just ran out of water for about 12 hours. And I'm not talking hot- and cold-running purified potable 1st-world water. I mean just plain water.
I know America isn't perfect -- I really do -- but I really think it does a LOT of things right. And without hesitation, the more you travel, the more things, small and large, you appreciate about your home. This is so cheesy, but I just have to announce it: I really, really, really love America. It's my very favorite-ist country in the whole wide world.
This is the third internet cafe I've found in the last 4 days, but it's the first one that, you know, was connected to the internet.
Let's just jump into it: I really like Ghana. On the one hand, there's not a ton to do, but on the left hand, doing nothing has never been so fun! The main activities are crossing the street, catching a tro-tro, trying to find a market, hunting for a chop bar that has egg sandwiches. Life is so public here, it's a blast. Every morning the curtains open and smiling characters come flooding from stage left and right and center. Kids play with hoops and women carry baskets of fabric on their heads and men weave between tro-tros as the tro-tro mates give their bizarre, nasally calls. (Want to go to circle? Listen for the mate yelling "sec sec sec sec sec." Darkuman? "daku daku daku juuuuunc, daku juuuuunc.") You just walk outside and become part of the production. Every street's a theater.
Of course, a LOT of places I've been have had that "every street a theater" vibe -- poor places with high populations, like Egypt and India and Cambodia -- so why is Ghana holding a special place in my heart? It's the PEOPLE!!
It's a miracle of statistics. The small but omnipresent minority of hustlers and hasslers and cheats in any given country, they can really ruin it for the traveler. (And they probably irk their honest compatriots more than anyone.) In Ghana, though, I have YET TO MEET A GONIFF! It's truly a miracle of statistics. I've not ONCE been asked an ignorant-foreigner amount for a cab fare or a tchotchke souvenir or a chop bar meal! I've not ONCE had a hard sell or an overly-pushy come-to-my-shop! NOT A SINGLE ATTEMPTED COMMISSION at my expense! It's heaven. Ghanaians just have a culture of being wonderful, wonderful people.
How to pass as a Ghanaian:
1 - SMILE.
2 - Greet everyone (salutations are important here).
3 - Laugh at every sentence like it's a really funny joke (this one can be confusing at times).
4 - Confuse foreigners by not distinguishing between pre- and post-redenomination currency: does "twenty" mean 20,000 old cedis, which is TWO new cedis, or is it 20 new cedis?
5 - If an abruni looks remotely lost, drop everything to help them. (In the absence of a gender-neutral third person singular, I'm using the plural. Deal with it, Mom, Lois, and all you other grammar pedants.)
5 - When someone asks directions, never point. Walk them to the destination, no matter how far. One guy walked me over half a mile to a restaurant. One woman walked me over the footbridge and down a block to find the right tro-tro, the whole time casually balancing a basket of water packets on her head. (Thirsty? A would-be-rude-in-America hiss gets a water-toting woman speed-walking, basket on her head, straight for the open tro-tro window. You give her 5 cents, she reaches up and plucks a 500mL sachet of water from her head. You have to bite it open, and about 50mL spills all over your pants.)
6 - Call all white people "abruni." This literally means "white person" in Tchwee. It has no positive or negative connotation; it's just as if they're all named "abruni."
7 - Wear LOTS of colors. African skin looks good with lots of colors on it. Wrap yourself up in a Ghanaian flag (green, red, yellow) and you look like a million bucks.
8 - Be ready to dance at the drop of a beat.
9 - Be totally unable to guess distances. It's like a national disability.
"Hello sister (suppose she's about my age)."
"Hello abruni, how are you?"
"I am well. Do you know which way to Kumasi station?"
"Straight down this road."
"Thanks; do you know how far?"
"You can walk or take a taxi."
"Is it 1 kilometer?"
"Like that."
"5 kilometers?"
"Yes."
"10 kilometers?"
"Maybe."
It's a phenomenon every single abruni I've chatted with has found. It's bewildering.
10 - Love your country as much as the Thai love their king. That's a LOT of love.
I know there were two number 5's.
The vibe of friendliness totally extinguishes hesitancy. Walk around alone at night? No problem. Once Sophie and I got lost... well actually that's a little story.
Sophie, a volunteer from Milwaukee, and I wanted to find some shirts and pants and stuff, so we catch a tro-tro to Keneshie Market ("kah-nesh kah-nesh kah-nesh!"). If you're looking for cooked fish, live crabs, huge crawling snails (yum!), the biggest mangoes you've ever seen, bizarrely half-peeled oranges, or FanIce, this is the market for you. But for the life of us we can't find clothes. So, filled with FanIce and mangoes, we decide to head to Circle, which we know has a clothes market. We start making the Circle motion (places have both calls AND hand motions, your choice), and a tro-tro mate pulls Sophie into his van. I barely make it. After maybe 20 minutes, the mate asks us where we want off (to get correct fare, in the 20-40 cent range). Circle, we say. Not in this tro-tro we're not. Well, apparently we got on the wrong tro-tro, so we get off and we're very lost. Sophie searches for a cab while I make the circle hand signal and keep tro-tro watch. A random dude in a car sees my hand signal and waves me in. Sophie, let's go. So this good Samaritan, lord knows where he was planning to go, says he knows a place to get clothes. Awesome! 15 minutes later, and we're there. Thank you nice driver man! You're very welcome, enjoy Ghana! Sophie and I are dumbfounded to see that we're literally across the street from the Keneshie food market. We're still munching on the last pieces of mango we bought from the lady not 20 feet away. And that's how you cross the street in Ghana.
Now Sophie, Carl, and Sam all volunteer at schools. I wanna tag along, just 'cause why not. Carl and Sam, how far's your school? 20 minutes by tro-tro. Sophie, your school? 5 minute's walk*. So I went to school with Sophie.
* - is that possessive or plural? I think I'd say "one minute'S walk away," so it's possessive. That's it, I'm going back and adding an apostrophe.
Sophie could've maybe prepared me a little better than "this way to school." I get there, and am MOBBED by screaming 3-6 year-olds. I mean MOBBED! I am just manhandled. One poor tyke is balling his eyes out, just too terrified for words. Sophie then remembers, "oh yeah, you're probably the second or third white person a lot of them have seen. It took about a week for them to get used to me." They pet my hair, stroke my chin. They think my farmer's tan is up there with Legos and Playdoh for fun stuff, they trace the blue-ish veins on my arm. They're all talking in unison, trying to introduce themselves or name body parts or tell me their ages. Everybody wants to hold my hand, so each grab a few fingers. The best part was when they started dancing around me and chanting "pink and white! pink and white!" It was weird. Sophie got some photos of it.
School itself was a little what you'd expect, except there were more songs and praising Jesus, and the teacher would bust out her drum and they'd dance to the songs. They did some math. The 2-4 year-olds would come over to the 5-6 year-old side of the classroom to sneak a white-man arm-touch. They'd walk up to you in that clompy haven't-totally-figured-out-walking way, and they're just staring in a way only fascinated little kids can, and they'd touch your arm and then quickly retreat. They were adorable.
Kindergarten and 1st grade graduation photos were scheduled for the day I was there, so this guy comes with a camera from like 1975, and I got to pose as the guy handing out diplomas for some of the shots. So in India, on some family's wall, there's a photo of their trip to the Taj Mahal, or the Kailasa Temple or Srinigar, of the family and me. And soon, in a village on the outskirts of Accra, near Darkuman in Ghana, there'll be some kid's graduation photo, with him or her looking as cute as ever, and I'm handing out the "diploma." I like that idea.
Wanted to take some photos of the school, so I pulled out my camera. Woah.
I don't quite get it, because it's not like we were in some tribal village. Accra is the capital of Ghana, with 2 million people, and there are computers and cell phones and cameras and abruni, and we're not all that far from Accra proper. But an abruni, with a digital camera, with an LCD screen? It was like a ghostman with a magic box. The kids just flipped. I have some great videos of me sitting down, and kids just swarming and yelling "and me! and me! and me!" and half the video is just of hands and fingers on the camera, and I'm trying to spin it around because everyone wants to see the LCD screen, so they're all kinda racing out of the frame to get behind the camera. It was a lot of fun.
When I finally said goodbye to the kids, when school was over, they mass-hugged me. I'll be back. They were so cute.
While walking back through the village, a group of seamstresses wanted to say hello. I walked over and they all just started dancing. Can't explain it.
This is getting to be a bit long-winded, and for that I'm sorry. I'm a little excited to find working internet, and slow as it might be, for 60 cents an hour, I can afford the luxury.
In brief, I went from Accra to Cape Coast, where I got to see a pair of fortresses used to store and transport slaves during the Triangular Trade days (fascinating, but a bit too uncomfortable and depressing to "enjoy," so I didn't stay too long). The trip to Kakum National Park was pretty decent, with a crazy Ewok-style canopy walk compensating for the lack of exploration-inviting trails. The little park entrance slash mini-museum was really informative and well done. I appreciate that.
The park entrance was 2 cedi (almost exactly one-to-one with the US dollar), and I only had a ten. For some reason, in lots of countries, the ATMs dole out inconveniently large bills. Egypt was the worst: it's 100 pound notes (~$20) were accepted almost nowhere. It's like walking around the States with 500-notes; you're technically rich but you can't buy anything! Anyway, the guy didn't have change for a ten, so he just said I could pick up the change on my way out. Now, I wouldn't trust that anywhere else in the world, but in Ghana? Lo and behold, he had 8 cedis in a rubber band waiting for me on return. Honesty is just part of their culture. It's wonderful.
Now I'm writing from Kumasi, where I came on a bit of a lark. I have no idea what I'm doing here: just kinda exploring and meeting Ghanaians, which seems to be the thing to do. Tomorrow I'll pro'lly head back to Accra, go back to school, say hi to Colin Powell, and have some good times around Crystal Hostel's green table again. That sounds perfect. (Not as perfect as a hot shower, a clean bed, and a banana milkshake, but I bet I'm not home two weeks before I start wishing I were traveling again. The table's always greener...)
Sorry, by the way, that I have yet to find an open, working post office in Ghana. I admit I haven't really been looking, but, yeah, sorry. Tuzin Yowis, I actually have a postcard to you that still has an Egyptian stamp on it. Okay, that's it. Today I'm finding a post office. I have a mission.
Prediction: lots of folks stop to help me, a few kids yell "hello abruni!" from across the street, I end up getting a FanIce, everyone's happy to give directions, nobody knows how far. Chances of actually mailing stuff: 60%.
Goodbye, rare internet! Goodbye, small connection to home. I don't know when we'll meet again.
As a sort of post script:
I'm happy to see internet here, but I'm only half-joking. The net goes down all the time. It's really a luxury. You know that 3 days ago, Accra ran out of water? Yeah, all of Accra, 2 million people and the capital of Ghana!, it just ran out of water for about 12 hours. And I'm not talking hot- and cold-running purified potable 1st-world water. I mean just plain water.
I know America isn't perfect -- I really do -- but I really think it does a LOT of things right. And without hesitation, the more you travel, the more things, small and large, you appreciate about your home. This is so cheesy, but I just have to announce it: I really, really, really love America. It's my very favorite-ist country in the whole wide world.
Wednesday, July 23, 2008
welcome to ghana
Right now I'm in an internet cafe, resolved to write at least some kind of entry, but being pretty distracted by the sing-along English version of Jacques Brel's Le Moribond. It's a morbid choice for a kid's sing-along. (Actually, to think of it, lots of kid's rhymes are eery: Rock a Bye Baby is straight scary.) But in Ghana, lots of choices make you double-take.
The shop names make every walk down the street a little comedy. Most are poorly-infused religious themes, like "Clap for Jesus Butik" [beautique] and "God Loves Calling Center," and a handful are just, just... I don't know. At the corner by my hostel is White Cock Catering. I'm writing from G-Spot Internet Cafe. Seriously. I don't think it's supposed to be sexual, but, I just don't know.
G-Spot is the only internet cafe around, and it's slow like turtles. Photos are totally out of the question. But, yikes!, to think of it, in 3 days here I've taken zero pictures! I gotta get my camera out!
So... what.
I left off heading to Luxor. I'm going to be brief.
My aircon room at El Gezira hotel ran me $12 a night. I was the hotel's only guest. Most folks visit Luxor on package Nile cruises, and I have a few nice photos of a site parking lot, with ~80 tour buses and a lone bicycle. It was dry, but 108 degrees is hot no matter how you slice it. Folks wave at you as you bike past: they don't see a lot of that in July.
Luxor is the heart of what most people associate with Ancient Egypt: it is the site of Thebes, an important city during the Middle Kingdom and Egypt's capital during the New Kingdom's 18th Dynasty (1400-ish BC), and remained paramount during the entire New Kingdom. The New Kingdom (18th-20th dynasties) is the quintessential Ramses, Nefertiti, King Tut time.
To note, I've been trying to load Wikipedia's Luxor page for the past 9 minutes. It's still not even close.
Anyway, Luxor is a who's-who of Egypt sites, with Valley of the Kings, Valley of the Queens, Luxor Temple, Karnak Temple, the Ramesseum, Hatshupset's Temple, Tombs of the Nobles, the Colossi of Memnon, and all sorts of smaller and less-restored temples and tombs and structures. But, like I think I wrote before, it was just too much a production. Sound and light shows?! This is too tacky for words! Huge parking lots, tour buses rolling up like a rock concert, lines and flash photos and concession stands. I just couldn't get into Ancient Egypt mode. If I biked out early morning, the first site of the day would be wonderful, but around 10AM the tour buses would rumble on the road in the distance, and the day's magic fooosh, out like a match stomped underfoot.
I wish I could put up photos. Sorry. The Luxor page still hasn't loaded.
Without photos, let's move on to Ghana.
The Ghana visa issue was a bit of an experience. I was escorted to Room 2 on arrival, where I sit across from a uniformed sergeant at a big wooden desk in a poorly-lit carpet-free office with a dusty fan. The sergeant's assistant has his own, smaller desk, mashed up against the sergeant's. This room was clearly made for one, and it's a little, uh, cozy. Getting grilled by a guy that, to me, looks and dresses like an African general making a speech on BBC News (I'm seriously Africa ignorant), well, it would be a million times more intimidating if he hadn't already taken my hundred dollar visa fee. As soon as the other party has a load of your money in their pocket, that transaction is closing.
At the airport, there's a guy holding up a sheet of paper that says "Jacob Cooper." What a fantastic feeling! You know my dad's a regular contributor to the Chicago Tribune's "I Love / I Hate" column (he's kinda a big deal), and that was an I Love of his that made it to press. Oooh, and the last time he got an I Love in the Trib, it was particular terrific! I'd put a link here, but the Luxor page still isn't up; I'm not opening a new window. If you want, Google: Chicago Tribune I Love I Hate. My dad's pretty great.
The driver took me to Crystal Hostel, where I'm staying with a gaggle of international volunteers. It's a great vibe, and they're some really cool kids. Taught me how to catch a tro-tro (the decrepit vans that act as share-taxis slash buses), where to buy water, how much things should cost. One is a vegetarian, but her "you're going to have to eat a lot of plain white rice" wasn't too encouraging. 3 days in, and I'd kill for some deep dish pizza. 3 weeks to home!
Uncle, the hostel owner (every male older than you is "Uncle") has a voice like a BBC narrator for a nature documentary. I've never had such voice envy. Every time he says "good morning!" in his rumbling deep, smiling, African-accented timbre, I see gazelles nervously approaching a watering hole while a huge, hidden crocodile waits in the shallows. It's unbelievable. "How are you this morning, Jake?" I'm the best I've ever been, Uncle!
Ghanaians are friendly. There's so little hassle. Little kids will point to you and yell "Abruni! Abruni!" (white person), but it's just so giggly and friendly. Ghanaians have the biggest smiles.
Dara and Sam and I went out to the market, and sure, there's a lot of "come look in my shop," but it's not a hard sell. It's fine. One guy has a really wonderful looking shop. "Hello!" he says, with the biggest smile. We need to learn how to smile like Ghanaians. Where are you from? "Chicago, the Windy City! Chicago is in Illinois," he tells me, "but it's not the capital! The capital of Illinois is Springfield!" I wish we had punctuation for how Ghanaians speak when they're smiling. An exclamation point works. I'm impressed, how do you know about Illinois? He just loves geography, so I quiz him. "Alaska is the Frontier State, and it's capital is Juneau! Did you know, you cannot drive into Juneau? You must fly or take a ferry!" He knew EVERYTHING! And he had a pair of statues that I LOVE, and I'm going to buy them later. When I mention that I like the statues, he tells me all about them and, in a light-hearted, totally friendly manner, tells me he'll give me the Peoria price. What?! He laughs at my surprise: he knows Chicago is expensive, but he'll give me the Aurora price. This dude has his geography DOWN. Even if it were just a stellar sales technique, it works! And I don't think it is: he knew the capital of Mongolia, and I doubt that's a lucrative piece of knowledge here. But anyway, the statues are just too wonderful, and I'm very much not a shopper, but if you see something that you can afford (his starting price was $60 for the pair), and it's interesting and you like it immediately... all things should be such obvious buys.
In 4 days here I've done very little. I walk down the street and buy FanIce (ice cream in a packet, 30 cents) and... geez, what do I do? Yesterday we got out buckets and soap and did our laundry, and I'm telling you, I've never had such a good time doing laundry. We just do nothing and it's a blast.
You know where Ghanaians carry things? No backpacks, no handbags: all balanced on their heads. Wrap a towel into a ring, put it on your head like a peasant tiara, and put whatever perched atop. They just walk down the street like that. I'm self-conscious of how this comment sounds, but: it's just so, so African! I love it.
So I'm sorry I can't get any photos up (I need to take some!), and I know this isn't too fleshed-out, but I'm safe, I'm in Ghana, and I love this place. I already want to come back.
But that deep dish is calling...
The shop names make every walk down the street a little comedy. Most are poorly-infused religious themes, like "Clap for Jesus Butik" [beautique] and "God Loves Calling Center," and a handful are just, just... I don't know. At the corner by my hostel is White Cock Catering. I'm writing from G-Spot Internet Cafe. Seriously. I don't think it's supposed to be sexual, but, I just don't know.
G-Spot is the only internet cafe around, and it's slow like turtles. Photos are totally out of the question. But, yikes!, to think of it, in 3 days here I've taken zero pictures! I gotta get my camera out!
So... what.
I left off heading to Luxor. I'm going to be brief.
My aircon room at El Gezira hotel ran me $12 a night. I was the hotel's only guest. Most folks visit Luxor on package Nile cruises, and I have a few nice photos of a site parking lot, with ~80 tour buses and a lone bicycle. It was dry, but 108 degrees is hot no matter how you slice it. Folks wave at you as you bike past: they don't see a lot of that in July.
Luxor is the heart of what most people associate with Ancient Egypt: it is the site of Thebes, an important city during the Middle Kingdom and Egypt's capital during the New Kingdom's 18th Dynasty (1400-ish BC), and remained paramount during the entire New Kingdom. The New Kingdom (18th-20th dynasties) is the quintessential Ramses, Nefertiti, King Tut time.
To note, I've been trying to load Wikipedia's Luxor page for the past 9 minutes. It's still not even close.
Anyway, Luxor is a who's-who of Egypt sites, with Valley of the Kings, Valley of the Queens, Luxor Temple, Karnak Temple, the Ramesseum, Hatshupset's Temple, Tombs of the Nobles, the Colossi of Memnon, and all sorts of smaller and less-restored temples and tombs and structures. But, like I think I wrote before, it was just too much a production. Sound and light shows?! This is too tacky for words! Huge parking lots, tour buses rolling up like a rock concert, lines and flash photos and concession stands. I just couldn't get into Ancient Egypt mode. If I biked out early morning, the first site of the day would be wonderful, but around 10AM the tour buses would rumble on the road in the distance, and the day's magic fooosh, out like a match stomped underfoot.
I wish I could put up photos. Sorry. The Luxor page still hasn't loaded.
Without photos, let's move on to Ghana.
The Ghana visa issue was a bit of an experience. I was escorted to Room 2 on arrival, where I sit across from a uniformed sergeant at a big wooden desk in a poorly-lit carpet-free office with a dusty fan. The sergeant's assistant has his own, smaller desk, mashed up against the sergeant's. This room was clearly made for one, and it's a little, uh, cozy. Getting grilled by a guy that, to me, looks and dresses like an African general making a speech on BBC News (I'm seriously Africa ignorant), well, it would be a million times more intimidating if he hadn't already taken my hundred dollar visa fee. As soon as the other party has a load of your money in their pocket, that transaction is closing.
At the airport, there's a guy holding up a sheet of paper that says "Jacob Cooper." What a fantastic feeling! You know my dad's a regular contributor to the Chicago Tribune's "I Love / I Hate" column (he's kinda a big deal), and that was an I Love of his that made it to press. Oooh, and the last time he got an I Love in the Trib, it was particular terrific! I'd put a link here, but the Luxor page still isn't up; I'm not opening a new window. If you want, Google: Chicago Tribune I Love I Hate. My dad's pretty great.
The driver took me to Crystal Hostel, where I'm staying with a gaggle of international volunteers. It's a great vibe, and they're some really cool kids. Taught me how to catch a tro-tro (the decrepit vans that act as share-taxis slash buses), where to buy water, how much things should cost. One is a vegetarian, but her "you're going to have to eat a lot of plain white rice" wasn't too encouraging. 3 days in, and I'd kill for some deep dish pizza. 3 weeks to home!
Uncle, the hostel owner (every male older than you is "Uncle") has a voice like a BBC narrator for a nature documentary. I've never had such voice envy. Every time he says "good morning!" in his rumbling deep, smiling, African-accented timbre, I see gazelles nervously approaching a watering hole while a huge, hidden crocodile waits in the shallows. It's unbelievable. "How are you this morning, Jake?" I'm the best I've ever been, Uncle!
Ghanaians are friendly. There's so little hassle. Little kids will point to you and yell "Abruni! Abruni!" (white person), but it's just so giggly and friendly. Ghanaians have the biggest smiles.
Dara and Sam and I went out to the market, and sure, there's a lot of "come look in my shop," but it's not a hard sell. It's fine. One guy has a really wonderful looking shop. "Hello!" he says, with the biggest smile. We need to learn how to smile like Ghanaians. Where are you from? "Chicago, the Windy City! Chicago is in Illinois," he tells me, "but it's not the capital! The capital of Illinois is Springfield!" I wish we had punctuation for how Ghanaians speak when they're smiling. An exclamation point works. I'm impressed, how do you know about Illinois? He just loves geography, so I quiz him. "Alaska is the Frontier State, and it's capital is Juneau! Did you know, you cannot drive into Juneau? You must fly or take a ferry!" He knew EVERYTHING! And he had a pair of statues that I LOVE, and I'm going to buy them later. When I mention that I like the statues, he tells me all about them and, in a light-hearted, totally friendly manner, tells me he'll give me the Peoria price. What?! He laughs at my surprise: he knows Chicago is expensive, but he'll give me the Aurora price. This dude has his geography DOWN. Even if it were just a stellar sales technique, it works! And I don't think it is: he knew the capital of Mongolia, and I doubt that's a lucrative piece of knowledge here. But anyway, the statues are just too wonderful, and I'm very much not a shopper, but if you see something that you can afford (his starting price was $60 for the pair), and it's interesting and you like it immediately... all things should be such obvious buys.
In 4 days here I've done very little. I walk down the street and buy FanIce (ice cream in a packet, 30 cents) and... geez, what do I do? Yesterday we got out buckets and soap and did our laundry, and I'm telling you, I've never had such a good time doing laundry. We just do nothing and it's a blast.
You know where Ghanaians carry things? No backpacks, no handbags: all balanced on their heads. Wrap a towel into a ring, put it on your head like a peasant tiara, and put whatever perched atop. They just walk down the street like that. I'm self-conscious of how this comment sounds, but: it's just so, so African! I love it.
So I'm sorry I can't get any photos up (I need to take some!), and I know this isn't too fleshed-out, but I'm safe, I'm in Ghana, and I love this place. I already want to come back.
But that deep dish is calling...
Monday, July 21, 2008
update issues
I'm just writing the world's shortest entry to note that I've been having some issues with loading this blog on these not-exactly-2008 computers, so hopefully I'll get an update soon (if not photos, at least something more than this).
Long story short is that Luxor had some top-notch Ancient Egypt sites, but they were such a production it was a bit anticlimactic; like how a Clapton concert is too much about the show and not enough about the music. The Siwan tombs were, somehow, better. For the 3 days I was there, Luxor's highs were 108, 108, and 109.
I'm writing from Ghana, where I had to drop a HUNDRED DOLLARS on an "emergency" visa on arrival. But I'm here, and so far (24 hours in), Ghana is awesome.
I'm gonna post this before Mr. Computer goes kaboom again.
Long story short is that Luxor had some top-notch Ancient Egypt sites, but they were such a production it was a bit anticlimactic; like how a Clapton concert is too much about the show and not enough about the music. The Siwan tombs were, somehow, better. For the 3 days I was there, Luxor's highs were 108, 108, and 109.
I'm writing from Ghana, where I had to drop a HUNDRED DOLLARS on an "emergency" visa on arrival. But I'm here, and so far (24 hours in), Ghana is awesome.
I'm gonna post this before Mr. Computer goes kaboom again.
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