Ghana Gallops

May 16, 2006

Aaah Africa! I have landed. Accra, Ghana – Whut!!!

I’m in my bed at the Cocoa Research Institute Guest House, tired as hell. I would’ve slept on the plane but was too wrapped up in King Kong and that Pocahontas-flick (New World?) to sleep.

Everything feels new (except for my swagger – as you all know, I keep it ol’ school), even stepping off the plane was an experience. Yellow butterflies were flying around in the baggage claim hall, the whole building (Kotoko International Airport – oddly, named after the coup maker that ousted Nkrumah, Ghana’s first President and now legendary “father of independence) was bright yellow, green and red, and I got acquainted with the West African way of trying to get your attention: hissing at you. Once through customs, tired and jetlagged, I managed to get coerced/prompted/hurried into shelling out a bunch of cash for various porters and “security guards.” Amateur move… Now that I’m back at the room, though, I realize that 5 people ended up splitting $20 ($20 / 5 people = $4 per person) and I don’t feel so annoyed anymore. They probably thought I was the biggest sucker to ever step off an airplane – apparently game does not always recognize game. Pity.

May 17, 2006

A glorious day in Accra. I spent the whole day with Danquah’s father. Danquah is a guy from Ghana that goes to Fletcher and his dad, Dr. Danquah, showed me around in style – hilarious factoid for those who know Danquah (Jr.): I found out today that he won ‘Child of the Year’ in Ghana in the early 1990s. Everything here is green, yellow, and red (colors of the flag), its muddy and warm, but luckily the cool breeze from the ocean made me less delirious. There’s no shower in my room so I stink of sweat and Deet (mosquito repellant), and, apparently, of the almighty dollar, or, more fitting, the almighty ‘Euro’. “Germany!” was the preferred way of getting my attention. In Mexico, it was “Hey Springbreaker!” I get the feeling I don’t quite blend in as easy I think… Anyway, 4-5 people were around me constantly trying to sell me everything from ‘ab-trainers’ to rotten bananas. I’m definitely going to pick up some stuff on my way back though (some Kente cloth maybe, some crazy military statues?.) since I’m stopping in Accra in August as well.

We also went to Kwame Nkrumah’s memorial park. It here emerged that Dr. Danquah was directly related to 4 out the 7 “fathers of Ghanaian independence. I guess they were sidelined once Nkrumah’s commie-credentials were revealed. There were great images of Nkrumah rubbing shoulders with basically the whole cast of 1960s-70s world politics (Kennedy, Castro, Mao, Dag Hammarskjöld (Sverige är bäst, Sverige är bäst), Nasser, etc.) – that was, eventually, one of the reasons for the coup against him I think: he spent too much time trying to foster his pan-African idea and not enough time on Ghana. “Thanks for the lecture Marcus, please tell us more about this great African leader.” All in due time my young friends, all in due time.

The evening was spent watching the Champion’s League Game and trying to figure out when to click your tongue. All I know for sure is that you need to do it when Barcelona scores a goal. More on that later.