Day the First

How strange after two months of slow distance travel over one-hour-at-a time changes to jetset like a ping pong from the most culturally different capitalist success(?) story we could find to the most culturally similar monarchy this side of the sun, to the setting of some of the craziest stories of our lives in just a few days. In one short flight we got great views of the Mediterranean and the endless Sahara (where patrollers use the burnt-out cars of adventurers who didn't quite make it as road markers), and were briefed on pan-African current events, history, and pride in pre-European civilization by a free in-flight magazine.

On disembarkation our bodies were slapped with the hot customary reminder of our arrival at the equator, and we've been sweating ever since. In the airport gunless soldiers directed us to immigration, where the attendant officer asked us if he could come visit us in Canada. "If immigration says it's okay, we'd be happy to have you."

The indominatable David Firang greeted us with otherside hugs and introduced us to his best friend Patrick, a entrepreneur, Samuel, Fire Chief of the airport, his son Sammy, and Jima, who is the Driver/Household Assistant of another friend of David's. We were whisked through the baggage check with one question asked (what's in the bags?) and made a 200 metre drive to Samuel's house, where we met David's wife Hannah before enjoying our first Ghanian feast: authentic Chinese food, at what is considered to be the nicest (and most expensive) restaurant in town, on David. "Ghanaian tradition demands," he explained, "that during your first week you pay for nothing."

Jima took us from the restaurant to our new temporary home: Lydia's. Lydia is a matter-of-fact mother of one-year-old Isaac (the most advanced one-year-old I have ever seen, Isaac is already walking, can repeat words he hears, and can pick up rocks as big as his head and throw them short distances), husband of Edward (a Director of Ghana Water Co.), and an educator who specializes in teaching people their rights as individuals under the 1992 constitution of Ghana. Lydia showed us to our stifling hot room and gave us our own fan. We slept like jetlagged stoners until 4:30 AM.