A day in Accra

Monday morning at the Savannah Inn started off with a quick immersion into our Africa experience. Julianna and I walked out along the beach and met Isaac, our new Rastafarian friend. He showed us his house, played us some rhythms on his drum, and told us about the peanuts and corn they were growing in the sand. Then we headed back to the beach and walked over to the fishing boats. The fishermen had returned from a morning of fishing, and there were a couple hundred people working on pulling in a couple dozen boats. We watched for a while, and then they invited Juilanna to join in and help. It is an amazing process, about 20 men (plus Julianna!) pull on two ropes to the rhythm of a chant that helps coordinate the effort. They pulled in a boat that was 30 feet long or more, up the beach on a pretty good incline. All the men got a good kick out of Julianna helping, and she did good work!
Then we were joined by my mom and Karsten, who were also quite enchanted with the process. When Fifi (the boyfriend of the owner of the hotel we stayed at) also came over then Karsten, Fifi, and I helped with another boat. This time they added a drum to the mix, and I found out how hard the job is, although the rhythmic pulling really distracted from how difficult the work was. Once we finished both Karsten and I got a bit queasy in the stomach from the exertion, and sat down for a while to recover. Then we headed back to the hotel and had home cooked fresh French Toast, which was quite a treat! Beth, the owner of the hotel was quite thrilled to have her first guests (us) and we really enjoyed the stay. Breakfast was sealed with fresh pineapple from a vendor that was walking down the beach. All in all, a great morning.

After a relaxing afternoon at the beach (we watched a movie about a Ghanian man we planned to meet that night) we walked to the main road and caught a taxi into town to visit a market. When we got there we learned that it was a ‘Trade Fair’ and it was the last day for the group of merchants that were there. There were people selling beads, necklaces, cloth, and much more. It was fun to just walk around and watch the people and see the local goods. In some ways the market was ‘authentic’ because it was a collection of Ghanian merchants in town to sell there goods, and not a market that was geared towards tourists (although that also meant it was a little more sterile because it was just a transient group, and people weren’t settled into their stalls and so on).

After a few hours (and some successful purchases) we caught a taxi to the Golden Tulip to meet up for a dinner with Emanuel Yeboah, a man that Karsten had met a few weeks earlier in California at a convention. First though, I got a hair cut at the barber in the hotel (long overdue) and then we had a glass of wine while we waited for them to arrive. In true African style, they got there about an hour late, and Emanuel brought two people with him to join us at dinner. He had an amazing story to tell (part of which we knew from the documentary we had watched earlier in the day). He had been born disabled in a rural Ghanian town, and while usually a disabled child would left for dead, his mother decided to raise him - despite the fact that his father ran off when he saw his disabled child. He bucked all stereotypes throughout his youth, overcoming the disadvantages of having only one leg, culminating with a bike ride across the country that raised awareness that disabled people could be useful beyond begging on the street.

His efforts became famous across Africa, and in the US - and eventually a foundation offered to give him a prosthetic leg. He went on to compete in a triathlon, and continues to do great work in promoting rights and possibilities for disabled people in Ghana. The dinner provided lots of interesting conversation, about future plans, and reflections on his experiences so far (including an appearance on Oprah, and meeting President Bush). At the end of the night they offered us a ride to the airport (to pick up the bag that missed the flight the day before), and then we said our farewells to our new friends.