Roaming Iomi

I took a little trip to Ghana over the summer with my friend Heidi. We hadn't really planned on going to Africa ever again, but when we got the chance, we decided to do it. At the time, I was just about to turn 30, and random people kept asking me whether I was worried, and giving me this look, like, "Aren't you terrified?!?" I started to get the feeling that they suspected I'd go to sleep on my birthday eve as myself and then suddenly wake up in the morning as a hunched over old woman who could barely move, wearing crazy, mismatched homemade skirts and using a cane. What craziness! How silly! I am in the prime of my life, and I plan to be so for the next four thirds of my life. So imagine my surprise when my almost-thirty trip to Ghana went a little something like this:

First day:

Last day:

Yes, that's a cane, and yes, I could barely walk. What happened? Read on to find out!

The trip started innocently enough, we were setting off to a place that I'd neither researched nor ever really heard much about, as one does from time to time. We hopped a plane in New York, and downed a combination of spicy Ghanaian airplane food (you don't need to ask, it was very bad and still better than the American version), craptastic screw-top wine, and for Heidi, some Sudafed.

Throw in a little Tylenol PM, and the sunset out the window becomes quite colorful:

Finally, after eleventybillion hours of flying, we arrived. We deplaned and were ordered to line up and were given no information about where we were going or why. We then boarded a tram, which transported us about 20 feet to the next building, where we got off of the train. In hindsight, we should have known at that precise moment that we were entering the twilight zone.

Instead, we passed through security and picked up our bags.

Just outside the airport exit, there was this helpful sign:

Which is bossy, but doesn't tell you what the actual airport uniforms are supposed to look like. All kinds of fraudsters approached us, and soon we were surrounded by a group of men who were trying to sell us all kinds of things, and what we thought at the time was strange- people asking us for Oprah magazines, claiming that they really enjoyed reading them.

We found out why later:

They sell for the equivalent of $23 each. That's quite a price when the average annual income is $520.

We slowly explored a bit. Ghana is a proud and lovely country, with a lot of interesting things to see. They are quite independent, and lead the African continent in some regards. While we were there they were looking forward to election day, and people freely celebrated their pride in being able to hold free and fair elections. We saw amazing Kente cloth, and I realized that Ghana is the country which much of the African art that we in the States originates from, and the art scene there is very rich. We found people to be extremely friendly and helpful, often stopping everything to answer questions or help us and others along our way. We visited historical landmarks, and learned about some of the extreme highs and lows of Ghanaian history.

Of course, that stuff is quite interesting and important, but none of that is why you're here. Ghana has gold, cocoa, and freedom, but the real gold mine to me was the plethora of wacky signage.

Behold:

Dread Lucks.

The Odor View cafe. Starring Lover Boy.

Phone Mines! Friendly network!

Touch His Garment Fashion Centre.

There is this interesting and surprising wealth of signpainting skill in Ghana- and we were amazed by how many shops have their wares visually represented on the outside. It's actually quite clever. Some were a little distorted and/or faded, but most were pretty amazing.

And then you have the baby-which-is-twice-as-scary-as-the-gun-wielding-guy type of sign:

Copyrights mean absolutely nothing:

No, really- nothing.

A joy agent! Sounds pretty good. Wait, what are they selling? Bedrooms? Huh?

Confederate Elvis sticker in a shop:

Lots of shops had mysteriously religious names:

Seen here: God is One Battery Center.

At one point we went to a rainforest, which was quite lovely, but had a LOT of very strict signs:

If I saw a cigarette (joint?) burst into flames as shown here, I'd probably paint a sign, too.

This one makes sense.

Here's a sign that whose meaning is so clear that I'm not sure the illustration is strictly necessary:

But that's not the only sign about bodily functions. We saw them everywhere:

Apparently the ceiling is fair game.

I suppose if you're handpainting everything, you might sometimes run out of room and have to start writing really small. It's just like when you see a sign around the neighborhood that says "GARAGE SAle" or some such.

Here's a scary one:

But here is the topper. This is how I picture the scenario where someone says "Wipe that smirk of your face" would look if you actually managed to accomplish exactly that:

We also happened into a few shops, where we discovered a kind sense of marketing genius we had not previously known:

Here's some Arabic Uncle Ben's, which I thought should have been named Uncle Bin's:

But it's nice to know that we only export our absolute finest products to Ghana, and of course most logically by way of someplace in the Middle East.

For the drunk who's not sure what is an appropriate time to start drinking:

That one spells it right out for you.

This one is pretty close to what I consider myself to be:

And here- why lie, when your product just doesn't taste good?

Or- when you've finished a long day of hunting for endangered animals, who wouldn't reach for the vinegar that refreshes?

This seemed to be some sort of unfortunately-named exercise machine:

There's something about this chocolate bar that makes me want to sing:

For the family who wants to look like geishas together:

Though this soap seems more modern:

The name of this stuff was so appealing, I brought the jar home for my sweetie:

This one's for everyone who had to eat this crud in Kenya- the nastiest, most foul, no-refrigeration-needed margarine-type-product that was so ubiquitous my awesome friend Jamie dressed up as it for Halloween:

This one might be the topper:

Weani Mix! Doesn't it look delicious? And the best part is that it's Selasie brand, which ties in nicely with last year's Ethiopia trip.

You know a guy is cool if he's drinking this:

And that he uses this for all of his baking needs:

But he buys the lady(ies) in his life this:

If you take a close look at that one, you'll see some pretty awesome dance moves depicted on there. Romance!

Moving on. While Ghana is quite distinct from the other African countries we'd visited, everyday life in Ghana for our two week stay was somewhat similar to what we had experienced previously. Here's Heidi washing dishes:

I helped by taking photos while she scrubbed.

Here's me stirring dinner:

We drank water constantly. Some of it came in little plastic bags which were eerily reminiscent of silicone implants:

We ate snacks constantly, too. Here's Heidi with some mysteriously addictive chips we found:

We went to a few restaurants as well. This one featured homos with meat:

 A popular product, I'm sure.

For those of you who are longtime readers (hi, mom!), you may remember the incredibly creepy rendition of a caucasian mannequin that we found in Addis Ababa. Here is some evidence that the Ghanaian white mannequin has a much more stylish, if even less realistic thing going on:

That is an optimistically massive hairdo for some white girls. If I could grow it, you know that I would.FYI, the African-looking mannequins looked totally normal.

We managed to stop into a few cafes for refreshment. We particularly enjoyed this one, seeing as how Heidi and I are rounding out on about 13 years of friendship:

But our favorite was this one:

While we were relaxing in cafes, I came to remember why I came back from my year in Kenya with 11 (!) cavities. It's scorchingly hot, and while some water is available from time to time, it's rarely if ever refrigerated. The refrigerators are generally saved for meats, but you can usually find cold Coca-Cola wherever you go. Now that we're not teenagers anymore, we didn't really want to just drink too-sweet drinks the whole time, but the rare club soda we found did not taste all that great. Fear not, my brilliant friend Heidi found a great solution:

We promptly named this move "The Walrus." It worked so well that soon we were doing the "Triple Walrus":

We also did a little bit of traveling, which was surprisingly convenient and easy. We had been told that every popular tourist site is on a little cycle, and we'd see the same tourists over and over again once we started doing tourist stuff, and boy was that true. "There are the Italian guys again." "There's that shy Canadian couple." "There's the lady that talks loudly through every tour." It didn't matter how far you went, you'd see them again.

We ended up staying in a little "Botel" by the coast. If you don't know what it a Botel is, this won't help, because it isn't one. Botels are Boat Hotels, just like you'd think, and you often find them in cute places like The Netherlands. This one was a series of islands on a crocodile infested pond, but it was also somehow quite cute anyway. The islands had little buildings on top connected by bridges. The staff would come out every so often and "entertain" you by whacking the crocodiles with sticks and feeding them stuff.

That's a group of US college students enjoying the staffer (who is hidden behind the tree in this shot) whacking that dinosaur-looking crocodile with the stick that is visible poking off to the right of that shot.

It's kind of incredible that everywhere you go, tourists like the absolute crappiest stuff. Let me prove my case right here.

Figure 1. The "Botel" had some sweet paddle boats in the pond. That's right. In the crocodile-infested pond. As you can see here, they had a good bit of water in them when we arrived and had lunch. We joked about how no idiot would be caught paying to ride one of those.

Figure 2: Some idiots paid to ride one of those.

Figure 3: Aforementioned idiots pay and then stand there while a staffer bales out the boat with a small soup bowl.

Figure 4: The kickoff.

Figure 5: "So long, suckers!"

Figure 6: What a lark!

Figure 7: "What's that log floating in the pond?"

Figure 8: "Hey, here's a GREAT idea- let's stand up and tip the boat! That will make the girls giggle. What fun!"

In sum: sometimes you are proud to be an American. Sometimes you are not. OF COURSE these people were my fellow countrymen. Of course.

For those readers worried about their fate, despite their best attempts, this crew of fools did not end up falling in.

Here was a classy fountain which was also in the crocodile infested pond:

Ok so. You're probably wondering by now what the heck happened that necessitated a cane, which fortunately had nothing to do with the crocidiles or the botel.

It all started innocently enough. Heidi and I were traipsing about Ghana, feeling quite independent. We had each been to a few African countries, and quite a few other countries, before. We'd stayed in much simpler accommodations, and eaten far scarier food, and we'd each done stupid things, such as the time I was quite thirsty while hiking through a rainforest in Kenya and I decided it would be fine to drink river water just the once. We'd survived thieves, and worse, and we were fine. We'd had all manner of random colds and digestive ailments while traveling over the years. We had taken the shots. And there was Ghana- what the guidebooks touted as "Africa for beginners" and we were tempted to agree. The transportation is quite easy and accessible, folks are friendly and helpful, almost everyone speaks English amazingly well, etc, etc... you can see where this is going.

We went out walking almost every day, and the nice man named Talk True who worked in our hotel would yell at us in a jovial manner, "OBRONI! You walk too much. You should let me call a guide." Obroni is the Ghanaian equivalent of "gringo", by the way. We'd wave him off and continue on our way- guides were very expensive, sometimes grumpy, treated us like giant spoiled babies, and were just an overall waste of time. To put this in perspective, some of the other US Americans we ran into were terrified to walk out the front gate to buy water at the corner, while we chuckled, thinking of all of the things we'd seen previously, and how simple and easy it all was in Ghana. We started hatching plans to jump the border to Togo without return visas, just for the fun of it.

As the laws of overconfidence dictate, I soon got my comeuppance. We were walking about downtown one day, visiting art museums and such, and after a couple of hours I felt that I might be getting just the beginnings of a blister on the back of each heel. Anyone who has traveled and walked through art museums can probably relate. Everything was fine once I switched to sandals, and, I swear to you, not even a layer of skin looked broken. I'm not trying to gross you out, I'm just trying to justify the fact that when I woke up a couple of nights later in screamingly agonizing pain due to giant back-of-heel wounds, it was a complete surprise.

Heidi jumped into action and helped me hobble down the steps and out the front gate once the sun was up. Talk True followed us down the path, yelling what amounted to an unhelpful "I told you so" as we went, and Heidi, true friend that she is, gave him a deadly stinkeye.

We hailed a cab and went to a very dirty "clinic" that Talk True recommended, which turned out to be defunct, and Heidi ended up walking into what was now someone's living room when she went in to investigate. We got back into the cab to head somewhere new and realized that this particular cab had two faults: 1. the exhaust was rerouted directly into our faces, and 2. the driver's seat came sliding back into my knees every time we turned or stopped, which ended up being quite excruciating.

At the second not-too-clean clinic, we paid and then promptly fired the driver and caught a functioning cab to the big hospital down by the Kofi Anaan center. Just like goldilocks, the last one was clean and lovely.

While I waited for the doctor, Heidi helped me fill out the paperwork. I had to become a member of the hospital in order to be treated. There was a space for an address, which was funny because the neighborhood we were in doesn't have any addresses. We had to fill in a slot for my tribe and race. We figured I'm an Obroni from the Heidi tribe. Here it is:

I also ended up getting a totally sweet medical card for "future visits" which ended up being my most treasured souvenir.

The doctor was a sweet and patient man, with perfect soft-voiced English. We were somewhat freaked out by the time I entered his office, and I peppered him with questions like, "HOW did this happen?" and "WHY did this happen?" He closed his laptop, took his glasses off, and rubbed his tired eyes. "Maybe," he began, "just maybe... our country is not as clean as your country." Oh, right. As I mentioned, he was a very patient man.

He prescribed some antibiotics and painkillers, and then sent me out to have my wounds cleaned. While we waited, we met a nice young man in line who was waiting for a vaccination and was feeling very nervous because he was terrified of needles. I hereby apologize for what I did to that poor man. A sweet nurse took Heidi and I behind a little curtained-off area, where I had to lay facedown while she cleaned my wounds and poured iodine on them. Heidi was there to hold my hand while I screamed. Heidi sang me some children's songs to help distract me, and the awesome nurse sang along. Overall it wasn't that bad, it was just painful and surprising and stung a lot, which made me yell. It wasn't until we walked out that we realized the poor guy outside was sweating and shaking, after having heard me yelling and them singing, and the fact that the iodine had spilled all over hospital sheets and looked like a bloodbath made it seem like they were torturing people back there. I'm sure he survived.

I had to take lots of pills every few hours on a very particular schedule, so I made a little chart and set the alarm constantly to wake up in the night for doses of antibiotics, painkillers, and the anti-malarials we had been taking already for weeks. These particular ones smelled like a locker room, and after a few days ripened up a bit and took on pigswill topnotes:

I'll let you imagine how they tasted.

At that point, we only had a few days left in Ghana, so I just took it easy. We canceled a few trips, including the now-harebrained-seeming trip to Togo.

I sat around with my feet propped up at various angles and thought about what this all meant. It was clear that "Obroni, slow down- you walk too much!" should have been taken as a warning. Talk True orbited me with an accusing pointed finger reminding me of exactly that throughout the days and evenings. That got old pretty quick, so we decided that I'd need a cane in order to spring myself from the prison of hurt feet, and then at least I'd be able to sit in an accusing-finger-pointing-free cafe or hotel for a few hours.

When choosing a cane, I recommend that you choose wisely. We happened to have met a lovely woodcarver a few days before, so we took a cab down a few yards to his shop to pick one out. We looked at all of the symbolism and discussed it for a while- but in the end there was only one clear choice: a bird looking backwards which symbolizes learning from the past. We talked about the lesson that Ghana was trying to teach me, and decided it would be best to get a carving down the side reading "Slow Your Roll" to help me remember. I brought the cane (and pills) home with me, and after a couple of weeks I was completely healed.

There was a lot more that was awesome, terrible, and/or funny about Ghana, including the most interesting coffins I think I'll ever see in my life, excellent chocolate emblazoned with Ghanaian flags, and the absolute worst airport departure experience I've ever had. But I'll leave all of that for next time I see you, because some things are better in person. Instead, I'll leave you all with this, the sign at the end of my rain forest canopy walk: