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.

Swindle Me This

The other evening, I was dining with an assembly of friends, enjoying my oven baked pizza, salami with fresh mozzarella and grana cheeses, and a sprinkling of grilled peppers, while making pleasant table conversation. Around the time the bill arrived, the conversation transitioned from politics jabber to credit card fraudulence.

Coincidentally, Molly, Kyle and I had all fallen victim to credit card fraud in the past few months. The fact that so many of us have become wounded soldiers in this hustle led me to believe that these thieves were becoming collectively more intelligent and furtive. But the deceitful charges led me to believe the contrary.

Exhibit A: Molly’s identity thief used her American Express card to make a $5 donation to the March of Dimes. While a thoughtful gesture, it is egregiously impractical; committing a felony without any personal payoff. Maybe this lack of practicality when it comes to personal finances is what landed you in need of this knavery in the first place. My personal belief is if you are desperate enough to need to surreptitiously borrow from someone else’s bank account, you’re not really in the position to be giving.

Exhibit B: When I called Wells Fargo to ask why all of my attempted charges were being denied, I was informed of the temporary hold they had placed on my card was a result of suspicious charges. Did you make an $8 charge for breast milk in Detroit, Michigan? This opened the floodgates for the litany of questions running through my head. Do you think I charged $8 for breast milk? You can actually buy breast milk? How much breast milk does $8 buy?

It appears that we’ve entered the age of the Skittish Swindler. What ever happened to the precept Go big or go home? I guess it’s been supplanted by Go big or March home and feed your baby.

Boinked

The point of competing isn’t to trounce the competition, but to elevate yourself. – Cherie Gruenfeld, Inside Triathlon Magazine

My friends Lee and Ryan (also former collegiate athletes who could single-handedly and single-leggedly out athleticize me), recently founded a sports event management group that specializes in producing and hosting triathlons. The name, Elevation Athletics, was partly inspired by the above quotation.

Not long after hearing about the organization’s first Triathlon, to be held in Waynesboro, Virginia, fish-bowl friends/foes Stuart, Rhino, and I fell victim to the Abilene paradox, deciding to participate in the sprint-triathlon, despite this decision being counter to each of our individual preferences of physical apathy.

Preparation: The sprint-triathlon was a combined 400 meter swim, 14.9 mile bike, and 5 kilometer run; the true antithesis of what I might deem sprintable. Against the imploring of Ryan to train for the tri, the three of us found ourselves 24 hours before the race, having collectively forgone all training. I later learned that boinking is the action verb commonly used to describe this extreme physical activity without physical preparation. Perhaps in an attempt to combat the inevitability of our impending death, the day before the race, Rhino stopped by the pool and swam a few laps, Stuart went for a three mile run (after which she admittedly nearly collapsed on her bedroom floor from exhaustion), and I went to my parent’s house to pick up my mountain bike, test riding it two houses down and back. My idea of a sprint-triathlon. We calculatedly decided that the three of us would take on the tri together and collectively cross the finish line as a team.

Start to Finish: Prior to racing, registrants were required to submit their personal 100 meter swim time, off of which the participant order would be determined. Seeing as I had never been timed in the 100 meter swim, I entered Slow as a snail, placing me right behind Stuart, whose 100 meter time was Very slow. Surprisingly, about 10 individuals were queued up behind us (likely due to day-of registration); God bless them. After completing the grueling swim (to which I was mentally hummed VV Brown’s lyric Baby there’s a shark in the water as a means of self motivation), we proceeded to the transition area to move to the bikes. Well, whomever was not ahead of us after the swim certainly surged past us in the bike.Not long into the biking, Rhino had a mountain bike malfunction, her gears getting stuck in a lamentably low gear, resulting in a comedic peddles-per-miles-travelled ratio. Proceeding into the final leg, we paced ourselves during the run (a 12:30 minute mile pace to be specific). We stopped at the final water station to rehydrate and stretch out, the embodiment of chatting around the water cooler, before the last push across the finish line. After all, we wanted to make sure we had enough energy to express our excitement when we crossed the finish line; we had quickly emerged as the fan favorites and did not want to disappoint!

Reflection: The term sprint-triathlon is very deceiving. I would have elected for something along the lines of Traithlong. But I am proud that we lived up the quotation…or at least the first part of it: The point of competing isn’t to trounce the competition, as we finished a respectable 2nd…from last place.