The Trip that Wasn't

It’s always been a goal of mine to ensure that people feel that they are not imposing. And for the most part, I believe I’ve been rather successful. Perhaps too successful. In college, all of my friends, many of my acquaintances, and some strangers, knew that my room was open to anyone for any purpose. (And people took some liberties with the definition of purpose here – anything from watching television and grabbing a soda from the refrigerator to taking a nap in my bed and holding an Easter egg hunt in my room. The contents of the Easter eggs – my personal belongings, such as iPod ear buds, cuff links, etc.). This trend continued as I progressed through my early twenties, hosting countless friends at my apartment throughout the holidays. (One New Years I barely had enough space for all the guests – most illustrious of this was the sight of my friend Andrew slumbered beneath the Christmas tree).

So I made it royally clear (not Kate Middleton royal) to all my friends back home that they were welcome to visit me in Ghana at any point in time. I would be happy to show them around my new home. Unfortunately, the $1500 plane ticket put my friendship a little out of everyone’s price range. The only person committed to visit was one of my best friends, Bowman, whose residence in Jordan made friendship more affordable.

Bowman was going to spend Easter break in Ghana and, making it clear that there would be no Easter egg hunts in my room, I was thrilled to have a visitor. In the weeks leading up to the visit, I provided an itinerary and packing advice, and was strategizing on how best to give a real Ghanaian cultural and culinary treat. Two days before his arrival, I received an email. Subject: visa? Contents: I can get a visa at the airport right!?!?!?!?!?!? AH!!!! freakout! The answer, as we soon discovered, is no. Whoops. We seemingly both overlooked this major step.

As with everything in my life, I began to cause a scene. We were brainstorming elaborate workarounds, like flying into neighboring Togo and sneaking across the border. All in all, we called it off because there were too many unknowns. But not before I involved a consortium of Ghanaians to help solve our problem. Unfortunately, hindsight told us that the real solution here was foresight.

So with under a day before my Easter vacation began, I went groveling to my colleagues, begging to be a last minute add-on to their Easter adventure. Thankfully they didn’t mind. Ironically, I am often the one who spearheads the planning effort for our staff outings. Perhaps it’s time to pull me from the starting line-up and bring in the relief planner.