Agape in Translation

Each month our organization's volunteers participate in a mini-project, or Impact Project, as we have been instructed to start calling them. Most often these Impact Projects involve community-building activities. When I was a volunteer at our site in Peru last fall for six weeks, the one mini-project I participated in was helping build a new museum of ancient Incan artifacts in a rural village. We spent a Saturday morning painting the museum walls, sweeping the floors and dusting the glass cases. Two weeks later the museum opened and we attended the inauguration, which was followed by a cultural dance performance and a feast.

Currently our NGO uses three Impact Projects on rotation: We host a community-wide beach clean-up in Cape Coast and help with the construction of a vocational training school for at-risk teens and a primary (elementary) school and library; both schools are in rural villages.

Our local staff members Lawrence and Kofi supervise and help volunteers complete the Impact Projects; Kirsty and I are not in attendance for such activities because we are delicate expat workers and need our weekends to be stress-free. Don’t get me wrong – back home in Nebraska I laid bricks and packed cement whenever possible, but hey I can’t take all the fun jobs around here. Hafta share the love. But the main reason it's okay for Kirsty and I to "bugger off" (I love living and working with a Scottish girl (lassie)!) while Lawrence and Kofi lead the Impact Projects is because it's part of their duties as Volunteer Coordinators to organize and lead the volunteer affairs during the weekends. One day, one day (common Ghanaian phrase/substitute for “eventually”) I will join a couple Impact Projects and get my hands dirty alongside the volunteers, but I’ve been saving myself for when things kick up in January when we have nearly 50 volunteers arriving and we’ll need all hands on deck.

Due to the curveballs Life sometimes throws, two people had rotated through the role of Country Director before Kirsty in the year and a half that our NGO has been in Ghana, and unfortunately a few relationships developed in the beginning have fallen through the cracks during those transitions. Neither Kirsty nor I have met the leaders of two of the three Impact Projects; we know the main contact of the beach clean-up mini-project because he is a project partner – the founder of a local health and sanitation NGO. Therefore, Kirsty thought it would be a good idea for me to meet with them to reintroduce them to our organization.

My first meeting was with Douglas, the headmaster of a nursery and primary school for about 185 students ages 1-11. I was aiming to reestablish our business relationship by explaining we’ve had a few changes in leadership since we first became involved with the development of his school, which is the unfortunate reason he and I had yet to meet until this magical moment. I also needed to get a better grasp on how his school runs, the extent of our volunteers’ monetary and physical contributions to the development of the school, the headmaster’s future goals for the mini-project and how we can help facilitate those goals. Above all I wanted to get an idea of the headmaster’s feelings toward our organization and volunteers.

I learned that Douglas uses a van to pick up and drop off students who live up to 7km from school grounds. He said the van serves as the main means of transportation for nearly two thirds of his school's students.

“Wow, that’s great you’re able to help so many students go to school,” I commented.

Douglas nodded proudly.

“How did you get the funding for the van?”

Douglas looked at me gravely and asked, “You know what happens when you get stabbed in the eye?”

I wanted to laugh because I knew this was going somewhere completely unrelated to my question - one of the many characteristics I adore about Ghanaians.

I stifled a smile and responded in my most solemn and encouraging voice, "No."

He continued, "When you get stabbed in the eye and your friend cups your eye socket for you like this - " he covered his right eye with his hand, " - to stop the bleeding. If your friend should run away, you must cup your eye socket yourself." 

Ah, nope - can't say that's ever happened to me before. I made the conscious effort to close my gaping mouth. “I..don’t understand,” I said slowly, hoping to sound apologetic and serious rather than thoroughly amused.

Douglas tried again, “Or you know when you break your jaw – ” his hand slid from his eye to his jaw, “ – and your friend has to hold your jaw in place to keep it from falling...”

Racked my brain forward and back but to no avail - oddly enough, I had no recollection of such an incident happening to me. Or anyone, for that matter. I figured he wasn't speaking from experience but couldn't believe he thought these analogies would help me understand how he had paid for the van. 

I was both ashamed and proud of my blank stare - better that than bursting out in laughter. I gave up trying to understand the relationship between payment for a vehicle and gouged eyes and broken jaws, and Douglas gave up trying to convince me they were one in the same - or he ran out of body parts to list and all the horrific things that could go wrong with them.

A small part of me was disappointed when Douglas succumbed to a practical answer (he took out a loan to pay for the van). Isn't it always a nice surprise when the means justifies the end?

Case of the Mondays

Besides a failed attempt to go to the medical lab last Saturday to get tested for malaria and typhoid (see previous post for details), the rest of the weekend was alright. Then Monday graced me, and everyone else in the world except a few continents, with her presence and gave me an entirely different perception of the glorious line from Office Space, "Uht-oh, sounds like somebody's got a case of the Mondays."

Monday morning before work I made my second attempt to go to the lab to get tested. I walked down the hill in my neighborhood and continued along the road past the drop-taxi-only station to the gated entrance of University of Cape Coast. I stood across from the gate, where I normally go to get picked up by shared taxis because of the high traffic from UCC. I pointed forward in the direction of Abura each time I saw "taxi" signs erected from the top of cars with mustard yellow side boards. Mondays are busy days for the roads in Cape Coast for whatever reason and most of the taxis driving by were full or heading toward town, as shown by the taxi drivers' left hand out the window pointing to their right, the opposite direction of Abura. A taxi driver pulling out of the UCC gate flipped his left hand out the window to expose his palm to the sky, indicating, "Where are you going?" I made my intention more visible by jabbing my index finger forward a couple times. His left hand changed into hand signal most Westerners understand as "stop" or "stay there." I noticed he had a passenger in his backseat, which proved he was a shared taxi. I got inside and said "good morning" to the driver and passenger, two men who looked to be in their 20s.

The man next to me paid his fare and indicated he wanted to get out. The driver pulled over to the shoulder of the road and slowed to a stop. It was a barren area about 50 meters from the gas station with no shops or people or side roads. The man moved to his side of the backseat to the door but the driver insisted he exited from the right door instead for safety. I was in the middle of fishing out 40 pesewas from my money purse for my fare when I realized I needed to get out of my side of the car for the man. The door handle was jammed, as many are here, so I reached outside the window and opened it. As I got out, the driver asked me where I was going. “Abura,” I said, confused why the driver hadn’t pick up on that earlier from my hand signal. The driver shook his head, “No, I’m going to town.” “Then why did you pick me when I was pointing to Abura?” The driver shook his head and looked forward again, indicating he was done with the conversation. The man in the backseat hadn’t gotten out on my side but was listening to our conversation. Then he shut the door and they drove away. That was strange, did he change his mind about getting out of the taxi there?

I was annoyed and confused why the driver misread my hand signal, the foolproof language used by taxi drivers in Cape Coast and the language I’d made a point to learn when I first arrived to Ghana. Misinterpretation of the hand signals has happened to me before too – taxi drivers pull off the road to where I’m standing and ask where I’m going. “Look at my hand,” I want to tell them, “I learned these hand signals for you!” I have a vague feeling some of the drivers pull over for me regardless because they think, "There's an obroni, she must be lost."

I flagged down another shared taxi and made sure the driver knew I wanted to go to Abura. When I got to the medical lab I told the front desk clerk I wanted to get tested for malaria and typhoid. She slid a torn piece of computer paper across the desk to me. “Write your name, age and where you’re from on this.” I did and slid it back to her. “Seven cedis,” she said. I couldn’t find my wallet in my bag – I had my ProWorld money purse, but not my own. I got out of line and sat down on the lobby sofa to search some more and concluded it was nowhere to be found.

The last time I had my wallet out was in the first taxi when I was getting 40 pesewas, which I kept in my hand during the taxi switch and used to pay the second driver. That's where it was! My wallet was in that damn taxi that shouldn’t have picked me up in the first place! I must have gotten distracted while opening the car door for the homeboy next to me and then forgot to replace my wallet in my bag, and even more distracted when the driver asked me where I was going.

I felt sick to my stomach – I had 55 cedis in that money purse, enough to get me through 2-3 weeks in Cape Coast. Unless I’m traveling I never carry that much money on me, but today was an exception because I didn’t know how much the two lab tests would cost and after the lab I was making a detour at the pharmacy for two packets of dewormer pills for Kirsty and me (we were due for a deworming), which I also didn’t know the cost of.

While I was reaching outside the window of the taxi for the door handle, it could’ve fallen off my lap or the guy next to me could have taken it. I knew it didn’t fall out of the car because I would have seen it and heard the coins jingle as it hit the ground. I bet that guy next to me was about to get out of the taxi, saw my unattended money purse and took it. Then when he realized I wasn’t getting back in the car, he didn’t want to get out with me in case I would realize I was missing my wallet and would suspect he had taken it. If he was on foot, I could track him down. But he was a smart thief; he stayed in the car. Or what if the driver and the passenger knew each other and the whole thing was a conspiracy, a trick they play on obronis? Or maybe they were both just bad people, strangers who read each other's minds and conspired to split the winnings of an obroni’s wallet.

Still sitting dumbfounded on the couch, I realized I hadn’t paid for my malaria and typhoid tests yet. Not wanting to waste my taxi rides from the morning by retreating to the office without testing at the lab, considering the trouble I went through more than the expense of the cab fare, I resorted to using my work money which I would pay back when I got home at the end of the day. I got up from the couch in a daze a handed a 10 cedi bill to the front desk clerk. Noticing she looked busy and figuring she would call me over when she found change for my bill, I returned to my seat to sulk. Only a few minutes later my name was being called from somewhere far away. After the third call, I discovered the voice was coming from the nook on the right through the lab doorway. I pushed aside a ceiling-to-floor curtain and found behind it a Ghanaian man in a white coat with needles. He greeted me. He was sitting at a table facing a white wall – the area of the compartment was about the size of a photo booth. I sank into my chair facing him and surrendered my left arm. As he stuck a needle into my vein I couldn’t think of a single worse thing to be doing after getting my wallet stolen. (Side note: Ghanaians don't use gloves when dealing with patients, but if you make a fuss about it they will find some and put them on. I can't remember if he was wearing gloves while drawing my blood - my mind was elsewhere. Another side note: They don’t give you Band-aids after injecting you, which is a bummer because the only thing that could've cheered me up at that point was a kids' Band-Aid.)

“All done,” he said. “It should take one hour to get the results.”
I examined my puncture wound. I've never had abnormal reactions to shots - nurses always tell me I have great veins - but this man bruised me and there was a dime-sized bump emerging around the puncture. I needed to get out of there.

Remembering one of our volunteers mentioning he had gotten his lab test results by phone the same day he was tested, I asked, “Can you call me with the results?”
The man smiled as he stored my blood tube in a kit. “What if I don’t have any phone credit?”
I was not in the mood to play games or flirt. “I can call you then,” I took out my phone. “What is your number?”
He recited it and I stored him as “Lab” as he told me his name.
“You should flash me,” he said. (Yes, “flashing” has a different connotation in Ghana than in America.) "Flashing" is when you dial a number and hang up, so it shows the person your number. Sometimes people flash each other as a way of saying, "If you have phone credit, call me, because I don't have any and I want to talk to you."
“So, this is your number," he said as I flashed him. "I can call it any time I want?”
“Actually I only use this phone number for work. So if you call me after today I won’t answer.”
“Oh, okay.”
Yeah right, I thought, like I have enough money or the organization skills to have two phones. From the look on his face it seemed he’s heard the same line from an obroni before. Whatever, this white lie has saved me more times than I can count.
“The results will come in one hour so you can call me in one hour.”

After not finding the brand of deworming pills recommended by an expat friend at a pharmacy down the way, I took a taxi to work. I was riding out my “high” from scoring a cheap taxi ride to the office (if a Ghanaian has left a bad taste in your mouth about Ghana and other Ghanaians hear about it or witness it, most will feel guilty or responsible for the bad deed and some will bend over backwards to make it up to you, so if you've been stolen from, tell your plight to those you know are trying to rip you off) when I was brought down to my third or fourth low of the day by discovering the electricity wasn’t working. No air conditioning in Africa is no problem when you’ve got windows/open doors and a working fan. No fan? Especially in the middle of the day? See ya later, good mood.

Things started looking up after chatting with our nextdoor neighbors and coworkers Abusua Foundation, talking on the phone with a good friend from home who has a knack for comforting me by saying the right things, and then the electricity was reborn an hour later. The work day was a joke though – my attention span was shot from the morning. At least I tested negative for both malaria and typhoid, as I found out from my phone call to "Lab."

Mid-afternoon I had a meeting in town. When it finished I walked to another pharmacy to check if they had Wormplex 400 in stock; they did. I bought one for Kirsty and one for me, apparently all we needed. Must be a powerful little pill. Gross. I couldn’t believe they were each 1 cedi 30 pesewas – turns out I didn’t need to be carrying all that extra money this morning after all.

Then I remembered I didn’t go back to the front desk of the lab to get my change from the 10 cedi bill. There went another 3 cedis – just put it on my tab. (Dan in Real Life, anyone?)

The worst part about being stolen from isn’t the void of the item taken, it’s the fact that someone took something from me. Thus far in Ghana I had been "untouchable" when it came to bad luck. Except for when I killed my MacBook Pro in a freak accident after month numero uno. Don't want to talk about that. Back to my stolen wallet. I am determined to not let myself play the role of the victim by thinking, What have I done to deserve this? That’s a dangerous thought. Instead I’m looking at the situation like it was bound to happen at some point – unfortunately, having something stolen from you is a risk that accompanies traveling, especially in the poorer pockets of the world. I will focus on the idea that it was not a personal attack, and hopefully whoever stole/found my money needed it more than me.

Already in town, I decided to go to the market to look for avocados. Volunteers have been telling me they’re everywhere - you can't miss them, but I've been on a sporadic five-month-hunt for avocados and have yet to find any. Ghanaians call them "pears," which is confusing because vendors also sell pears. Why "pears," anyway? The avocados here look more like papayas. After 15 minutes of wandering through the dark and narrow walkway/maze/market searching high and low for avocados called pears that look like papayas, I gave up and asked a woman to give me three papayas. I handed her 3 cedis and she grabbed a fourth papaya and said, "I am giving you one from me," and put it in my bag with the rest. I think I could have kissed her on the cheek right then and there! How sweet, how kind, how wonderful this woman is - the world is! There is hope for this day yet! I thanked her repeatedly and gushed that she had made my entire day because I lost my wallet – I wanted to carry on and tell her more (as my friends know I tend to do, even with strangers) but figured she probably wasn’t registering my babbling anyway and most likely didn’t care, but smiled nonetheless. This purity of heart, this kind deed made me more emotional than I could handle - I could've cried with gratitude on the spot. I thanked her again, exited the tented market and shifted my attention to finding a taxi back to the office.

After attempting some admin work for a couple hours, it was time to head home. Since we've moved our office location about a month ago, some mornings and evenings I’ve been using our relative proximity from the apartment to the office as a means of exercise and to avoid taxi expenses. The walk is pleasant and scenic until the mother of a hill leading up to our apartment and the grueling climb at the end. A house is being built at the top of the hill, and its recent progress has made the climb very dangerous. I don't know why I keep climbing it day after day, I think I keep hoping the construction crew will even out the land one day. It's not too dangerous, though - when climbing the loose red dirt at the top, I've learned to dig my fingers into the loose dirt and lean toward the ground to keep from falling backward to my death.

So, here I was with my laptop in my backpack and two groceries bags in hand...doing well, truckin' along...and suddenly I lost my footing and slipped into a three-foot deep depression in the red dirt hill. As I fell I noticed my bag of papayas broke. I looked down the hill in just enough time to see one of the papayas rolling away and into the brush. I soaked up the silence of the fall for a few seconds and then laughed. My right leg still submerged in the steep depression, I hoisted myself up. My ankle was bleeding. I laughed again and looked down the hill where the papaya had rolled away. With every fiber of my being I was certain it was the one the lady had given me for free! So much for the kind deed... ha! I couldn't be sad about my runaway papaya or frustrated about the fall or how shitty my Monday had been because the irony of this final catastrophe was just too perfect.

Thanks, Malaria Prophylaxis, Internet, for the Paranoia

I've been getting paranoid lately that I've been in Ghana for five months and haven't had any internal or external battle wounds to show for it besides a few blisters on my toes from playing football (soccer) barefoot on the beach in the scorching sun, a couple awful entire-body sunburns and a heat rash that has been flaring up since September sporadically on both forearms. In the past three months my roommate/boss Kirsty has had malaria and typhoid and a couple other not nice things. Talk about bad luck!

Toward the middle of October I got a dry cough for about a week but it didn't progress into anything. After I recovered though, I continued feeling weak and dizzy and more anxious and jumpy than my malaria prophylaxis normally makes me. I was waking up drenched in sweat every morning for a week. Kirsty was convinced I had either malaria or typhoid and thought I should get tested at the lab for both. Malaria and typhoid are detectable by flu-like symptoms. Besides muscle soreness and sweating, I don't have any of the other main flu-like symptoms - the chills, a fever or nausea. Based on my observations of Kirsty's and other volunteers' experiences with the two diseases, I was certain I didn't have either. I think I have something else going on, or maybe my body is in the process of adapting to the changing season.

Not wanting to wait five hours at a hospital to see a doctor as I've done before with a sick volunteer, and not wanting to go to a lab to get my veins probed for tests, I decided to turn to the internet for answers. I Googled my symptoms (dry cough, long-term heat rash, profuse sweating, muscle soreness, increased paranoia, nervousness and anxiety, sleep disturbances, teeth grinding) and learned I probably have a parasite. Sounds gross, but I read that experts believe 85% of North American adults have at least one form of parasite living in their body. Some doctors even argue this figure may be as high as 95 percent. I read that having a parasite can lead to all sorts of fatal diseases. In fact, the more I read the more I scared myself. Sometimes I think it's better to stay in the dark on some subjects.

The Saturday before Halloween, Kirsty went to Accra for a party at the British embassy as the guest of Susan, the Scottish owner of the Abandze Beach Resort we frequent whenever possible. I was alone in the apartment cooking lunch in the kitchen and sweating vigorously. Even stripping down to my bra and underwear didn't cool me down. I made the mistake of texting Kirsty about it and she called me sounding even more worried than normal and told me to go to the lab as soon as possible. "Go to the one in Abura because it's the only one open in Cape Coast on a Saturday. It closes around one though, so I would leave soon. And if it's closed give Lawrence a wee call to go with you to a hospital."

There was no way I was going to a hospital. I don't like taking precautions, especially when there isn't an alarming and tangible reason. Sure, that may be reckless, but some people - women in particular - know their bodies more than any doctor or test could. Going to the doctor before giving my body a chance to fight its own battle is like I'm stepping on my body's toes, so to speak.

But Kirsty tells me I can't tough things out in Africa. I thought I might as well go to the lab to get her to stop trying to diagnose me and to rule out the two "big ones" before figuring out what to do about the parasitic friend possibly visiting me. Plus, I didn't know if my condition was serious enough to skip the Halloween party I was supposed to go to later that night. After a 10-minute walk at the hottest time of the day down the mother of a hill we live on and taking a taxi to the lab in Abura, I found to my great displeasure the lab was closed. It was only 20 past noon, why was it closed already? Or maybe a better question: Why is there only one medical lab open in Cape Coast on Saturdays? Normally "because it's Africa" works for me but in this particular moment it wasn't a good enough answer. No labs here are open Sundays, so I would have to wait until Monday to figure out what was wrong with me. I sat defeated and depleted on the front entrance's stairs, chin cradled in both hands and elbows on my knees. After a solid 15 minutes of people-watching, I got a taxi and made him stop at the local gas station before taking me home. Feeling sorry for myself, I bought vanilla ice cream and a Snickers bar.

After a bowl of ice cream I felt a lot better. Maybe I was getting overheated because our kitchen has poor ventilation and I was cooking a hot dish, I thought to myself. Or maybe it was just a hotter day than normal. After all, we are phasing into the dry season right now. As a temporary solution I decided I would buy a dewormer pill next time I'm in town. Considering my symptoms, I don't think I have any inside me, but it's an advisable "for good measure" for expats. A couple months ago I was informed by an expat friend to take a dewormer pill once every three months while abroad. Also having heard you're supposed to de-worm every six months, I made a mental note to look it up online but didn't get around to it until I became convinced I have a parasite in me.

Convinced... sheesh.
Thanks, Lariam and Google, for keeping me up at night.

ASSumptions

When traveling abroad, being naive can get yourself robbed, sick, deported or even killed. On the bright side, believing the best in people can save you from being an "assuming ass."


For the past month our Ghanaian staff member Lawrence has been rummaging through Cape Coast for a new guesthouse for our volunteer groups to use during their program. As an organization we are growing rapidly at our Ghana site - we are hosting about half a dozen student groups in 2011 - therefore, we will need a bigger and hopefully cheaper guesthouse than what we’ve used previously.

Lawrence found “the one” a couple days ago and showed Kirsty, who was surprised to agree with Lawrence that it is “the one,” after visiting several “the one”s over the past month. Kirsty and I will be living in a separate wing of the guesthouse; as such, both of us need to approve of the place as a guesthouse as well as a new home. It was my turn to visit the guesthouse. I was to meet Lawrence in Abura at Tina Tavern and from there we would set out to the guesthouse.

It was a few minutes past three, the sun ablazing, and no Lawrence in sight. I walked up the cement stairs and stood under the red tent. Two Ghanaian women were sitting at a table, as hard at work as you could be mid-afternoon on a week day, staring at me like they’ve never before had a customer. I told them I was meeting a friend. They nodded so I sat in a plastic chair at a plastic table where the sun couldn’t reach me and waited. After a couple minutes I called Lawrence to see where he was, not out of frustration but out of courtesy of the two women staring at me wondering if I was going to use their shade and chair and not order anything. He said he is in town and I couldn’t hear the rest of what he said. Something about the guesthouse owner. “Ok, see you soon,” I said.

One the women got up from her seat and meandered to the bar. The other woman, plumper and younger, called out to me from her chair across the patio, “Is your friend close?” “No,” I replied airily. “He said he’s on his way coming.”

If the woman was a foreigner who had been in Ghana a while, she probably would have laughed at the tone of my voice. When working with Ghanaians, about 70 percent of the time they are either coming (20-45 minutes away) or on their way coming (haven’t left their house yet). Some foreigners find this cultural norm irritating, especially if they don’t bring a book to read while they wait, but I don’t mind. Too many things to notice, to observe, to question, to ponder - too many things to do instead of being bored or impatient or annoyed.

“Will you take a drink?” she pressed. A drink would refresh me in this heat, but I wondered whether I’d have enough time to down it before Lawrence arrived. A taxi from town to Abura should only take 5-7 minutes but knowing Ghana and Lawrence, it’d be more like 15-20 minutes. “Sure, I’ll have a Sprite.” She disappeared and returned with my drink, popped open the lid for me, and I paid her 2 cedis. She lingered at my table and asked for my name.

“Michaela.”

“Michaela,” she repeated slowly. “I like your name. It’s very beautiful. How do you spell it?”

“It's Michael with an ‘a.’ M-I-C-H-A-E-L-A.”

“Ah, okey okey okey, Michael with an ‘a,’” she stared out at the street and then back at me. "It's a very beautiful name!"

“Thank you, and what’s your name?”

“Essi.”

“Ah, Sunday born. I am Ekuwa.”

“You are Wednesday born.”

“Yes.” I noticed she didn’t want to be done talking. She was about my age and I figured she probably had children so for the sake of small talk, I asked.

She beamed, “I have one child.”

“That’s wonderful. Boy or girl?”

“Girl.”

“And what’s her name?”

She smiled shyly, “She doesn’t have a Christian name.” I shrugged and she continued, “Her name is Adwoa.”

“That’s my favorite Fante name,” I replied. “Which day is that again? I forgot.”

“Monday.”

“Ah, yes. Monday,” I took a swig from my glass bottle. “Well, if you have another child and it is a girl, maybe you can name her Michaela.”

“That is why I asked how you spell it!”

We laughed.

A man had parked his taxi on the side of the road in front of Tina Tavern and was walking up the stairs. He said something in Fante to Essi and sat down at the table behind me. Essi went to the bar.

My back was to the man and he was facing the wall to my left. “Are you waiting for someone?” he asked.

I turned to my right toward the street and sun, “Yes.”

“I am the one you are waiting for,” he said, smiling.

“Ha, I don’t think so,” I took a drink from my Sprite and stared out at the street.

“You will come to think so,” he said.

I looked at him and laughed and then looked out at the street again. “You are very forward.”

He laughed at me. I was grateful for the silence that followed. Lawrence should be here any minute, I thought.

The man spoke again, “I think you are meeting to see a guesthouse.”

I turned and looked at him suspiciously. “What? How did you know that?”

“I am the owner of the guesthouse."
"Ohhh!" I laughed, relieved to be humbly reminded that not all Ghanaian men are after the white ladies. That’s what I get for living in West Africa for five months and becoming jaded to getting hit on incessantly.

"Mr. Lawrence told me to meet him and you at Tina Tavern. He is coming.”
"You!" I said jokingly shaking my finger at him. "Nice one, thank you for the laugh."
He chuckled. "See? I told you I am the one you are waiting for! I am driving us to the guesthouse," he pointed at his taxi.

Just then, Lawrence sprinted up the steps and threw his right arm in the air and left arm at his side to capitalize his grand entrance. "I'm here!" he exclaimed. The guesthouse owner hoisted himself out of his chair, walked over to Lawrence who was taking a seat at my table and briefly replayed our meeting to Lawrence in Fante. Lawrence looked at me and threw his head back and laughed at the ceiling of the red tent. The guesthouse owner, Kofi as he later told me, giggled to himself and at me and went back to his chair. We continued laughing until I realized they were waiting for me to finish my drink so we could leave to see the guesthouse.


Lesson learned: Look before you leap. It's smart to have your guard up in a foreign country, but it should never be up too high.