AFRICAN DISPATCH FROM A NATIVE SON

By Jacob Wheeler
Sun International Correspondent
ACCRA, Ghana: March 17, 2002 — A cool breeze blowing off the Southern Atlantic is a relief this morning, as are the usual cast of characters hunkering on the porch at the Hotel de California in Adabraka..Same terminally drunk German man, Herr Schmidt, sleeping on the sofa in the lobby, mumbling something about Lufthansa technical manuals in his sleep. Same rasta boys hanging out on the porch, trying in vain to sell homemade bongo drums to every Ubruni (white man, in the Twe language) who walks by. As the song says, “you can check out but never leave.” Same smell of pineapples and smog hanging over this congested city every dawn.

I arrived back on the coast yesterday after an easy-paced, four-day journey from Burkina Faso directly to the north. My dried lips had had enough. Shed the sandles caked in red desert and walked the beach barefoot down by Jamestown, where the poor kids train for the World Cup or a Vegas fight night. Exchanged “Bon jour monsieur” and all the Francophone politeness for “What’s happening, Buddy-man?” and the layed back English culture preferred by this traveler.
Of course, the food in Ghana leaves much to be desired, as it is a former English and Dutch colony. I stomached the worst meal I’ve ever tasted Tuesday night in the port town of Yeji: a plate of cold rice with something like barbecued yoghurt-mucus on top and alleged chicken on the side (I can’t prove it, but the meat’s shape suggested a small rodent: fried, charred and with long ears. Yes, it was dead). Cuisine – one must use the French word here – in Ghana is so depressing, it could turn a western food critic into a Russian novelist. Point, French Africa.
But such are the joys of budget travel.
When I wade in the Gold Coast surf this afternoon, it will complete a journey started last Thursday in Gorum Gorum, Burkina Faso’s northernmost town near the border to Mali and Niger. There we woke half an hour before dawn and climbed up a hill of boulders outside of town to watch the sun rise over the nearby Sahara Desert. An annoying haze blocked any majestic colors, but the great sun did not fail. By 7 a.m. our faces were punished and shadows were a luxury only for shrub roots. We retired to drink Nescafe in the courtyard of a little, ramshackled hotel where visitors sleep in straw, tee-pee huts.
The ensuing bus ride from Gorum Gorum (500 kilometers) back to the capital Ouagadogou was a test of endurance and will. Eight and a half hours of bone-jarring bumps and swaying back and forth like a Baptist choir on a “tro tro” bus built for 25, yet carrying more like 40 passengers. The old man and the small child sitting behind us puked and defecated in harmony. Wonderful smells. The live chickens at our feet didn’t seem to mind. Stopped at every village to pick up more passengers, for in Africa there’s always room for one more.
Could not bear the thirst for water any longer. Purchased fist-size bags of “ice wat-ah, pure wat-ah” and dropped an iodine tablet inside. Ignored the subtle metallic taste and touched it off with the most succulent orange ever tasted. African style: sliced the top off and sunk teeth into a layer of flesh. Squeezed the meat into juice and sucked citrus refreshment out of one single hole. Vampire style. The orange afterwards looked like a deflated basketball. Eaten without even removing the cover.
Before leaving Ouagadogou I dared to visit the central market to buy long pants and a shirt with African design. Only little boys wear shorts in this part of the world, and any grown man wearing them must have just stepped off the plane. My white skin has acquired a bronze color by now, so the tan factor is irrelevant.
I somehow avoided the jewelry and sandel peddlers and didn’t succumb to the smell of rotten meat or vegetables whafting from every corner of the massive roofed maze that is the market. Ducked the occasional bird flying at my head or vulture that found its way through a hole in the straw roof to prey on the next dead tourist. Bought a bronze, short-sleeved collared shirt with African designs at the waistline and a pair of used Wrangler jeans from one of the few clothing peddlers not offering bargains on Osama bin Laden t-shirts made in Jakarta, Indonesia: the bearded warrior with his handsome smile and menacing Kalashnikov rifle opposite a World Trade Center tower burning in jet fuel, all on a single shirt.
This item did not reflect the political stance of the locals though. Bin Laden shirts were outnumbered by I Love NYC or Michael Jordan shirts by at least 4-1. Mr. Jihad is nothing more than a symbol of meaningless pop culture here.
Monday I bid baguettes and brown tundra behind and embarked alone on another busride south to Tamale, in northern Ghana (no connection to Tamale hot sauce. I asked a local kid. He asked if it wasn’t already hot enough for me) I payed 3,000 Cedis (38 American cents) for a long-overdue haircut there. Problem was, the job took an hour and a half because the barber wasn’t used to cutting the long, curly hair of a white boy. He didn’t have any scissors, so we just coerced off layer by layer until my hair was as short as an African’s.
I arrived on Tuesday afternoon in Yeji, the northern port town on Lake Volta, and waited a day to board the Yapei Queen steamship along with a forklift, one German, about 200 Ghanians and, let’s say, 30 huge crates of yams that had just been plucked from the fields. The yams are the staple food for much of Ghana, and make their way down the Volta to Accra, to feed a city of 2.5 million people. Lake Volta, the largest man-made lake in the world, was created in the 1960’s when Ghana’s ambitious president Kwame Nkrumah installed the Akosombo Dam near the base of the Volta River. Thousands of acres were flooded to irrigate the country, though local tribes had trouble understanding the pleas of their chiefs to relocate because they had never heard of such technology before. “The water flows this way today. Why on earth would it flow that way tomorrow?”
I was lucky enough to nab one of only two air-conditioned, bunk cabins for the 30-hour journey, thereby avoiding sleeping in the crates of yam and straw with the locals. Yes, I whimped out and bought an unnecessary luxury.
On the second night the captain knocked on the door in the middle of the night and informed me that I should share the 6- by 10-foot cabin with a minister named Joseph … and his sick wife Mary and their infant child, who were traveling to Accra so she could get an operation. I protested for about five minutes and then realized the selfishness of my ways. The captain whispered to Joseph that he would have to excuse me for I didn’t understand the way a Ghanian travels, as I peered out on the deck and saw natives sprawled out, contently occupying every inch of floor space. I relented in the end, in exchange for a gift of dried fish that I will not eat, and let the good family occupy the cabin with me. The baby did not make a peep all night.
When I awoke yesterday morning, the dry Sahel plains had evaporated into the lush, rolling hills of the Volta region and a mountain range on the eastern border to Togo. A cool breeze whisked away the sweat globlets as soon as they appeared on my arms. The German man in the other cabin, Werner, and I shared a fresh coconut and some Tamale sweet bread for breakfast. We arrived at the Akosomobo dam by noon and caught a bus to Accra on smooth, paved roads. My traveling companions, Hans and Anne, were waiting with cold bottles of Star, the local beer, at the Hotel de California.
By now the murderous Sahara Desert was only a remnant on my sandels and in my journal. A place I may visit again some day, but not after a long bath and tour into gluttony.
— Jacob Wheeler is the founding editor of the Glen Arbor Sun. For more of his road adventures find him at the local coffee shop, as he is completely through with Nescafe.