Today is my last day in ghana. Crazy talk.
First i will catch you up on the nothing much that has happened since the last post. Brach n i did kabbalat shabbat together on the balcony of the fort overlooking the ocean. Would have been more beautiful had the beach not been used as a public toilet and was hence occasionally stinky depending on the direction of the wind. We had vegetables and rice for shabz dinner. We chatted but by 8pm the 2 nights without sleep caught up to us and we went to bed.
I woke up at 7.30am, brach was still sleeping. I dressed n davened, made kiddush on mango juice and had some biscuits for breakfast. But then i went back to bed. I read a bit more of nicole krauss's 'man walks into a room' and napped some more. Then i got up and brach n i read and discussed the parsha, after 10 shabatot of reading the parsha to myself it was lovely to have somebody to share it with. We then napped some more and ate some bread and beans and biscuits for lunch.
At around 1.30pm we decided to go for a walk back to the secret beach we'd phone the day before. So we did. And there we sat on the rocks with our feet in the water and talked abut everything as we normally do. At about 4.45pm we walked back to the fort. We sat out on the balcony overlooking the sea and watched the sky get darker until shabbat was out. We then showered and went out to get some kenkey for dinner. After that i watched the mali vs ghana game for the africa cup, ghana lost but they didn't deserve to win. They didn't play very well at all. It was a semi-final or a quarter final or something which i think means that they are now out of the tournament.
By this stage it was 9.15pm and hilariously bracha and i were exhausted. So we went to bed.
And now it is 7am on Sunday morning, my last day in ghana. We're gonna have breakfast and pack and try to be out of here by 9am. When we get to accra we're going to try and find a police station (long story, i'll let bracha explain it on her blog if she wants) and then maybe try and find some presents for people back home - this is a very hard task indeed - and lastly we're going to pack. This will be a complicated procedure since we're swapping many things between us since she's coming from winter (europe) and going to summer where as i'm coming from summer and going to winter (israel).
Since this is my last day in ghana i suppose that it's a good time to reflect on my time here. I still have 2 epic posts in the works about inter-cultural couples and about judaism in the 3rd world. But first some simple reflections.
What will i miss?
I will miss walking down the street and having everybody greet me, people saying welcome my friend, was really lovely. I will miss being totally safe, never being harassed or even hit on really. I will miss everybody being so helpful, asked that i'm ok, do i need help carrying my things, do i need directions etc. Ghanaians are really delightful, they are friendly and safe and helpful, perfect for travellers.
I will miss being able to buy a giant meal for 30cents that i will never be able to finish. I will miss buying fabric in the markets, taking it to the lady next door and having her make me a dress (with sleeves and pockets!) all for less than $10. but then again she always made the dresses too big to leave room for me becoming fat as i should be in africa.
Speaking of which, i will miss being in a culture that values women for the way they are. It was so refreshing to have the ideal woman having a giant ass and probably by western standards a bit fat as well. It was kinda nice to have everybody tell me that i'm too thin and i won't ever find a husband if i don't put on some weight.
I will miss the rhythm. The constant music in the background, the drumming and singing, the dancing.
I will miss my african friends. They were interesting and kind and would do anything for me. And let's face it, i have no black friends back home.
What won't i miss?
I won't miss being constantly paranoid that everything is going to make me sick and/or kill me. I won't miss the reckless tro tro drivers, the terrible roads and minivans with doors flying open regularly and windows of shattered glass being perilously close to my head. I won't miss the mosquitos and not being able to eat anything unpeeled and uncooked or not being able to drink the tap water (when there was tap water and not well water, which is also undrinkable).
I will not miss the food. Look, beans and plantain and rice and maize paste would suffice for maybe 3 meals, but when you have the same 3 meals on rotation for almost 3 months you go a little crazy. You start dreaming about being drowned in plantain and how terrible that would be.
This was a great trip. It was hard. Being the only Jewish white girl in a house of ghanaian boys was tough. Nobody really understood me and i was super alone. But i made friends. It was hard at the beginning doing to corporate funding stuff but i found ways to get back into what i'm good at and went to teach young people in 2 different schools and then in the jew village as well. It was hard keeping kosher and not being able to eat, pretty much anything here.
But i'm so happy i came. I learned so much about africa, about living in the developing world and i learned about the west from the outside and about my own culture which was developed in a world without running water or electricity.
All in all, היה טוב אבל טוב שהיה
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