Out Of Africa

My fan requested more photos of Accra and I don’t want to disappoint. The first one is the beach alongside the city just before a toe dip.

The second is a photo just before my team went to visit the President of Ghana at a building called “The Castle.” It got its name because it was once a Dutch slave castle and has now been converted to something like a White House. Appologies for the poor quality of the photo, but there was a severe penalty for taking photographs of the building -- a point my partner views as only a suggestion. Please note the sharp new jacket and slacks I'm wearing.

The final photo is a shot of the only white guys for miles attempting to bargain with the pros. We’re essentially in a shanty town that sells all kinds of trinkets and clothing and we drew a crowd of sellers hoping to engineer a transfer of relative wealth. I left owing money to one of my fellow travelers that I had to make up with Euros after we landed in Amsterdam.

There were a total of three of us on the trip and I think we were all moved in some way. My partner Greg, who was born with wanderlust, has been in some of the world’s worst shitholes and thoroughly enjoyed the discomfort our Texas partner was having being touched and grabbed at the shanty village. Of course he also took great pleasure in teasing me about my lost luggage so he may be more of a Sadist than originally thought. Tables were later turned on him when the hotel ran out of Diet Coke and he suffered aspartame withdrawal. He was later found sucking on empty packets of Sweet N' Low.

There were two memorable moments for me. One occurred just before we were departing Accra and I was walking around the airport looking for a responsible KLM representative because KLM – not surprisingly – was checking my bags only as far as Amsterdam despite the fact my ticket said Sacramento (fyi – the bag was the first off the luggage belt at Minneapolis and I was first out of customs so I could wait five hours for my connecting flight). As my now best friend airport employee took me from a worthless VIP lounge to the main part of the airport, we meandered through a throng of Ghanaians waiting for friends and relatives to arrive from their travel. While passing one family, a young girl, maybe six years old, reached her hand out and grabbed my forearm and held it for a moment. I stopped, partly out of surprise and partly because I think she was truly curious what a white man felt like and I didn’t want to ruin her science experiment by abruptly pulling back. Her parents scolded her but she didn’t let go for a while. A few seconds later, a young boy did the same thing, also with a curious look in his eye.

I have never been such a curiosity before and it was both humbling and revealing about the differences that exist because of skin color. There were no prejudice or racist motivations involved; just wonder and an honest view of diversity. I was very moved by the moment.

The second memory is the opposite of innocence. My partner and I were intended victims of a live version of the Nigerian e-mail scams. We actually got calls in our hotel rooms from a man telling us, quite convincingly, that we were highly recommended by a reputable person (unnamed, of course) to help him move millions of dollars safely to the U.S. I was fairly curt with him and didn’t let the call go too far, but my partner played along a little and got the guy to agree to come to the hotel and meet with him. Then he waited in the lobby restaurant to see if he showed up. But because the Diet Coke had run out, he soon lost interest. We later found out that someone in the hotel was telling people on the outside where the foreigners were staying and they would just ring our rooms. We asked the hotel to hold our calls.

It looks like I will get to travel to Ghana often and I want to visit a major game reserve to photograph lions, elephants, zebras, hippos, and other assorted African beasts that come in a box of Animal Crackers. I also want to get some traditional West African business attire because I want to go to work in silk pajamas. Hopefully this is something that will catch on in the States and I’m willing to do my part to bring it about.