I set off down the dirt track in my oversized turquoise anorak, mud-splattered obruni legs jutting out from underneath. My appearance is met with general amusement from passers-by. One man, shirt transparent from the water, shouts, ‘Lady! This is Africa!’.
I know this is Africa, good sir, but I am a Brit. And I do rain.
A season of rainfall is truly upon us. The gutters across Accra brim over with discarded plastic and reawakened sewage permeates the air with the stench of stale waste. With each onset the city stumbles: the water, electricity and phone lines likely to fail. The unpredictability that was once infuriating has become a fact of life and I have adjusted my expectations with glorious effect.
I know this is Africa, good sir, but I am a Brit. And I do rain.
A season of rainfall is truly upon us. The gutters across Accra brim over with discarded plastic and reawakened sewage permeates the air with the stench of stale waste. With each onset the city stumbles: the water, electricity and phone lines likely to fail. The unpredictability that was once infuriating has become a fact of life and I have adjusted my expectations with glorious effect.
I have now been in Ghana for two whole months. I am halfway through my adventure. I have survived sixty-one days of washing my own clothes, drinking Ghanaian gin and never feeling cold. I have lasted nine wholesome weeks without watching television, applying a face of make-up or stepping inside a theatre. I have also been quite content to live the past two months without an iPhone. In its place, somewhere in the depths on my rucksack, lies an old Nokia 3310 with a Ghanaian sim for which even I do not know the number. I am free from the chains of constant access. Although my grand total on snake now exceeds 2000 (16-year-old me would be so proud).
The first half of my trip has been a happy one. It has been adventurous, inquisitive, creative and also hugely liberating. In the past week alone I have swum in a waterfall, held a monkey and learnt the philosophy of Rastafariansim. In general I have developed knowledge and interests in areas I have never explored before and I have seen beaches more beautiful than I could ever have imagined. Life is unrecognisable. Yet, like the weather, life has its seasons. And I do not want this one to end.
Eva’s journey came to an end last week and her departure is marked with a tinge of sadness. Eva is the first friend I wrote about in this blog and her absence will label me the oldest resident of Agoo: the oldest, the wisest, the ‘Ghanaian Guru’. I still feel like the new girl on the block: the obruni kid who arrived off a plane with her factor 50 and her multipack of anti-bac.
Eva’s journey came to an end last week and her departure is marked with a tinge of sadness. Eva is the first friend I wrote about in this blog and her absence will label me the oldest resident of Agoo: the oldest, the wisest, the ‘Ghanaian Guru’. I still feel like the new girl on the block: the obruni kid who arrived off a plane with her factor 50 and her multipack of anti-bac.
On Eva’s last night a group of us ventured to local jazz bar +233 to celebrate the Accra Jazz Festival. The rhythms wrapped around us as we discussed what life stories we would tell our fellow pensioners when we are old and grey. There were tales of tall ships and prison cells and technicolour dreamcoats. A member of our party was indecisive and said that their life is ‘really rather dull’. As I looked out at the Accra skyline and the array of colours and sounds and people, I did not think that could possibly be true of any one of us.
Dave Brubeck once said of Jazz that, ‘you’re going to take a chance on making mistakes in order to create something you haven’t created before’. I took a chance on Ghana; I have no idea what I will take a chance on next. The uncertainty can niggle. But I refuse to worry. After all, if life were set in stone, I would not have found myself swimming in the tallest waterfall in West Africa at the age of 27. Chance can be a fine thing.
Dave Brubeck once said of Jazz that, ‘you’re going to take a chance on making mistakes in order to create something you haven’t created before’. I took a chance on Ghana; I have no idea what I will take a chance on next. The uncertainty can niggle. But I refuse to worry. After all, if life were set in stone, I would not have found myself swimming in the tallest waterfall in West Africa at the age of 27. Chance can be a fine thing.