Airport Security and Southern Hospitality

Hello all,

Today marks my eleventh day in Ghana.

In eleven days I have traveled to three different cities, attended my first Ghanian funeral, observed one surgery (perifomosis + circumcision), visited four schools, washed my clothes by hand (twice), discuss politics and religion [together, in the same conversation] with a African Traditionalist, showered using a bucket, and got offered an honorary position as a Village Chief (ceremony pending).

Those of you who know me are probably worried this will be a very long entry. You are right. However, since I would like people to actually read what follows, I will break this entry down into parts.

PART ONE: AIRPORT SECURITY AND SOUTHERN HOSPITALITY

Let me start at the beginning: For the first time in my life I was flagged by TSA as I moved through security. The agent, a women in her fifties, pulled my bag off of rollers, took my water bottle in her hand and shook it, smiled and asked me if there was liquid inside. Maybe?... I guess I had forgotten to empty the water bottle the night before and now I was a tough position: throw out my favorite water bottle, or, go back out past the security checkpoint, pour out the water and start all over? I'm curious...what would you have done? It's a stupid bottle, right? Not worth going all the way through a second time, possibly missing my flight, right? Wrong. As I was escorted out of the security area I unscrewed the lid to my bottle and drank the remaining water and walked straight to the back of the line.

I was lucky. Very lucky. Flint Bishop Airport should make a commercial starring me: Flint Bishop...you can arrive 1 hour before your international flight, go through security multiple times and still make it to your gate...

Two more layovers, 20 hours and one Bailey's (don't judge, everyone was drinking it) later we landed in Ghana. Airport security on the Ghanian side was much more thorough. All the important questions were asked, like: Do you have any drugs or firearms? No? Great, enjoy your stay!

As soon as we exited the terminal three different taxi drivers swarmed us. Josh, being a veteran, just kept walking because he knew we would find a much better price farther away from the terminal. The air was thick, raindrops had started to fall, yet the air was still hotter than I had been expecting. My pack became heavier as we continued to walk and I started to sweat, really sweat, sweat like I hadn't in the very many cold months preceding this very moment. We finally found a taxi driver that agreed to our asking price: 6 Ghana cedes (exchange rate: 1 USD = 1.5 GCD).

Let me digress for a moment. It is my belief that all travelers, especially those traveling to a foreign country, land with two things: luggage and expectations. I mean think about it, what do we do before we travel? We visit the CDC website to check that we are up to date on our vaccines; we order the updated Frommers travel guide...we do our research. Case in point: When I landed in Zimbabwe two years ago I expected the worse. Just a few months before Zimbabwe had made international headlines when their national elections turned violent. The government had split power between two parties, inflation was the worst in the world and there was no food on grocery store shelves. I expected the worse.

Flash forward two years to this trip, Ghana, where I landed with a very different set of expectations. Ghana is hailed by the western world as Africa's great success story. Ghana has been a nation of firsts: free and fair elections followed by the first peaceful exchange of political power, a young, flourishing democratic state, economic stability marked by expansion in the market and in foreign investment. In 2009, President Obama chose to visit Ghana on his tour of the world in order to praise their success. A metaphorical pat on the back, to be compared with the success stories we see come out of Detroit: have you heard of [insert name of business, student, non-profit, community organizer, etc]? Yes, they are doing so well. And look where they grew up...What an inspiration...More people should follow their example. So, what were my expectations? Not the 'City of Gold', but one or two levels below, at least...

Our five mile trip took us roughly 40 minutes, which was great because it gave me plenty of time to take in my new surroundings. Immediately I began to compare Accra to Harare – the architecture, the walls, the government buildings, the traffic. Just as I had been shocked when I found Harare was not the war-zone I had been expecting, but rather a city with large boulevards shaded by massive trees, and very friendly people; I was equally shocked to find that Accra was crowded, fast paced and less colorful than I had imagined. The air was thick, mostly due to the partially combusted petrol spewing from the very old Asian-made taxis. Everything seemed used, in the 'Salvation Army-sense' of the word – things I would still buy, but that showed they had lived through some 'stuff'... The roads we travelled were all one lane, some extending half a lane either way for motorcycles, and traffic was endlessly stagnant. Thankfully, large traffic circles – one example in many of something useful the U.S. has not adopted – help to move cars around busy intersections and into the less crowded secondary and tertiary roads. Once out of downtown traffic, Ghana started to look more like the Africa I had previously known: narrow side roads, houses surrounded by high walls, Embassy compounds and red soil. However, the one major difference were the gutters. The gutters are dug down one or two feet on either side of all roads and inside most public properties and are only covered at driveways or places where people and/or cars need to cross. In a big city like Accra, the smell – a mixture of decaying trash and urine – becomes apparent even to those suffering a moderate cold. Luckily, outside the main city center or market areas the smell does not linger.

We finally pulled up to the Jones' (name changed for their privacy) house. Passing through their gate was like passing through a portal into another world. Their yard was neatly cut, palms and other tropical plants dotted the walkways and an above ground pool, barely visible behind the back corner of the house, looked like an oasis in the morning heat. The inside of the house was reminiscent of most homes in the U.S. The kitchen was large with a dinner table substituting as a center island, large dining and living rooms, satellite TV and high speed internet. What more could you ask for.

Both Mr. and Mrs. Jones were at work, so Josh and I were left in the very capable hands of their daughter, Sarah (name also changed). We had grand plans for the day. Go into Accra, visit the market and eat at this restaurant Josh had wanted to try from his previous trip. We failed. Instead, we showered, sat down on the very comfortable living room sofa's and proceeded to nap on-and-off for most of the day. It must have been a funny sight: Josh and I would be in mid-conversation discussing our plans for the day and one of us would just fall right asleep. I guess the 20+ hours we spent traveling served as a great tranquilizer. Good start to our trip!

Just like the house had seemed very out of place to me when we first arrived, meeting the owners just solidified my belief that I hadn't actually travelled to Africa at all – the Jones' are from the South, the southern part of the U.S. that is. And so they have very distinct accents and an even more distinct sense of hospitality. All of us, Mrs. Jones, Sara, their son Donnie (minus Mr. Jones who had a late night at work), sat around the kitchen table for the rest of the night eating and trading horror stories about crazy medical accidents – personal and witnessed (Mrs. Jones is a nurse).

What an interesting start to the trip. After getting pulled aside by airport security, spending 20+ hours in three different U.S. States, flying over the Atlantic, and drinking a mid-flight Bailey's, I landed on an island in the middle of an African capital – the Alabama of Ghana.

AM