Monday was beatdown hot and dry, but around 6 the sun started drifting down into a sunset I’ve not seen before. The Ghana: The Rough Guide book suggests you enjoy Accra's thin slice of nightlife and the beach for no more than two days before heading off to the bush. The book should have also suggested you make sure you’re outside around 6. Because the sky is Montana big and gold anmd holy crap that's an oversized sunset.
But then this morning I walked out and wondered where the hell the sun was. Overcast? There’s no overcast in Ghana. Ghana is all about palpable sunlight. Then the overcast started to gain dark dimensions, and as I walked toward the net cafe, rain started to pitter.
Arrive at the cafe, walk up the stairs and: “The internet is down.” They always say this, as if Bill Gates, the dick, effed the whole contraption up this morning and now we all have to sit on our thumbs until he gets it together. Walk back down the stairs and sheets of rain are plowing across everything.
The guide book does point out that September-October is rainy season. No, I don’t have a frickin’ umbrella. Another difference between Accra and Nairobi: in Nairobi, umbrella dealers materialize as soon as rain clouds roll in. I don’t know if Accra folk have real jobs to get to, or maybe they aren’t as interested in the mzungu-based economy (west Africans are supposed to be pretty much over the whole colonization thing, whereas east Africans are still kinda dealing with it psychologically, and the (small s)south Africans are still in backlash mode. But that’s another entry).
So I stand under an awning with the other guys who don’t have umbrellas. When it slows, we make a break. I get to a phone booth and try two contacts. Can’t get service worth a damn. I don’t know if this is the storm or if Ghana phones just suck. No sheets of rain now, just one consistent downpour. So I jump into a cab.
Me: “University of Ghana.”
Cabbie: “You want to see the…”
“Yoonah Versahtee of Ghana.”
“Okay. 30,000.”
“Can you give me a receipt?”
“Ha!” I just made his day. When we get to the University, I write out a bizarre makeshift receipt on my notepad and he signs. Hope the accounting department is in a trusting mood. Hope I can find the department building I need.
Two hours later and I’ve got all of jack accomplished. No one’s heard of my guy, I’ve spent an hour in a rainswept phone booth trying to get a connection to a professor’s home number. I tell myself it’s time for lunch, but when I get to the school cafeteria I get the First World heebie-jeebies checking out my choices and wimp out. I walk out with a bottle of 7up.
Facing south, trying to hail a cab. Something like a paddy wagon pulls up, CAFETERIA SERVICES on it. “Why did you take that bottle?”
“What?”
“Why do you take the bottle out of the cafeteria?”
“What?”
“That bottle you bought.”
“What the”
I’ll spare you the staccato back and forth, ‘cause it goes on for awhile. Between the phones, the absent professors, and the fact that I was still standing in the rain, unable to hail a cab while this guy was talking to me, I was too annoyed to just hand the thing over. Best I can understand after long debate is that Ghana bottling companies ask for empties when they bring fresh drinks, so everyone hands their bottlesd back once their done.
Whatever. Taxi (“Reciept?” “Ha!”). Home. Net café to file. Dinner at the bar.
Walk back out into the weather. The storm has blown away, my stomach is full and lightly beered, and work is done for the day. Walking home from dinner I saw this six year old girl get angry at her older brother and throw the biggest tantrum ever. Screaming, lunging at him, and then falling to the ground wailing and clawing the earth like she hated it. It was awesome.
Return to the hotel. Receptionist: “Mr. John, you have your bottle?” Coca-Cola I drank it last night.
“Yes,” coupled with end-thy-questioning grin. Up the stairs toward my room.
Maid on stairs: “You still have a bottle.”
Oh god, if only. I would be freaking in it.
