First Trip to Ghana; or, On White Drug Addicts

We’re headed back to Atlanta after a little more than a week in Accra: first trip to our new home. Time for a few thoughts: not as though no obroni has ever had or shared thoughts about the place before, but I never have, so there you go.

True to its billing, Ghana is a wonderful place with people who are as warm as the weather, though infinitely more kind. You can walk on the street at night, become best friends over lunch, and pay $2 for a taxi halfway across town (more on money later). Accra even has a faster mobile phone network - 3.5G - than my provider in Atlanta.

Not to rose it up too much, of course. When you first arrive, you wonder why there are “Don’t Urinate Here” signs everywhere, until you see someone drop trou in front of an unfortunate spot that is not so designated. Oh - and it’s hot, as in, headed-to-a-meeting-wearin

g-a-dark-suit-with-hot-wind-blowing-in-your-face-through-the-taxi-window hot. Jessica got a sweet case of heat rash while we were there. We’re told July and August will be cooler, so we’re excited for that. Hot wind: how does that happen anyway?

In some ways, Ghana isn’t really that different from the old neighborhood back in Atlanta. Because we came here primarily to find a house, and because Accra is in the middle of a housing boom, we got to know a lot of real estate agents. Real estate agents are the equivalent of the corner drug boys back home – everyone can get you a house, or knows someone who knows someone who can. At one point, we had six people inside a circa-1992 Nissan Sentra taxi cab going to look at a house: the driver, Jessica, me, our Ghanaian friend John, a guy that said he knew some properties, and then a woman who actually had the keys to a property we were going to see. Most real estate agents wanted money just to show you around, and they all insisted on an 8-10% commission for what usually amounts to a few hours’ work. That’s 8-10% on at least a year’s rent, mind you…so it’s easy to understand why everyone’s in that game.

The properties we saw varied highly in quality. Some were newly built, some were Communist-era. Not that Ghana ever had many Communists, but it was a dead giveaway: dingy, dark rooms with low ceilings, and a singular metal fan slowly swirling all that hot air around. All were far too expensive, but it was clear the market could bear their prices. $2,500/month for a three-bedroom house 25 minutes north of town? Too bad, just rented out. $1,500/month for a small one-bedroom apartment in the city? Nope, that one’s taken too. Even worse, everyone wanted a year paid up front, sometimes two.

We ended up finding what we now consider a steal, after seeing around 30 properties all over the city. It’s in Osu, the heart of activity in Accra: a 2-bedroom house within walking distance of my office and the ocean. Even better, we were able to deal with a real property manager who conducted herself as one would expect, if one were planning to hand over many thousands of dollars in cash. Our Ghanaian friend John, who helped us to find houses and negotiate prices, assured us that this was not often the case!

Oh – but back to the old neighborhood. If real estate agents are the corner boys, then what’s the drug? Not property, really…I think it’s best described as community - or, better, connectedness - for which property is a means to an end. Relationships are the addiction in Ghana.

The Ghanaians themselves have it the worst; but they’re not just functional addicts, they’re truly soaring in their addiction to their fellow man. Whenever someone enters a store or a home or a government office, she’s greeted with, “You are welcome!” At night, walking through a market, young men will approach you in groups…in most places in the world this is a bad omen, but in Ghana it’s not threatening at all: they’ll just give you a fist bump and say innocent, spiritual things like, “I know you, man.” You can honestly get into meaningful conversations with people you meet on the street. It’s unlike anything I’ve ever seen.

If Ghanaians have this positive addiction, a sort of friend-a-holism, then the various white people you see around the city are a nice study in contrasts: the down-and-outers, if you will, with that intense need they seem never to be able to satisfy. Maybe it’s because of our time in the ‘hood, but we just aren’t scared all the time in Ghana, as so many of our fairer-skinned brethren and sistren seem to be. Nearly every time you’d pass a white person on the street in Accra, he always seemed to be in withdrawal…eyes darting to and fro, arms warming each other even in the 95 degree heat, toes inward and shuffling. Then, when he’d see you, his eyes would get wider, crazier - and he’d turn in your direction as if to say, “Oh thank God, you’re white – please…need friends…talk to me…”

The irony of course is that opportunities for relationship are all around him, relationships with wonderfully gregarious and sensitive Ghanaians with whom he might find, as we did, that he shares a great deal in common. But my skin color somehow tells him that we’re similar people, that we eat the same foods and follow the same football teams and liked the same girl in high school. And so he is unable to fulfill his need for relationships, all the while drowning in a sea of relaters around him. Heck of a twist on passive racism.
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So…our first 8 days in Accra. There’s more to say even about the first tour, but we can’t be a one-album band – let us work out a few of the hooks and bridges and we’ll get back to you with another demo. With any luck, we’re hoping a lot of good music will come out of this gig.

As we waited for the plane to London, it occurred to me that most of our fellow travelers were looking to take something out of Ghana. Diplomats want to take progress reports. Ghanaians want to take pride. Short-term missionaries want to take stories. Long-term missionaries want to take souls and self-esteem. Oilfield engineers from Aberdeen and Houston want to take the new black gold from the old Gold Coast.

It got me thinking: what do we want to take out of Ghana? One on level, we probably want a part of what everyone else wants. On another, we want nearly none of those things. At the risk of melodrama, though, after this week Ghana has taken on a larger role in the plot than we anticipated. And now we expect - no, we need – to take a lot from Ghana ourselves. We need to take its faith in God and each other. We need to take its heat - to flush out our comforts and complacencies, and those moments at the end of a long day when we don’t think we have time to show kindness. We need to take its unfailing, unreserved interest in the person in front of you. We need to take its willingness to give Jessica and me a little time together, for once. We need to take its color, its life, its vibrancy. And we need to be ready to take the many other things it will give us unexpectedly.

We’ll give back our open eyes and ears, our experience, and our very best efforts. But if we’re honest, our pockets are pretty empty, and we’ll more than likely rack up some debts to the house. For now, we think Ghana can handle that. Time to deal the hand.

- PG