My Family Christmas Tree

My mother is particular when it comes to the interior decor of the family’s colonial style home. I am most grateful for this except for when it comes time to gift-give (souvenirs, Christmas, birthday, etc.). So I am usually elated when I find a gift suitable enough for my mother’s tastes. With the exception of a red apple scented candle from Yankee Candle that is still on display in the bathroom next to the kitchen, I have learned that trying to accessorize or decorate the Gavron house is a lost cause.

Well, the same rules of decorating engagement apply when it comes to the holiday season. Ornaments are selected and placed upon the tree using a number of criteria headlined by the likelihood of the tree will appear in next season’s Pottery Barn winter catalog. Years ago, my mother started a family tradition of wrapping two ornaments, one for my sister and one for me, that we would open with glee on Christmas morning. The ornament is comparable to the year in review; it captures the essence of the year. For example, there was the time mom purchased a pleasant Shrek figurine for me because that year I apparently reminded her of an ogre (okay, really, it was because I dressed as Shrek for my high-school’s rendition of the Shrek theme-song, I’m A Believer).

Decorating the Christmas tree has always been a full family effort. In my naïve years, the entire family would converge around the tree while Bing Crosby sounded from the speakers. Each of us would work together to decorate the Douglas Fir. After the family bonding hour expired, my mother would return to the tree and rearrange the ornaments to improve the aesthetics. Well, once I became aware of this inefficiency, I defied the family and put my foot down. No, I will not decorate the tree. You’re only going to strip the tree and re-outfit it. How do you think Douglas feels when you strip him naked in the front window for everyone to see?! So now, instead of decorating, I supervise. I usually sit on the couch in a state of supervision (or more probably woolgathering). I see it as a win-win-win. I supervise, my mom spends less total time decorating, and Douglas doesn’t have to get brought up on public indecency charges.

If I had to pick one consistent challenge the Gavron family tree faces each year, it would be the angel. On occasion, we have overzealously estimated the clearance of our living room and found the angel sitting rather snuggly (and probably smugly) no room for the halo, relying more on the Beyonce lyric I can feel your halo over I can see your halo. Also, this year, I learned that we tree-topped with a tainted angel. Apparently, when my grandmother passed, my mother exercised her prerogative and took our grandparents’ angel. Which was fine, until my grandfather’s Christmas tree stopped sporting an angel since he failed to find the family angel. Well, Catholic guilt overcame my mom, and the angel was returned to the rightful owner.

Overall, Christmas 2010 was a success. Not because my sister received double the number of gifts I received, but because it was the first year in recent memory where the Gavron family tree was both stolen-angel-free and Shrekless. (Our family couldn’t seem to locate Shrek this year…hmm…maybe my grandmother decided it was time for a little payback).

End of Semester Review

Five months ago I experienced an earthquake of a magnitude not felt since the introduction of Lunchables in my elementary school lunch bag. Five months ago, I relocated to Accra, Ghana. Five months is a substantial amount of time. In five months, a dragonfly lives out its entire life. In five months, an orange peel comes close to decomposing. Five months has given me the audacity to say that I’m a force of nature.

The semester had its highs and lows, but the journey was worth every minute (okay, not every minute).

In five months, I’ve learned a lot of lessons. For one, the importance of soccer in the socialization of an American abroad; for another, Ghana wasn’t made for everyone. One of the Fellows, Rhys (pronounced like the candy Reece’s Pieces, despite its near phonetic impossibility), had to throw in the towel. This Australian bloke found himself constantly battling the bacteria. For example, there was the time that the entire staff went out to celebrate Rhys’ birthday. The only problem – Rhys couldn’t join us because he was bed rested with malaria. Or there was the time that Rhys selected a restaurant for his farewell dinner, and the staff obliged, despite his absence due to…wait for it…malaria.

But for fear of coming across as an egotistic Negative Ned and feeding into the misconceptions of sub-Saharan Africa, I feel truly blessed to have the opportunity. I find myself constantly laughing at the little things. Every day after lunch I walk to the local market to get some fresh air (and a Coca Cola), and every day I walk past the same two children. Every day these children see me, smile, point, and declare obruni. I am their cardboard box; cheap entertainment.

The night before my flight to America, I found myself again playing the role of cardboard box. My students decided as part of a send-off, they would pond me. To pond – this noun-converted-to-verb has a playful (and painful) meaning in Ghana. Ponding is associated with milestones or special occasions. In my case, it was the end of the semester and my return to the United States. It is a categorically male ritual where the victim stands helplessly with his back to the group while everyone else pelts buckets of water at the weltering honoree. A few buckets (and stings) later, with one red back, my cultural experience was finished. No hard feelings. I’ll just trade my red back for the red ink when I grade their assignments next semester.

Real Ghanaians of Genius

One of the lessons I learned while living outside of the United States is that it doesn’t matter where I am – I will always find real men and women of genius.

Left turn man. Struggling to locate the bus terminal based on the city map in my guidebook, the Fellows and I turned to the street smart for directions. Oh, you’re looking for the bus terminal? No problem. At the first junction, do nothing. At the second junction, do nothing. At the third junction, go straight. What? If I get to the first junction and do nothing, how do I ever make it to the second junction?

Wendy’s lady. While spending the evening in a beach bungalow at Ada Foah, I placed a dinner order of fried rice and yam chips. Three hours later, I received a plate of fried rice and chicken. Okay. Not exactly what I ordered, so I ate the fried rice, and returned the chicken. It’s cool. I’ve come to find fried rice as a sufficient meal. Well, moments later, I’m approached by the waitress. Excuse me. We just realized that we gave you chicken instead of yam. We made a mistake with your order. So you’re going to have to pay extra for the chicken. I’m sorry? You made a mistake? I didn’t even touch the chicken? I didn’t complain that I got the wrong dish? And you’re charging me extra? I’ve heard similar arguments before…

Good Friday man. Okay. I kid, I kid. Nobody in Ghana would EVER mistake Palm Sunday for Good Friday. Example #1. Example #2. Example #3.

Holy Matrimony

It took me three months, and 210 meals (who’s counting?), but the other afternoon, I returned to my laptop to find a nice white envelop upon my desk, Mr. Brian penned in blue ink across the bottom right corner. I could feel my heartbeat accelerating, and not just because I had finished a bottle of Coca Cola. I’ve become conditioned to know that a white envelope on my desk contains cash, payment, money for services rendered, money for services never rendered.

This time, I opened the envelope to find not cash, but rather an invitation to Florence’s wedding. Florence is a part of the school’s kitchen staff and I was rather embarrassed for not even knowing that she was in a relationship, but felt honored to be invited nonetheless.

As the wedding approached, my nerves were building. Mere hours before the wedding, I found myself tied up (and throwing up) on the road from Tamale, and I don’t have a perfect track record when it comes to arriving to weddings on time. Thankfully, I arrived just in time. My invitation was stamped noon. It turns out everyone else’s was stamped one pm. Cool. My colleagues and I were escorted to the second row.

Well, the ceremony was beautiful, despite it not being in English. I was enjoying spectator privileges until the lady sitting next to me poked me and told me that it was our turn. I could hear the susurrous whispers of the congregation.

Our turn? What do you mean by our turn? I probed. You and your colleagues are supposed to sing a song for the bride and groom. I’m sorry…what? We’re supposed to sing a song to the bride and groom? Right now?

My mind quickly jumped into panic mode. The first song that came to mind was Cee Lo Green’s F*** You, which I immediately dismissed as being outrageously inappropriate. My next thought was, what songs do Americans, Dutch, and Pakistanis all know – Happy Birthday? I was weighing the merits of a song that had meaning for matrimony and a song that the international group of colleagues would recognize. Clearly, ubiquity trumped meaningfulness. Thankfully, one of the Ghanaians in our program recognized our visible agitation, volunteered a hymn, and began singing to the congregation. I just stood on stage awkwardly swaying back and forth. It’s times like these where I find myself convinced that I am the cultural experiment instead of the other way around.

Coup d'etat

I enjoy my sports. I actively follow the local Washington teams, regularly read reviews of my alma matter Virginia (often at my own risk when it comes to football and basketball), waste weeks of my life consuming every broadcasted Olympic game, and have consistently performed mediocre at best in my fantasy football league. But like many Americans, I have not paid much attention outside of World Cup play.

I distinctly recall a time in my life, that perhaps I would prefer to forget, where I spent an entire afternoon penning posters for my family’s front row seats during the Women’s World Cup Quarterfinal match USA vs Germany. Mia Hamm vs. Birgit Prinz at Landover Field on July 1, 1999. After arriving 30 minutes late to the match due to the abhorrent Beltway traffic, the USA Women’s team was down 1-0. Also, the USA Women’s team was the only team to score a goal in the game…someone scored a goal in their own net… (this uncanny parallel to pee wee soccer should have been an early warning sign that perhaps I was following the wrong sport).

Regardless, no amount of sports fandom could have prepared me for the epic match of the season. Barcelona vs. Real Madrid. Apparently everyone was planning on watching the match. Brian, will you be watching the match tonight? At this time, still unaware that the match we were referring to was the Barcelona vs. Real Madrid match and not my University’s ACC-Big Ten Matchup, I was forced to show my hand. What match? Blaspheme. What match? Only the match that everyone in the entire world will be watching. While I would like to believe you, I can’t accept your hyperbole.

So instead of watching the contest, I decided the time would be better spent reconnecting with my pastime. Instead, I sat on my bed reading K. A. Applegate’s series The Animorphs, the saga of teenagers given the power to morph into animals in order to fight the alien Yeerks (nerd-alert) on my Barnes and Noble Nook. I was basically begging to be ostracized at the dinner table the following day. Everyone would be talking about the football match I wasn’t watching, and nobody (nobody in the entire world) would be talking about Animorphs.

What actually happened: In a truly world-class performance, so I’ve been told, David Villa led Barcelona to a 5-0 romp, rolling through Real Madrid.

What I thought happened: A coup d'etat. With the riotous and boisterous atmosphere, I really thought the government had been overthrown. Either that or the Yeerks had taken over.

The Road from Tamale

Call us suicidal, but for the final leg of our vacation, the Fellows and I decided to return to Accra by way of overnight bus. After ping-ponging from bus station to bus station in Tamale, we settled on a 12 hour overnight bus provided by government-run STC, Departure, Tamale: 4pm. Arrival, Accra: 4am.

Well, needless to say, there were a couple hiccups along the way. When the bus pulled into the terminal over two hours after our departure time, I was beginning to get restless (appropriate, since I intended to get a lot of rest on the bus). But I was pleased to know that we would soon begin our road trip to Accra, where the quality of the roads, or lack thereof, meant that the on-roading experience would have an off-roading flavor.

Problem #1: Faulty shock absorbers. This is a critical component to any motorized vehicle when a significant portion of the road from Tamale back to Accra is an uneven, uncomfortable, dirt road, resulting in 50 bobble headed patrons ebbing and flowing with each change in the contour and gradient of the terrain. When you are lucky enough to be on a paved portion, it is like driving atop swiss cheese; I would classify both the road and swiss cheese as falling under the category things with gaping holes. The paved portion also staggers speed bumps, or rather speed humps as I’ve seen them referred to in my hometown, along the way. Which, if you are travelling in the dead of night, become very difficult to anticipate, and often turn into a mechanism used to catapult bus riders from their seats.

Problem #2: Just prior to boarding the bus, I ate a little something-something called red red that didn’t enjoy my company-company – it wanted out. I tried to concentrate on falling asleep, but every time I came remotely close to napping, Problem #1 interjected to remind me that the Road from Tamale had other plans for me. So I sat in tenebrous silence while the Hundred Years’ War occurred in my breadbasket.

It wasn’t long before my head was hanging out the window, the armed conflict in my belly took to the streets. There is precedence for falling ill on public transportation. The last time I boarded a 14 hour flight from Doha to Dulles I found my head buried within the barf bags. The way I see it, I’m two for two. All I need now is the train and I’ll have conquered the big three of public transportation.

Invisible Elephants

With an entire week devoted to vacation, I was able to finally travel to the northern portion of Ghana with the Fellows. The weeklong adventure from Accra brought about our banaustic concerns; Will we be able to find food? Will we be able to put a roof over our head? Thankfully, yes. The week culminated in our extended stay at Mole National Park, home to approximately 800 elephants, 1000 buffalo, hyenas, and as my guidebook mentioned, a “significant population of hippos”. Side note: It turns out that Mole National Park does not, in fact, have any hippos, as multiple park rangers laughed when I inquired.

I’ll start off by saying, it really was all our fault. We knew that November was not the ideal time to travel to Mole National Park, but seeing as we don’t get to select which days Ghana declares as national holidays, we figured we would take our chances.

After settling into our lodging, we relaxed poolside before we would participate in a dusk walking safari. Upon arriving at the launch of the walking safari, the park found themselves slightly understaffed, and as a consequence, boondoggled us into taking the dusk driving safari. Not only did the price of our safari just increase threefold, but the vehicle was overcapacity. The four other Fellows sat on the roof while I sat in the backseat of the Nissan X-Trail fending off tsetse flies with my new Danish friends Henry and Tia. (Only later did I find out from German Fellow Sebastian that Henry’s name was actually the Nordic Henrick, but that’s a mere digression).

Oh, and also using the word safari fell nowhere shy of deceit. I could have gone on stroll through my grandmother’s neighborhood and seen as much wildlife as our driving “safari”. Disgruntled by my current situation in the back of the X-Trail, when the park ranger informed us that we were allowed to ask him questions, I was quick to ask So where are all the animals? (In their natural habitat was his equally hostile response). In total, from my backseat, I saw three living species that the driver identified for me (if you include the baby crocodile that I didn’t actually see, but instead saw the moving bushes as it scurried away). I also saw a python and dozens of antelope. Only later did I find out from the roofdeck Fellows that the python was a puff adder and the baby croc was a lizard. My “safari” driver only appropriately identified one of the three species I “saw” on the driving safari. His batting average on my mediocre off-roading excursion fell shy of Ted Williams’ even on an off year. I suppose it is appropriate that Nissan advertises the X-Trail as the compact SUV that makes adventures out of the ordinary.

After regrouping, the following day we stood strong and set off on both a dawn and dusk walking safari. With this, at least if we didn’t see anything exciting, we would log some solid hiking hours. It was one giant game of hide and seek, where the hiders had the upper hand. I thought that with the number of eyes and the distance covered that sheer luck would lead us to stumble upon at least one elephant. I thought wrong. Over a combined five hours we failed to identify any hyenas, hippos, elephants, or buffalo. I have heard many tales of the serious magic that occurs in Northern Ghana but for obvious reasons, did not believe it. I guess I’m a converted believer. After all, 800 elephants cast under the invisibility spell is pretty powerful magic.

Oh Canada

Walking the streets of Ghana as a white American I sometimes feel as though I'm in a ring with bulls charging from all directions, but life as a matador can be exhausting. In the process of befriending an obroni, one of the most practiced strategies is to inquire about the orboni’s origin. Sometimes I offer the straight answer, Washington, DC; other times, I decide to spice it up and pose as a Canadian.

Since Canada is in such close proximity to the United States, I consider this as stretching the truth category vice lying. Come to think of it, I wouldn’t be surprised to find out that I was part Canadian; I have on multiple times been compared to the Canadians. For example, I often state sentences in the form of a question. Adult braces are cool, eh?. I also have an affinity for ice sports, from hockey to broomball. So I wouldn’t be surprised to one day find out that I am a product of the nascent Canadian baby trafficking business, smuggled across the border at birth.

But actually, confusion regarding my origin on the North American continent doesn’t stop with Canada. One time I was asked by my new friend Sally if I was Mexican, which was appropriate for her to ask because at the moment of inquiry, we had been friends for a total of sixty seconds. How was I supposed to reply to an invasive question? No, but I do have an addiction to Chipotle burritos? I’m not sure why, but I find that my façade as a Canadian is much more convincing than as a Mexican.

I have another secret weapon I can pull out when doubt arises among my Ghanaian catechizers. You aren’t Canadian they say. Would a non-Canadian know the Canadian anthem? Oh Canada, our home and native land…Deal sealed. Sometime during my childhood, I was forced to learn the Canadian National Anthem. Why, I can’t recall, but I’m sure it was for something important like National Maple Syrup Day. I have even surprised myself with my ability to put this nugget of knowledge to use. Like during the recent Vancouver Olympics…anytime I watched the Olympic games, I would sing Oh Canada. I was a crowd pleaser, (euphemism implying that I was ostracized and outcasted). Life as a Canadian can be difficult. Maybe that’s why I was trafficked across the border, eh?

Guinea Pig Haircut

I’m always amazed at how something as mundane as getting my haircut inevitably turns into a rather large production. So I anticipated my first haircut in Ghana would not disappoint. Despite my pursuit of nappiness my fine and oily hair is not suitable for the hot comb.

Although untested, I believe Ghana’s blossoming stylists represent something close to 10% of the country’s GDP, with a barber shop at nearly every junction. So one Sunday, when my hair was approaching carrot top status (I know, crazy, since I didn’t have red hair), when the foliage had created a nice canopy suffocating my ears, I went with a few Fellows to test our luck at the local hair salon.

Thankfully, we beat the church rush and were the first clients of the afternoon. After the stylist removed the copy machine from his store (I suppose he dabbled in the printing business as a side-job), there was room for him to invite the three of us into the barber shop. Of course, I was the guinea pig of the lot, or the vanguard as I like to spin it, and wasn’t sure what to expect. I surveyed the wall, where displayed were 50 pictures of various hairstyle options. Unable to distinguish between a single one of the 50 hairstyles, much like a game of Texas hold’em, I decided to fold before the flop and asked for a buzz cut.

Approximately 30 minutes, one Coca-Cola, and half of a confusing Ghanaian war movie later, I was sporting a fresh cut. Only later did we notice that the barber missed a chunk, and fellow Fellow, Kyle, pulled out the utility scissors to make amends, eliciting haunting flashbacks to my childhood.

The last time I took liberty to sculpt my own topiary, I was still learning the difference between right and left (and apparently right and wrong). After trimming my bangs, I asked my playmate Christina for her opinion of my new dew. Later that evening, when my mother asked about my new look, I deferred blame to virtuous Christina. Needless to say, after a few rounds of scolding, and after crying hysterically into my dinosaur comforter, I was forced to apologize to Christina’s parents for my mendacious behavior. Lesson learned; next time give the scissors to someone else. Thank you Kyle.

Dominoes and Doritos

I used to think that I was extroverted, socially suave, and uncharacteristically good at making friends. Living in Ghana has shattered my rosy lenses and made me question whether or not I’ve lost my friendship flare, or if I even had such flare before. I’m not implying that I’m an eremite; I do have my clan of fellows, with whom I spend nearly every waking moment, and often non-waking moments. Our clan can most accurately be described as a group of nomads travelling in pursuit of game. We’ve exhausted all strategies, scoured different lands, and have seemingly come up empty-friended.

Probably the closest we have come to increasing our clan size was a Thursday evening in early October. It was almost a full moon, the temperature was just right for friend-making. We were at a local Irish pub when lo and behold, at the adjacent table were a murder of obronis; time to prepare for the kill. After exchanging pleasantries, we determined that the fair-skinned strangers were Teaching Fellows based in Accra for a year; you don’t say. Thinking we had the rabbit by its tail, we extended a warm hand and offered to merge tables. All signs were a go until one of the girls in the group informed us that she would rather play Dominos with her Fellows. Shut down. We spent the rest of our evening hiding in our cloud of rejection. We lost to a set of tablets with dots.

So, frankly, I was excited when I was put in contact with another obroni, an American student studying in Accra for the semester, who seemed equally eager to make friends in this anteater-eat-ant world. We elected to meet up for a drink at a local spot to sow the seeds of what would hopefully develop into a lifelong, or rather month-long, (constrained by the end of her study abroad program) friendship. Everything was proceeding towards mutualism, until she excused herself to use the wash room.

Upon returning, she proceeded, I’ve been meaning to ask. So I’m sitting on the edge of my seat, waiting for the question. Wondering how long she’s been meaning to ask, since at this point, we’ve known one another for less than an hour. I’m thinking she used the time in the wash room to mentally prepare – we’re about to get deep. Can you smell ants? What? Do I smell ants? No, but I do see dead people. How was I supposed to respond to that? I should have known that this was only intended to get her foot in the door. Once the door was open, I found myself sponging up useless facts about ants, such as this one: ants taste spicy. I know this because one time, my “friend” left her open Doritos bag outside overnight, found it the next morning, stuck her hand in and proceeded to eat the ant-covered Doritos. I suggested maybe the bag was the Blazin’ Jalapeno variety, but (thankfully and perhaps excusably?) this incident took place years ago before the proliferation of Doritos flavors.

But I am an optimist at heart. I will not let my continual strike outs prevent me from swinging the bat. I have learned an important lesson though. Don’t swing at every pitch. And if you give an ant a cookie it might turn down the glass of milk and decide to play dominos instead.

Jessica

In my few months in Accra, I have observed some common Ghanaian company naming themes. I’ve determined that small businesses follow a proven formula that try to capitalize on one of three strategies:

1. Pander to the middle. Don’t try to oversell yourself. For example, Average Spot is an anything-but-unique spot where you can find Average Restaurant and Average Car Wash Bay. If it’s average quality you’re looking for, that’s us. I find their value proposition rather compelling.

2. Appeal to religion. Classic examples include Our Daily Bread Bakery and The Lord is Our Shepherd General Store. The consumer is either compelled to purchase (as is the case with Our Daily Bread for fear that purchasing from a competing bakery could result in one’s last supper) or repelled from purchase (I can’t help but think of the next line of Psalms 23:1…there is nothing I shall want from this store).

But my overall favorite is through door number three.

3. Assign femininity. Sometimes I see the connection. For example, the hair salon down the road is named Miss Etroo’s Hair Salon, I’m assuming after the salon owner. Others are less clear. For example, the high quality peanuts I purchase from the MaxMart are branded Becky Queen. Who made the decision that Becky should be royalty? Is this the justification for charging a premium price? The brand that causes constipation, I mean consternation, is Jessica. Who possibly thought that Jessica would make a good brand name for toilet paper? Give a man some privacy.

I’m contemplating opening a consultancy with the sole purpose of helping small businesses develop meaningful business names. To maximize customer interest, I’m thinking of naming my consultancy Ann Average Lord.

Dessert Storm

Sometimes I forget that I am spending a year in Ghana, far removed from friends and family. With reliable (relatively speaking) internet access, it is easy to stay virtually connected. Other times I realize that the Atlantic Ocean is slightly more imposing than, say, London Bridge.

In early August, my mother put together a thoughtful care package to ship abroad. Included in the package were some freshly baked homemade brownies. Well, I’ve concluded that there’s a bottleneck somewhere in the process. Intercontinental mail has redefined my definition of snail mail. Approximately three months later, I am still awaiting the arrival of this package. But who’s counting?

As September came to a close, my mother emailed me (e > snail) a note of apology, and informed me that she had learned from her mistakes. Included in this email was a link to a 26-page Department of Defense recipe for brownies and a quip about how she should have followed this recipe instead. The benefit of these brownies – a three year lifespan, which coincidentally, is about the average lifespan of a snail.

This story supports the following conclusions:

A. The Bermuda triangle is real.

B. Snails make better escargot.

C. The Federal government spent approximately the same on Dessert Storm as it did on Desert Storm.

Anyway, I can’t wait to sink my teeth into those freshly baked brownies when they finally arrive!

The Curious Incident of the Travelling Church in the Nighttime

Just when I think all of the stars are aligned against me, I come to realize that there are more stars. Such is case when it comes to the curious incident of the travelling church in the nighttime. I already assumed the variables, to include the variable time, were optimized to maximize my disfavor. But this assumption was grounded on the assumption that time was constrained by the human compulsion for sleep.

Contrary to my original belief, I’ve learned that time is neither uniform nor discrete. It is not uniform because I value certain time (e.g., night-time) more than other time. And it is not discrete because there are certain periods where time is no longer black and white, but rather gray. Were you at that fraternity party until late last night or early this morning? Gray.

Well, the tree came crashing through my window during a gray period late last night or early this morning. The travelling church was back with a vengeance, commencing worship in the middle of the night. Literally, the middle of the night?! The upside was that the travelling church heeded my advice and abandoned the camouflage tent. The downside was the congregation failed to eliminate the underlying visibility problem. My next recommendation: God could probably see you better in the daylight instead of beneath the stars, which you may notice, are now all aligned.

London Bridge

When compiling a list of important travel accessories, one cannot afford to overlook the omniscient travel guide book. So before I left America and all of her great qualities (to include, as I’ve discovered, but not limited to: wine and cheese, quiet time, the GOP) I decided to invest in the gift of knowledge, purchasing the Bradt Ghana travel guide.

Through trial and error I have come to learn that on (nearly every) occasion the narrative of the guidebook is telling only part of the story. It’s as if the author thought it would be clever to withhold information so the reader could experience Ghana in an entirely different way. For example, Bradt informed me that it would cost $5 to participate in the Canopy Walk at Kakum National Park. Bradt forgot to mention the one that precedes the five. $15 and empty pockets later, my cohort and I learned the art of hitch-hiking to the local Barclays ATM.

So when, on a weekend excursion, I read that we were close to London Bridge, I couldn’t resist suggesting a visit. Bradt described the bridge as a rather odd and unimposing little bridge dating to the late 19^th century and appropriately garnished with painted United Jacks and the like – it’s worth crossing if only to have a fruit juice at Baab’s juices. After some discussion as to whether or not the walk in the heat was worth the fruit juice at the end of the bridge, we agreed to take our chances.

Unimposing it was. I didn’t realize I had crossed the bridge until I found myself outside of Baab’s juices (closed for the day). Turning around, I realized that the gutter I had stepped across was, in fact, London Bridge. I can only wonder if the reason Baab’s juices was closed on such a warm afternoon was due to juice junkie’s unwillingness to cross the unimposing little bridge.

Faith

On my walk back from the gym one afternoon, I received a brochure from the Glory Gate Chapel informing me that God loves me big time. I was advised to look for a Bible believing Church and this would be the first step of my super Acceptance of His Super Love.

So, when one of my Ghanaian friends invited me to attend a church service with him, I quickly jumped at the opportunity. I knew I would be in for a cultural treat.

We would set off for church at 7:30am…early, yes, but very manageable since the travelling church that was once outside my room has decided to take up permanent residence and commences service at 6:30am.

Well, unbeknownst to me, new worshipers are invited to sit in the front row of the congregation. While I suspect it’s an attempt to bring me closer to God, I could think of a few additional reasons, (a) to make sure that I don’t fall asleep in the back of the congregation and (b) to transform me into a public spectacle since I can no longer rely on cues from my neighbor as to when I should sit and stand.

The church conformed to my preconceptions surrounding African traditions often associated with charismatic churches: the preacher’s tittup across the stage, the praise Gods, and the worship songs and hymns. I did not, however, anticipate playing such an important role in the service. Maybe because I was a first-timer or maybe because I was the only obruni in attendance, the preacher made a point to make me a focal point of his stories.

My favorite (or most terrifying) story was one he told about me and my wife. Even though I know she loved me, when my wife was about to deliver my baby, she was out of her mind and told me that I was despicable. Somehow this story was tied to the seasons, but I guess I was so distraught with my wife finding me despicable that I failed to grasp the connection of the seasons.

I suppose I didn’t mind being front and center. I mean, after all, if I hadn’t been there, how would I have ever found out that my wife was having a baby? Who knew? God works in mysterious ways.

Grocery Games

One thing I have yet to fully grasp is the local flavor for pricing products. I do most of my grocery shopping at the local MaxMart, located just down the street from where I teach. And a month and a half into my residence in Accra, I have yet to comprehensively understand how goods are priced.

One thing I have picked up on – the use of discount pricing is rather popular for items that are overstocked and also that are going to expire yesterday. Actually, the MaxMart must have just hired a local marketing director, because just last week, they introduced a campaign where, if a consumer spends 40 cedis (the local currency) in a single purchase, the lucky consumer is shuffled to the wheel. The wheel, much akin to “The Big Wheel” on The Price is Right, is spun amidst bated breath as fellow shoppers wait to see which expired perishable is selected among the farrago of provisions. Speaking from experience, my colleagues and I have changed our consumer behavior. Instead of making separate purchases, we now pool our purchases to see which day-too-old crème cookie we can walk away with.

But my favorite game to play at the grocery store is actually what I’ve come to call the “Scavenger Hunt.” It’s not a well advertised game, but it’s a game in which the consumer scavenges around for the best price-volume ratio. Sometimes I even wonder if MaxMart has a random number generator used to assign prices to the products. For example, a basic can of Heinz Baked Beans can sell for as cheap as 1 cedi. Directly next to the Heinz Baked Beans sits a can of Heinz (same brand, same volume) Pork Baked Beans selling for 10 cedis. What?

The other day, I walked in to quench my thirst and buy a Coca-Cola. I had four options as diagramed below where price (in cedis) is the unit of measurement:

Scavenger hunt success. I’ll take the larger volume for the cheaper price with the pre-chilled convenience, thank you. I’m already enjoying the weekly scavenger hunts. I can’t wait to see what type of hunt MaxMart rolls out for Easter!

Coasting through the Cape

With Eid Ul Fitr and the complimentary bank holiday, I was presented with a three day weekend for the first time since arriving in Ghana. So what better way to spend it than to travel to the (in)famous Cape Coast. Famously known as the home to Kofi Annan, and the ancestral home to Michelle Obama, it also boasts the Cape Coast Castle, infamously known for being a critical trading center during the slave trade.

The Fellows and I set off for Cape Coast on Friday, at sunrise, with the notion that the intercity bus ride would afford us a few additional hours of sleep. What we did not anticipate was the Ghanaian approach to mass transit. After paying our fare and boarding the bus, we took our seats and shut our eyes, only to be awakened (or Awakened, depending on how one looks at it) by a traveling preacher.

Since he was preaching in Twi, the local dialect, a language for which I can cogently only decipher select phrases such as what’s up? and thank you, my initial inclination was to believe that mayhap he was giving us a safety presentation. As it turns out, he was simply preaching. Defeated in my attempt to nap, the rest of the bus attentively hung to his every word, laughed at his jokes (which I came to find out later from our Ghanaian colleague, were using us as the punch line!), and even worshiped together in song. The sermon concluded near the end of our transport, where the preacher pulled out some over-the-counter anti-inflammatory drugs and peddled them off to the eager consumer. By the time I stepped off the bus, I was not only exhausted but was entirely disillusioned by this exploitation of religion for personal financial advancement. Ironically, the anti-inflammatory drugs might have served me well right about then.

Between stops at some seaside resorts and a side-excursion to Kakum National Park for an adventurous canopy walk, stories for another time and place (place being defined as stationary, not transitory) we soon again found ourselves in need of transportation. Having spent the better part of an hour waiting for hauling, we befriended a local university’s campus Christians who happened to have a chartered bus and happened to be travelling in our same direction. They generously opened their bus doors and allowed us to stand in the aisle. After a quick opening prayer, we (we being loosely defined) proceeded to worship using a video that spliced together various hymns recorded in the 1980s. The only one I recognized was You Raise Me Up, to which I had difficulty relating after my first church-on-the-go.

One thing is certain; my weekend in and around Cape Coast raised my understanding of travelling church to a whole new level.

If a Tree Falls in the Woods

Before I left for Ghana, my Staff Manual specifically stated “There is less of a concept in Ghana that the noise someone makes, at any hour, intrudes on someone else’s privacy.” It went on for a few paragraphs, which I wrote off as a mere jeremiad – after all, I survived living in an American university setting. Well, it didn’t take me long to realize that I had underestimated the Ghanaian decibels and overestimated my numbness to my surroundings.

As it turns out, it is socially acceptable (heaven knows why) to make a ruckus at any time of day. A hypothetical example: Everyone is sleeping in our hostel because it is hypothetically 1am and you are watching the sports highlights in the TV room. You find out that your favorite team won the game. It is entirely acceptable for you to make merry down the entire hall to ensure everyone else is immediately aware of your team’s victory.

For the most part, the human body adjusts. I don’t know the science behind it, but my subconscious has learned to treat some audible stimuli as white noise, like the blind roosters who don’t realize that it’s only 3am. There are a few exceptions to this policy.

For the first few weeks, I swear someone had set up a theater stage right outside my window. In ten minute intervals, a throng of Ghanaians would be cheering and clapping for the performance that just ended. I guess I can’t complain since they had the decency to provide me a courtesy balcony seat that normally demands a premium price. Thankfully, I have not been invited back in a few weeks, and am hopeful that it was more of a traveling act than an established venue.

Then there are the morning buses. The buses are the primary transportation to and from schools, churches, magic shows, basically anything. Best practice is to quite literally sit upon the horn until you are guaranteed that everyone in Western Africa is aware of your arrival. My hypothesis is that the horn serves as a final alarm clock if you have (heaven knows how) accidentally slept through morning speakers blasting Michael Jackson or Alan Jackson.

And just when I thought I had seen (or rather heard) it all. This morning the local Ghanaians literally erected a church right outside my window. Commencing at 6:30am, nothing shy of 100 Ghanaians joined in worship and praise, attempting to collectively reach the ears of the heavens. And in true Ghanaian tradition, the worship portion of the service lasted until after 9am, when I finally left my hostel. On my way out, I couldn’t help but notice that the devotees all stood beneath a large camouflage tent. No wonder the parish was singing so loudly; they were simply trying to get God’s attention, and seeing as God couldn’t see them beneath the camouflage, they were making a solid appeal to His other senses.

I’m not sure if my life is The Truman Show, but I’m fairly certain that if a tree were to fall in the woods here, first, the woods and woodpeckers would be transported right outside my window, second, chainsaws would be responsible for the fall, and third, just to be sure, it would come crashing through my window.

The Emperor’s New Clothes

I’ve encountered a seemingly small obstacle in my first few weeks. Personal hygiene is not something I am fond of sacrificing, and approximately ¼ of the weight of my luggage could be attributed to my desire to maintain a socially acceptable minimum aseptic standard. In retrospect, this may be overkill , but I was merely trying to live by the Boy Scout motto be prepared.

Since clothing is an extension of the physical, laundry is, of course, compulsory. Thankfully, my office has a small washing machine that makes the task of doing laundry much more efficient and manageable. Due to the naturally hot environment, clotheslines and clothespins are seen as a credible substitute for a dryer. Again, no problem.

Problem: timing. I have quickly emerged among my peers as the most accurate weatherman in all of Accra. Inevitably, the entire community now knows that when I put my clothes on the line to dry, a deluge is merely 30 minutes away. For whatever reason, anytime I go to dry my clothes, it inevitably downpours, resulting in my clean clothes smelling worse than before they were washed and impossible to wear. I blame it on the fact that we are at the end of the rainy season, where it rains nearly every day. But this hardly seems like a credible excuse when everyone else is managing fine.

At the current rate, I’m quickly running out of fresh clothes and have amassed a suitcase or two worth of mildew. It won’t be long before I’m entirely out of clean clothes and resorting to a clothing line similar to that featured in the Emperor’s New Clothes.

That's Where We Want to Go, Way Down in Ada Foah

There’s a long standing question used to gauge personality; Mountains or Beaches? While I have developed a love for exploring the outdoors, somewhere along the incunabulum of my youth, I developed a beach bias. Much of my youth summer was spent on the shore – where I became intimately familiar with my family’s beach condo in Dewey Beach.

I used to enjoy leaving our property to go hang out in the sand of the beach property next door. The owner was a crotchety scrooge of a lady, who had her collection of water toys, that served just that purpose; to be a collection (the transition from the Hoveround electric scooter to the jet ski was just too much). I enjoyed hanging out on her beach searching for the horseshoe crabs that occasionally ventured to shore to mate. It didn’t take long before the Grinch posted a wired fence along with a no trespassing sign. Needless to say, she and I did not get along. She never even game me a chance. So a young lad was interested in mating arthropods; why rush to judgment?

I also have (mostly) fond memories of crabbing off the dock (the equivalent of fishing for crustaceans). There, of course, were exceptions. The dock was structured such that there were narrow offshoots from the pier’s main walkway. My grandfather specifically instructed me not to venture onto the narrow walkway; my plump and uncoordinated body made me ill-suited for anything other than the main dock. So, of course, like any boy would do, I ventured out onto the side pier. The crabs were more abundant out where the pier was narrow I rationalized. Well, it didn’t take long before I bellied up in the bay, and now there I was, trying to stay afloat in (abundantly) crab-infested water! My grandfather just shook his head. That will teach you. It did. Next time, I would forgo catching crabs off the dock in exchange for catching (horseshoe) crabs on the spoilsport’s beach.

Alas, my youth harvested in me a yearning for the beach. Not surprisingly, I’ve managed to spend my first two weekends in Ghana at the beach. With my new collection of Obruni colleagues, we decided to venture to Ada Foah, an expat friendly beach resort a few hours outside of Accra. So we took a taxi to a bus to a canoe to an island and by nightfall we arrived at Ada Foah. Accommodations are provided on a reservation system akin to what I call first-come, first-served. So since the apparent travel across the universe took longer than expected, all rooms were already full. As were those at the neighboring resort. We were luckily able to negotiate a room – the resort’s shed. Seven guys in one shed. I don’t know. I heard the Ural Mountains aren’t that bad.

Trans-Atlantic Transition

A funny thing happens when you go from the daily well-travelled routine of a consultant to the unknown working environment of Ghana. You’re life is like a pineapple upside down cake right side up, like a peanut butter and jelly sandwich without the bread (and sans peanut butter, but oh how I miss peanut butter…okay so just jelly); life is incomprehensibly crazy. In advance of my full time job as an Obruni, I found myself running ragged across the Washington DC metropolitan area preparing for my great departure.

The weekend before I parted with the 3G network, I attended the wedding of two of my good friends, Bernard and Liz. While walking to the wash room at my friend’s wedding, I was approached by a boy asking my age. When I informed him that I was 24, he seemed unable to believe I could be so old. In turn, I asked him his age. He was 9. He then proceeded to inform me that he felt sorry that I still had my braces on, seeing as his sister, although only 15, already had her retainer. Really? Well, thankfully my braces finally came off, along with my pre-teen guise. But the normalcy was short-lived. I simply swapped abnormalities; going from adult braces to being a white-skinned American in Ghana. I guess I just can’t resist being different.

There was also the matter of health. Before my year-long adventure, there were, of course, the compulsory vaccinations (and the not so compulsory ones the travel clinician tried to persuade me to take. A three part painful series for rabies that cost $200 per shot – no thanks on account of this not being Jumanji and just think of how much peanut butter I can import with $600). On top of that, I had my first MRI, held at Children’s Hospital. Well, the great thing about Children’s Hospital is that you can choose what music you want to listen to during the testing. The selection book contained a diverse set of albums from Hannah Montana 1 to Hannah Montana 2, so I selected the most mature album, John Legend, which consequently lulled my into a sleepy state that was difficult to combat. Lesson learned. Next time, I’ll pick something more upbeat. Maybe Ricky Martin.

And on top of everything else, I studied for and took the Graduate Management Admission Test, most commonly known as the GMAT. By practicing my critical reasoning skills, I learned about important facts of life. For example:

Question: It is true of both men and women that those who marry as young adults live longer than those who never marry. This does not show that marriage causes people to live longer, since, as compared with other people of the same age, young adults who are about to get married have fewer of the unhealthy habits that can cause a person to have a shorter life, most notably smoking and immoderate drinking of alcohol.

Which of the following, if true, most strengthens the argument above?

Answer. Among people who as young adults neither drink alcohol immoderately nor smoke, those who never marry live as long as those who marry.

Since when did the GMAT need to start providing social commentary?

But the transition is officially complete. After a few frantic weeks in the States and a few frantic weeks in Ghana, (and a few sleepless nights and a few foodless days on account of illness) I believe I have successfully transitioned. What better way to start my next chapter; True Life: I’m an Obruni.

Fauna No More

The other weekend, my roommates and I had a handful of friends over. In the course of our normal (or abnormal to any other reasonable person) conversation, the topic inevitably progressed to animality. For whatever reason, I have found myself in a congeries of conversations with this peer group, ranging from the reproductive nature of sea creatures to the posturing of quadrupeds during sleep.

So it was only logical that our conversation inevitably turned to a unique food item that speculators believed included animal product; the marshmallow. This stout cylindrical fluff, best known for its leading role in the delicatessen s’mores, was suggested to contain horse hooves. Amidst gasps and outright denials, stealthy investigation led to the conclusion that in fact, animal bones, skins, and hides are used. To top it all off, due to the extensive processing, the federal government does not even consider the marshmallow an animal product. Woof. (At least, that’s what I think the wolf said before he was skinned!)

I seemingly found this information fascinating and repulsive, and marshmallow abstinence is an early front runner for next year’s resolution. While recounting this story to my friend Ben, he decided to illuminate the fact that red velvet cake contains the food colorant carmine, which happens to be made from Central and South American ground beetles. Turning to my viral myth buster, Snopes, I once again felt victimized by this unpublicized reality. One might call this egoistic, seeing as the actual victim in this cake is the beetle.

Based on my fairly scientific research, this simple sample of two reveals that the fifth food group atop the pyramid is not fats, oils, and sweets, but rather horses, beetles and unicorns. It hasn’t been proven yet, but I’m putting money on nutritionists discovering traces of unicorn horn in that trendy cupcake shop down the street.

Iced Iced Baby

For the past few months, I have observed with awe and a tinge of fear as the frenzy of Bros Icing Bros catapulted to feature articles on CNN and in the New York Times. The novel concept behind Bros Icing Bros, the effeminizing of the masculine, the simplicity of the rules, has officially launched an epidemic that will likely result in the coming of the next Ice Age.

The game is summarized by two simple rules.

1. When presented with a Smirnoff Ice, the Bro must drink it while kneeling (Getting iced).

2. When getting iced, a Bro can present their own Smirnoff Ice to cause the initiator to be iced instead (ice block).

Since first being introduced to the game, I made two complementary lifestyle choices:

1. Never attempt to ice a bro, in a subtle attempt to forge an implicit strategic alliance with fellow bros so as to avoid all contact with ice.

2. Assist all bros in becoming self-sufficient. Example: Can you grab my hat while you’re over there? (Read: If you pick up my hat, you’ll be iced.) No.

Well, my chameleonic strategy of fading into the background has done nothing but backfire (or backice). In the span of one week, I have officially fallen victim to this bubbly cancer, not once, not twice, not thrice, but four times!

1. Reaching for a popsicle. Not content with the orange and grape flavors at the top, I scavenged for the green one all the way at the bottom. Digging my hand deep into the bag, Bam. Iced.

2. Yearning to fill the void in my stomach, I opened the microwave to heat some leftovers. Bam. Iced.

3. Opening what I believed to be a cooler full of sandwich essentials taken to the beach. Bam. Iced.

4. Grabbing a beer from the case in the refrigerator. Bam. Iced.

The troubling thing is that all four icings have resulted from need for nourishment. My analysis has concluded that only a strategy of starvation could have prevented these icings. I suppose the silver lining is that I’m playing in the minor leagues, with the standard 11 ounce Smirnoff Ice. The big deuce deuce would most certainly be my Waterloo.