Sitting at Lou Moon Hotel restaurant on the Gold Coast. Palm tree roof open sides, palm trees all around, waves lapping in the shore. Our suite (your sister booked it) is on a small island on the lagoon. The fact that it took seven hours to find it, we drove in the wrong direction for at least half an hour, and got stopped by the police twice and arrested once is now but a distance memory ........
This is the email my father sent to my brother after his first full day in Ghana. He is typically liberal with the truth: we were not in fact arrested, our driver was. Our driver was arrested for speeding on a quiet road far from civilisation. Thankfully our driver's 'brother' (he had many) was a senior policeman and so a few well placed phone calls and a good hour of power play later and we were on our way again. Penalty-free.
We then did get very lost. The roads in Ghana are not well signposted. To resolve this our driver decided to ask directions from children whilst my father shook his head and attempted to use the tourist map of Ghana like an ordnance survey. My mother and I were happily eating wine gums in the backseat trying to second guess when JC would give in and get out his tomtom. He did not last long.
This is the email my father sent to my brother after his first full day in Ghana. He is typically liberal with the truth: we were not in fact arrested, our driver was. Our driver was arrested for speeding on a quiet road far from civilisation. Thankfully our driver's 'brother' (he had many) was a senior policeman and so a few well placed phone calls and a good hour of power play later and we were on our way again. Penalty-free.
We then did get very lost. The roads in Ghana are not well signposted. To resolve this our driver decided to ask directions from children whilst my father shook his head and attempted to use the tourist map of Ghana like an ordnance survey. My mother and I were happily eating wine gums in the backseat trying to second guess when JC would give in and get out his tomtom. He did not last long.
The moral of this story is that the best destinations in life are often the hardest to get to. And Lou Moon in Axim, to the southwest of Ghana, is exactly one of those. The food, the location, the people: it was perfect. I had chosen this spot for my parents' visit after some careful research and the promise that there would be smoked salmon and air conditioning. All expectations were exceeded. Our house was on a small island which, at high tide, involved some serious sea and seaweed navigation. The food was the finest I have had in Ghana; so much so that my stomach had trouble dealing with the sudden deviation from avocado, fruit and beans. We only endured one day of rainfall but that provided some beautiful images of lightning across the bay and it allowed my mother and I time to relive my childhood and spend the afternoon playing backgammon. Some children played playstation...
It was a wrench to depart Lou Moon but Ghana cannot be fully encountered within four-walled luxury and so onwards it was to Elmina, an old Portuguese slave-trading base. Hustle, bustle, noise, smells: this was Ghana alright. From Elmina to Accra to see Jamestown and the boats. We went to the community centre and met some of the talented, enterprising young men who work there. Isaac showed us the studios of JT Live, a community radio station they all built together, and Samuel took us on a walking tour of Jamestown, an initiative the group set up to raise money for the centre. As we left one of the women had turned up an hour early for the weekly Access to Justice workshop and so came to join the farewell party. She smiled and shook hands with my mother and then clung onto Samuel as they all waved us goodbye. The centre has an overwhelming effect of making people want to be there. It was the experience that affected my parents the most.
The final days were spent watching and talking and exploring. We ate fish with our bare hands in a back alley restaurant that only served 'beer or Smirnoff'. I introduced them to my family at Agoo and Christiana, of course, who greeted them as 'Mummy and Daddy'. We then sat in the presence of a top Ghanaian jazz band where we shared a table with a drummer and a pianist who wore a leopard-print fez. The band's keyboard player failed to turn up and so our leopard-printed pianist stepped in at no notice. More talent. More enterprise. Ghana was great that day.
Having my parents here- albeit for one week- has awakened my senses to Ghana again. A week ago I was feeling restless; I was feeling the challenges of living immersed in a different culture more acutely than ever. I had started to miss the anonymity of London, the predictability of its infrastructure and its interactions, the ease with which I can travel from A to B with little bother and little time. I was missing the zeal I felt for Accra when I first got here, the great satisfaction I took from the smallest of exchanges. But, through two new pairs of eyes- two pairs of eyes that I have known for longer than I can remember- I have found that again. And I have realised how at home I am here.
Having my parents here- albeit for one week- has awakened my senses to Ghana again. A week ago I was feeling restless; I was feeling the challenges of living immersed in a different culture more acutely than ever. I had started to miss the anonymity of London, the predictability of its infrastructure and its interactions, the ease with which I can travel from A to B with little bother and little time. I was missing the zeal I felt for Accra when I first got here, the great satisfaction I took from the smallest of exchanges. But, through two new pairs of eyes- two pairs of eyes that I have known for longer than I can remember- I have found that again. And I have realised how at home I am here.