Christmas in May

Back before my heart and blood conspired to remind me of the folly of counting on plans, Andrés, the kids, and I had a notion to spend Christmas at a guest house down the coast in a little village called Kokrobite. It’s only about 30 kilometers from our home in Accra, but it definitely doesn’t feel anything like the big city. It’s a fishing village with a fairly solid tourist industry, but the tourism it offers is not of the high-end luxury variety. It’s known as a backpacker haven, is frequented by surfers, and also draws a significant population of young local partiers. Bob Marley and Rasta regalia feature prominently in the little tourist shops lining the walkway to the beach, and more than once during our visits there I’ve detected a particular, distinctive odor, also associated with Bob Marley and Rasta, along that same walkway.

So maybe it doesn’t sound like the ideal family vacation spot, but before we even left Mexico we read about this place in a Ghana guide book:

http://www.kokrobitegarden.com

We knew very little about it, but it seemed like it could be a good holiday getaway – not right on the beach, so we could choose when and for how long we wanted to be part of that scene, and self-contained with its own restaurant and pool. We didn’t have a car yet, but Kokrobite is accessible by Uber or taxi. And if we got there and found it wasn’t what we’d hoped, we could always turn around spend Christmas at home instead. (Also, we are the same people who spent one Christmas in a yurt at Abilene State Park and another Christmas in a cabin at swampy Caddo Lake, so this felt like a consistent choice.)

But then, of course, my medevac happened. Given that – at that point – nobody knew what was going on with my heart, the doctor here suggested it might not be a great time for me to be an hour or more* away from Accra without a car at our immediate disposal. So we cancelled our trip. We stayed home and ended up having a lovely Christmas – opened presents around a . . . let’s just say character-filled artificial tree Isaiah and I purchased roadside, and ate a delicious Ghanaian meal prepared by our wonderful house helper, Rose, followed by the most expensive cherry pie I’ve ever baked (cans of tart cherries are available here – for about $10 per can). We watched It’s a Wonderful Life. We enjoyed being together while we could, knowing the next day I’d be leaving for Cleveland. It wasn’t the beach, but we made the best of what it was.

Once I was back from my ridiculous medical sojourn we made it a priority to get to Kokrobite Garden. Although the money we’d prepaid for our Christmas stay had been nonrefundable (a very common policy here) the owners were kind enough to give us a free night’s stay on our post-medevac trip. We loved it so much that before we left we booked a three-night stay for Memorial Day weekend. It would be our real Christmas trip do-over.

Run by an Italian/Spanish couple, Kokrobite Garden is maybe 200 meters from the beach, and is its own little pocket of lush, flowering paradise. The food is delicious, the accommodation simple but comfortable enough, and the atmosphere family-friendly and utterly relaxed. It has its rough edges – there’s no air conditioning in the rooms, although they are generally well-shaded, ventilated, and equipped with fans. There’s no hot water in the shower, though it’s inaccurate to think of the water as “cold” – I have yet to encounter truly cold water coming out of any tap anywhere in this country. It’s very similar to experiences we’ve had in state park accommodations, and at similar prices, but with tasty Italian food, a pleasant swimming pool, and gorgeous tropical foliage.

And on this Memorial Day trip one of Marisela’s dreams came true: friends were there with us. Neighbors from our compound stayed there as well, and although we all enjoyed the conviviality, it was sheer delight for Marisela. While she tolerates traveling with the three of us, she would rather have an entire entourage and this time she had it: our neighbors have three girls, one of whom is in Marisela’s grade and a good friend. She even got to ride there with them and thus avoided both sharing a vehicle with her brother and listening to her parents’ dreadful music (for the record, she is not a fan of ’80s punk/alternative). Marisela and the other girls played in the pool, collected seashells, played card and board games, and built houses for the snails that slid around the gardens (maybe these are normal snails here, but they put the tiny snails I used to find after rains in New Mexico to utter shame).

When we made our reservations we didn’t know if the kids would have Memorial Day off. Andrés, we knew, had Friday the 25th off for African Unity Day, in addition to Memorial Day, and he had totally earned some extended time away from the frantic pace of work, so we planned to stay Friday – Monday regardless of the kids’ schedule. It turned out they didn’t have Monday off, but we gave them Monday off by parental disposition.

The only problem, then, was that Marisela found herself friendless on Monday. The rest of us do not even begin to be companions as entertaining as another fourth-grade girl. But we tried to make the most of things anyway. We ventured out from our little enclave and walked around the village (Andrés and I had explored the village on our last visit, as well, and Isaiah had sometimes accompanied us, but this was Marisela’s first real trip outside the garden walls that wasn’t to the beach). We had a delicious meal of yam and vegetable sauce with fried fish and chicken. It was some of the tastiest fish I’ve ever had.

Accra is a huge city. It’s similar in population to Dallas, where the kids grew up. And we live in a very affluent and well-developed area of the city. Our house is far larger than the house we had in Dallas. We’re down the road from the U.S. Embassy, and surrounded by shops and restaurants that cater to expat tastes and pocketbooks (for example, “Lord of the Wings” is a sports bar between our house and the embassy, with a menu reminiscent of a Chili’s or a Friday’s in the U.S.) It’s still recognizably the developing world: there are roadside shops and fruit/vegetable stands, and things just don’t happen the way people might expect in the U.S. (One example: after a water main broke and was repaired under the major road that goes by our compound and also by the embassy, the street pavement was not repaired. For months. The spot was piled with dirt and rocks to make it semi-navigable, and the dirt and rocks were periodically replenished – sometimes by official road crews and sometimes by entrepreneurially-minded young men who would then urge passing drivers to contribute a few cedis for their efforts. And then, finally, it was repaired. Really, really well, and really quickly. The crews arrived around 7:30 in the morning and were done by noon and the road was perfect.)

My point, though, is that Accra is a modern city. There are shopping malls and supermarkets. There are sports bars and fancy restaurants. And so one of the most appealing things for me about visiting a place like Kokrobite is getting a bit away from the tourist and expat circles and seeing daily life. Just stepping outside Kokrobite Garden and walking anywhere other than along the main drag to the beach presents an opportunity to see a very different side of Ghana.

There are malls and strip malls and shopping centers throughout Accra, but in villages most of the stores are more basic. Here’s a street view from our walk to the restaurant with the delicious veggies and fish:

Clothing and other goods are usually displayed out in the open. I’m surprised, even in Accra, to see that while the merchandise is taken away or locked up at night, these shops often leave chairs, bowls, cooking apparatus, etc. out where they could – theoretically – just be taken away by a passerby. As much as I loved my life and my neighborhood in Dallas, leaving valuable items out and unlocked there was not at all wise.

On the way from the main street to the entrance of Kokrobite Garden we pass “Mama Africa Spot,” which we’ve adopted as our main source of provisions during our Kokrobite trips. They have nicely chilled bottled water and plenty of Marisela’s favorite snacks (King Crackers, a nutritionally void packet of crispy white flour nothingness that I try to only let her eat on these outings). Looking straight back in the next photo there’s a view of houses, communal cooking areas, and wood piles for cooking fires (and the Atlantic Ocean in the background!). Right around the corner is a covered area for storing construction supplies where livestock likes to congregate. It’s right beside the communal water tank, so I’m guessing the construction shed is also community property. Marisela and Isaiah enjoy seeing the goats and chickens, although we all find chickens less endearing having discovered that roosters crow not only at dawn, but – if they feel like it, and they seem to often feel like it – all night long. Then we’re back to Kokrobite Garden (on the left in the last picture) and the view reflects the shift – with beach proximity – to a bit more of a Rasta vibe.

So in the end Marisela survived her day without a friend. She still played in the pool a bit, and waded at the beach. She was even made an apprentice in the renovation work the owner is undertaking – he showed her how he plans the tiled mosaics around the dining area and let her help build them.

We had a lovely time with friends. We had a lovely time exploring. We had plenty of relax and chill time (I never did get to the letters I’d planned to write, but I did almost finish my book). And we all were able to enjoy a belated “Christmas” holiday.

 

* According to Google Maps Kokrobite Garden is 29 kilometers from our house. A truly good travel time – like the best one could hope for – would be about 50 minutes. The trip out of Accra traverses some very busy areas, including a huge stretch of road lined with markets and trotro traffic (mass transit minibuses, all of which are named. My fellow X-Files fan son and I especially enjoy the one pictured below, but more often the names are religiously oriented. Marisela spotted one on this last trip called “Jesus Is In the Car.”)

A typical trip is maybe an hour. And then there’s the trip back our neighbors had Sunday, and the very similar one we had on Monday, which clocked in at three and a quarter hours. There was a spot where traffic was diverted for road repairs, and the diversion just kind of happens. Lanes shift and are cut down in number and there’s no warning or indication in advance (other than signs that say “CONSTRUCTION 100m.” We made it, though. But we might look in to whether that construction has wrapped up before we head out there again.

 

Mother’s Day in Ada Foah

We have yet to make a trip in Ghana that we regret or can’t find positive things to say about. Some of the places we’ve visited we may not choose to visit again, but we’re happy to have been there.

And then there is our experience this last weekend at Dreamland Beach Resort in Ada Foah. Life is uncertain, plans can change quickly, and we still have a lot of Ghana to see, but we definitely hope to return to Ada and the peace and warmth of this guest house.

For those unfamiliar with Ghana, I should say a few words about the use here of the phrase beach resort. Before coming here my main point of reference for a beach resort was the very polished and very decadent resort we visited in Cancún during our Juárez tour. There were two pools, a beautiful beach with abundant, comfortable, and well-maintained lounge chars, beach- and poolside food and drink service, and a family suite as spacious and comfortable as the corporate apartments we’ve lived in during our D.C. training stays – but with an ocean view from the balcony and a fridge stocked with water, soft drinks, beer, and wine.

Beach resort in Ghana means something different. Or I should say it can mean something different. There are resorts here so expensive that I can only hope for their customers’ sake that their amenities rival those of the Mexican resorts.  Then there are some that are more attainable for mere mortals but still quite expensive by the standards we’d come to expect in Mexico – and that tend to have rooms ranging from Super 8 to maybe Holiday Inn standard. And kind of a run-down Super 8.

And then there are “resorts” like Dreamland. Which, I want to emphasize right away I absolutely loved. But just so you have the right picture in your head, a U.S. traveler might consider a place like Dreamland something between a hostel and a guest house. There is no air conditioning. If you don’t turn the water off in the bathroom overnight you’ll hear the shower dripping – almost flowing – constantly. Sometimes a bucket of water helps the toilet flush all the way. It’s a good idea to just acknowledge that the spiders in your room are more interested in eating the mosquitos (which is good!) than biting you. And anyway, maybe the lizards in your room will eat the spiders. There is a fan (which works if you plug it in just right) and the windows are screened. There’s a mosquito net if you want to bother with it, but the cross-ventilation from the windows and the blowing of the fan seem adequate to keep mosquitos away.

So it’s that kind of place. And we loved it. Loved it so much. Will be dreaming of it all week. Because this was the view from outside our upstairs room:

And this is what it looked like around the table where we ate breakfast:

And when we said we’d like fish for dinner the night we arrived, the proprietors went and bought a freshly-caught fish and cooked it on the grill for us, served with sides of rice and plantain. Every meal was cooked to order, from scratch (give them about 2 hours lead time for meals if you go there – or order your food before you even get there and they’ll have it ready when you ask).

The beach itself has some of the same issues we’ve encountered at every beach here – there are spots where trash has washed ashore, and that’s not particularly appealing. And there are waves so strong they knocked Andrés over a time or two, so we stayed within arm’s reach of Marisela at all times. But we were the only ones out playing in the water, and only saw a few other people walking the beach. The waves were beautiful to watch and hear, and the sun filtered through the clouds in postcard-worthy style.

On Sunday – Mother’s Day! – David, one of the proprietors, took us on a boat tour on the Volta River. Ada Foah is the point at which the Volta spills into the Atlantic, and in addition to fishing, the people of the area also harvest clams both for food and for their shells, which are used in paving and brick-making, and there is a fairly small but significant tourist trade. David and his friend John, who owns the boat, took us to an island in the Volta where a family maintains a fish farm, harvests and sells mangos, and keeps up a small crocodile pond to show tourists and visitors. He tells us that at one point the crocodiles dug a hole and escaped their confinement, but that they later returned. He figured they preferred the regular meals they received in the pond.

Our boat tour gave us the chance to see touristy entertainments like the crocodile pond, but also to see regular life along the Volta – the families digging for clams on the banks, the men rowing out with traps to catch crabs, the elaborate, luxurious shoreline homes owned by the wealthiest of the wealthy (one of them looked like an amusement park – complete with huge walrus and whale statues, an enormous faux riverboat that must be a house right at the shoreline, and a huge arched entryway topped with a sign reading “TREASURE ISLAND” – unfortunately I missed getting a picture of that, as I had assumed it was a hotel, and while it didn’t seem photo-worthy as a hotel it was definitely photo-worthy as a private home).

David was incredibly knowledgeable, telling us about the economy of the region, the difficulties posed by climate change and habitat loss, some of the traditional foods and cultural celebrations of the region. It was a trip that I think will be one of the highlights of our time in Ghana.

 

Something I can’t capture in photos or even describe adequately is the sense of welcome and hospitality we experienced during this trip. David and his colleagues at Dreamland were all gracious and genuinely kind and understanding. They welcomed Marisela in to the kitchen and let her help cook and serve the food. They recognized Isaiah’s clear desire to just read quietly and be left alone and they never once (I don’t believe) mentioned how tall he is (this earns big points with him these days).

I know it’s unfair to generalize a group or a culture. Not all New Mexicans, for example, are laid back and green chile-obsessed, I know (though I would say I tend to be both). But there is a pervasive spirit of easy friendship and warm openness here that I find very touching. Foreigners, as a whole, over the centuries, have not always done right by Ghana. And yet we have met with such openness, such warmth, and such welcome.

We stopped at a gas station to use the facilities before starting the two-hour trip back to Accra yesterday, and while other family members took their turns in the bathroom Marisela busied herself collecting bottle caps in the dirt surrounding the station (which also had a little outdoor bar/cafe, so there were plenty to find). She took the last turn in the bathroom, and as we were walking back to the car, the mother or an auntie of the family that ran the cafe called to us. Her daughter, who looked perhaps Isaiah’s age, or somewhere between Isaiah and Marisela, had seen Marisela collecting the caps and had assembled a pile of her own to give us before we left. She ran inside to get a plastic bag to hold them all. Her name was Rejoice – a common Ghanaian girl’s name, and one of my favorites – and she seemed pleased just to see Marisela’s delighted smile. Marisela ran to the car and got a rainbow loom charm she had made during the drive and gave it to Rejoice. It was such a nice moment – a tiny moment, but one I’ll certainly remember.

And it’s not just away from the big city that we’ve experienced random kindness. Today as I was walking along the road from our house to the embassy a woman in the passenger seat of a car driving by smiled a huge smile and said, “Hello, madam! I hope you are well today!” No reason. No need. No ulterior motive. Just a kind hello as I walked by. Our road is currently chopped up by some significant potholes (potholes that could have swallowed our Ford Focus whole) and the extreme slow-down that causes meant the car was just creeping by. Slow traffic and potholes are not generally as much a cause of irritation here as they are to people in the U.S. Why waste that energy? Why not use it instead say a warm hello to the obvious foreigner walking by? That is Ghana.

 

 

Accra again

I should have written this about a month ago, or even just a few weeks after getting back to Ghana, because now my whole nearly-three-month medevac experience feels so distant and being here feels so normal and comfortable that I have to dig to find the thoughts and feelings I had when I first returned.

I think often about the concept of chronotopes that I heard about on a podcast and then wrote about back during our Juárez time. It really does feel sometimes like there are different realities, different worlds that I live in. When I was in Cleveland and Lubbock, despite the fact that rarely a day passed without a conversation or at least multiple texts exchanged with the kids and Andres back in Ghana, it was hard to reconcile the parallel realities of the two worlds. And now that I’m back it’s equally hard to imagine the day-to-day life I had there. My thoughts still go there, every day, as my thoughts came here during the medevac. But daily life there just feels more and more distant.

One big event that occurred during my absence was the long-anticipated and hard-won delivery of the Toyota Highlander we’d purchased from a dealership in Lubbock.

Andres and the kids had enough time before I arrived home to really get used to driving/riding here, but it was certainly a new experience for me. Driving here isn’t a lot different from driving in Juárez, but it is different – same song at a higher volume, I suppose. And there are more and different obstacles here. My terror is still driving into one of the open gutters that line most of the roads. In the picture above there are blocks covering the gutters (see the sidewalk-looking strip on the right), but on most roads the gutters are open, with no curb to stop a foolish and inexperienced person like me from driving her overly large vehicle into the ditch. I don’t think I’ll ever stop fearing that.

What I have become fairly used to is the traffic, and its quantity and (by U.S. standards) general unruliness. It’s not really an Accra car trip if you don’t at least once fear an imminent collision. People don’t always look before turning or changing lanes or pulling out into traffic – that’s the job of the people already out on the road, I guess. Motorcyclists tend to conduct their vehicles as if no traffic rules apply to them – not red lights, not traffic direction, not lane markings. The “make your own lane” philosophy very popular in Juárez is very much in use here, especially at roundabouts. The major roundabouts often have three or even more “lanes” circling around with no particular order to who goes where. And pedestrians, bicyclists, scooter-drivers and motorcyclists are peppered in liberally (and fairly randomly) to make the game even more fun. Oh! And often police or other emergency vehicles drive on the wrong side of the road when there’s a lot of traffic and they need to get somewhere. It’s never dull driving somewhere in Accra.

My most entertaining (in retrospect) traffic experience so far: one weeknight Andres and I went out to dinner here in our neighborhood, only to find that the restaurant wouldn’t open for another hour. We decided to try a restaurant one neighborhood over instead (about 2 miles away). It was a foolish decision to make right at rush hour, we soon learned. We found ourselves in nearly standstill traffic very quickly. It was a straight shot to get where we were going, but the whole road there was like a parking lot. When we had only moved about a quarter mile in 15 minutes we decided we’d turn off on a side road and go back to find a restaurant in our neighborhood.

Only problem was that after we had pulled in to the lane that turned on to this littler road – and thus would be hard-pressed to get back in to the congested road – we discovered that the road we’d planned to take back had been commandeered by traffic as a two-lane one-way road for people trying to turn on to that busy road. This was not an official change. People just got tired of waiting in single file in one lane.

I am thankful for two things here: 1. Andrés was driving; 2. there was a Ghanaian guy in a tiny little car ahead of us who was also trying to get through going the right way. So I watched out the window, sometimes opening the door, to make sure we didn’t veer in to the ditch while Andres caught this guy’s wave and pushed along. Sometimes our lead car driver would get out and yell and gesture and get people to squash back in to the proper lane. Sometimes he’d essentially forge a third lane (this was tricky because it was not a very wide street, and while it was easy enough for him in his Kia Morning to squeeze through tiny spaces, it was a bit more fraught for us in our giant soccer-mom-mobile).

Then we reached a point at which – according to Google maps on my phone – there was a road we could turn on to and take back roads to get where we were going. It was a dirt road, but that did not deter us. Lots of the roads even just a block or two away from major thoroughfares in busy neighborhoods are dirt roads. So we turned. We should maybe not have left the protection of our Ghanaian trailblazer. After about 200 meters the road was blocked by a massive pile of debris (of which apparently Google maps was not aware). And now the prospect of getting back on the road we’d turned off of – going either direction – seemed doomed to certain failure. We asked a few people on the side of the road if they knew a different way back to the street we needed to reach. We got a lot of confused and puzzled looks and no suggested routes. In the end we turned on another dirt side street that went in the general direction we needed to go, and (woohoo! what luck!) this road opened on to an apartment building’s parking lot and the parking lot opened on to the road we’d been struggling along with the Kia Morning’s help. But by this point we were far enough from the congested road that there wasn’t an improvised double turning lane any longer and we were able to get back to the original restaurant just as they opened. We had spent a full hour going about a half-mile.

So the traffic has been something to readjust to. And so has the heat. Now, two months home, I’m feeling completely fine again. But when I first returned the heat actually bothered me, for the first time since we arrived. When we first arrived it was still fairly cool and rainy – the end of summer, which here is the coolest season (even though we are north of the equator, so the seasons aren’t officially different). So I was kind of like the proverbial frog being boiled in a pot – as the temperatures went up I didn’t really notice or mind. But after the bitter cold of Cleveland winter and the beginnings of spring in Lubbock I was not prepared for the daily highs around 90 with 70-80% humidity. It was a struggle for this desert girl. But I’m back to feeling comfortable here now, and with any luck the rains we’ve started to have will increase and soon I’ll be even more comfortable. I am back to working in my “office” up on our screened-in balcony. It took a while to feel comfortable out here again, temperature-wise. It’s a great view, though, with all the activity going on in the street below.

The best thing about being back and having the car is that we can finally get out of town on the weekends and explore. The kids and I went to Cape Coast early on in our Ghana stay, and we were fortunate enough to visit a botanical garden just north of the city with a family friend as our guide, but we had yet to make any forays on our own as a family. Not long after my return we finally did. Our plans for Christmas had included a beach trip – but we’d had to cancel our plans when we learned that I’d be medevac’d. Once I was settled back in we decided to give that trip another try. We went to stay at a guest house nearby called Kokrobite Gardens – Kokrobite is a seaside village easy to reach from Accra (only about 25 km away but it takes an hour or so to drive there between the traffic and the not-exactly-U.S.-interstate roads). The beach has something of a reputation as a backpacker destination and Rasta hangout, with all that entails, but Kokrobite Gardens is a little family-run and family-oriented guesthouse about 200 meters from the beach, so we could go enjoy the beach during the day, when it seemed mostly frequented by families, and have a bit of distance from the party atmosphere at night.

In the early mornings we enjoyed walks in the village. One thing that never fails to entertain here is the directness of communication. Short and to the point:

We’ve made three little weekend forays so far, and the most recent needs its own post (coming soon), but it’s wonderful to be back and even more wonderful to be back and really able to enjoy seeing this beautiful country and meeting its unfailingly warm, cheerful, and welcoming people.