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.