Well, we're on board again, having breakfasted at the hotel and made it through security in time to wait two hours before boarding.
A scant two hours late, we're airborne at last. Finished The Filter Bubble, a troubling, but important, book, and switched to the delight of beginning to read Michael Ondatje's new novel, The Cat's Table, which is immediately engrossing. Won't mention the two gamespof gin rummy that I lost to Carol.
We've lost 18 hours from a short trip, but, depending on what flight connections we're able to make to Kumasi in Accra, we may not have missed too much. In any event, it is what it is (or will be what it will be). The hour flight to Kumasi will certainly be an uptick from the bumpy four or five hour ride we had last year.
I'd like, someday, to be able to develop more of the attitude towards time (and life) we encountered in the Sheraton Hotel lobby in a man we struck up a conversation with there. The flight cancellation had made it impossible for him to meet up with the people he was going to Nigeria with, so he'd been forced to cancel the trip. When I commented on what a shame that was, he shrugged and said he was just glad to be safe. He'd reschedule the trip for another time. This is an attitude borne in an accepting nature and in the deeply held belief that there is a plan for everything. We encountered a similar attitude in people who we rode on the bus to the Sheraton with early this morning. As one man put it, "if you want to make God laugh, tell him your plan."
We have a real sense of returning home to old friends, though, of course, we spent only about a week in Ghana last year. Still, the people we met were so warm, and the connections the Kipharts have forged with them over the years so strong and genuine that it's like returning to family, without the mishagas. We'll be met at the airport in Acra by Peter Eduful, who has organized the trip itinerary and is the Kipharts' main contact in Ghana. Formerly with the government's department of children, he's recently come to work full time for Dick and Susie. We've been in regular email contact with Peter from the States.
Our friend, Valerie Lewis, is on this trip with us. She has a very long connection to Ghana, since she taught English in a girls' school there in 1965-66, in the English equivalent of our Peace Corp. Four years ago, she returned to Ghana with her husband, Michael, to witness a cataract surgery project run by their friend, Jeff Tabin. Valerie knows Dick and Susie, having met them through us, and she and Michael met the people we'll be seeing on this trip.
The flight is long (about 10 1/2 hours), but uneventful. One of the Kipharts bags takes some time to appear, but it does and we clear customs and are met by Peter Eduful and walked over to the domestic flight to Kumasi. It's now about 7:30 AM on November 12.
More fun. The 9:30 and noon flights are sold out. The first available flight 4:40 PM leaves us almost eight hours in the domestic terminal. We look into chartering a flight, but that would cost $3000, so we pass. We'd have been willing to pay $2000, the thought of which absolutely mortified Peter.
Next test is whether we can take all of our luggage, as Dick and Susie have four duffle bags full of soccer balls and other gifts. We're told that we're allowed 20 kilos each, and our total weight, excluding all of our carry-on luggage comes to 126 kilos, because, fortunately, Peter has no luggage. By the time we get to the Four Villages Inn in Kumasi, it will have been 48 hours, door to door, from our house in Evanston, not optimum for a ten-day trip.
We finally made it to the Four Villages, after a very short and comfortable flight (once we survived the wait and cancellations). Warm greetings at the airport from old friends, including Alex the contractor and three of Peter's nephews, including Jonathan and Freedom. Passing through a stretch of heavy, dusty traffic, we arrived at the inn only half an hour before dinner, greeted by Chris and Charity, the proprietors, who showed us to the same room we'd had last year.
Dinner, prepared by Charity, was excellent and the company, including the amazing and energetic Dr. Annie, who runs a big health clinic in Kumasi, her beautiful 15-year old daughter, Saint Anne, Dr, Addai, who runs a rural health service, and Will, a graduate if the Berkeley school of music in Boston, who is the son of one of Dick's partners and is studying, performing and teaching music in Accra for 4 months. Great and varied discussion, followed by an early retirement, since we are all exhausted.
The long description of our trials and travails reflects the joy of traveling. Ultimately, though, the experience is so enriching that the travails are either forgotten, or enhance the story. I expect that will happen on this trip, as well.
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