The Western Detour

---

We took a little detour. It was kind of like going to another universe, but it was actually just over to West Africa. Going from Ethiopia to Ghana is like traveling to the moon. Everything is different. Faces, body types (and geez, let me tell you about the mens' bodies in Ghana!!), food, climate, sites, sounds, smells. All the tangible things are more different than you can imagine. But the intangibles are even more striking.

Ethiopia is a proud nation. Proud of its ancient history, of its Christian legacy, of the Solomonic empire, of its architectural intrigue, of the diversity of its tribal cultures, of its unique-ness in Africa. But Ghanaians are a proud people. The first way we encountered this was in the street. In Ethiopia the most common greeting to white folks (faranji) is “hello gimme money.” In Ghana white folks (obruni) are greeted simply with “welcome!” Ghanaians don't ask you for anything. This relaxes you. You make eye contact. You are not afraid to engage. You feel your heart and mind open. People's interest is more genuine. Or sometimes they are not interested at all. They laugh at you more in Ghana. They laugh with you more in Ghana too. But in Ghana they are quiet about the hardest parts of their history. While they celebrate the strength and wisdom of the Ashanti Kingdom, they don't talk so much about the legacy of the slave trade.

Perhaps it is silly to make comparisons, but how can we avoid it? Ethiopia has become one of our favorite countries not for any particular reason but for a million different reasons. But Ghana was a relief in its own way (though certainly not climate-wise -- we nearly melted away). The lack of hassle, the ease of English, and the pure openness of people made it feel so damn easy.

Though it was work that brought us to Ghana, we figured we might as well pop into Burkina Faso and Mali, as long as we were in the neighborhood. They had never entered our radar screen. We were completely unprepared. First of all, we didn’t even know the names of the capital cities (Ouagadougou and Bamako, respectively). Then there’s the French! French is officially a nightmare and re-immersing in it was like returning to high school hell.

But, again, the comparisons. As soon as we crossed the border from Ghana into Burkina we not only went from English to French in a few steps, but back from “welcome!” to “gimme” (the French version of which is something like “donnez moi.” Children were lined up with cans slung over their shoulders -- tomatoes cans, bean cans, vegetable oil cans -- cleaned-out and turned into a little buckets with rope shoulder straps. Waiting to be filled with food. These children's whole day was dedicated to asking for things. We were asked for more things by more people in our first few hours in Burkina Faso than we had been in four weeks in Ghana.

And then Mali. Well, Mali just emerges out of the dessert. Entire communities appear as if they have risen up from the sandy earth. Narrow-faced men peer out from behind their flowing blue robes and turbans that wrap around the bottom of their chins. Camels lilt along, and the ribbons of the Niger and Bani rivers wind through the desolation and mark the path of ancient civilizations and contemporary urban chaos.

We spent painfully little time in these two countries. They were the first in which we had no work project (other than Sudan, that is) and therefore the first in which we lacked some broader development perspectives that guided us in other countries. It made us feel more like pure tourists. More distant. Just passing through. Nonetheless, some of the experiences were phenomenal. (And with any luck they'll be covered in future blog entries.)

And then it was over. We left the dry, flat dessert of Mali for the green, lush mountains of Tanzania. Another different world. The bottom line, and the whole reason I am writing this, is that this continent, that in US newspapers gets folded into one back-page story of famine, despotic rulers, endless wars and the ravages of AIDS, is really so vibrant and massive and diverse and more amazing than you can imagine.

---