First Night in Accra

When I bought the plane ticket to Africa I mostly thought about the destination. I didn't stop to realize all of the amazing places I would be flying over. We reached Ireland as the sun rose. I could see the mismatched green fields and rock quarries, and then Dublin. The Isle of Mann, my mother's ancestral home, could be seen off in the distance as we crossed the water to England, and then a longer crossing before we descended into the Netherlands. Amsterdam is a network of square, green fields crisscrossed by canals, with stripes of colorful tulips. The long rows of buildings are laid out in regal-looking rectangles. We spent a few hours in the Amsterdam airport, met up with one more of our group, and spent two hours wandering through an art gallery and flower shop inside the airport.

The connection to Ghana was interesting. I had heard than Africans do not tolerate lines well. Whenever anyone started talking on the intercom there was a rush to the gate door, and staff would have to tell people that only Business Class could board, or only rows 8 - 16 could board. The room smelled like sweat and a thousand types of cologne. Many people were laughing with strangers and others were bickering over seats. The flight attendants rattled off every message in Dutch and English; I thought it ironic that many of the passengers probably spoke neither very substantially. Some looked like executives, but many others seemed like they had never flown before. I ended up sitting next to a young Ghanaian who worked as a Quality Control analyst for a fruit company in West Africa. We talked about the market queens project and he gave me good background information on the agriculture market in Ghana.

There wasn't much to see as we flew over France and Spain, but as we crossed over Algeria and into the Sahara, the clouds parted to reveal sand dunes, strange red and brown formations, and jagged stripes of different-colored minerals. As we approached Mali the sky below turned an ugly brown from the sand storms and we couldn't see much. The sun set and we flew over Niger, Burkina Faso, and part of Togo as the clouds built. While we flew over Ghana I saw the most wonderful lightning storm of my life. Huge mountainous clouds would flash like lightbulbs and throw out streaks of lightning. It was a magical beginning to my Africa trip.

We descended into the sprawling city of Accra. Everyone burst into applause as we touched down. I was hit by a dense wave of hot, wet air when we left the plane, and we crowded like cattle through the doors. The airport itself felt like some kind of cattle auction. As we passed through the throng, some guy with a badge grabbed my bags and walked me the twenty feet through customs. I thought he was going to look through my stuff, but instead he asked me for a 20-cedi tip for carrying my bags. I ignored him and kept walking.

Outside the airport is a large waiting area that looks like my old school cafeteria. People lounged on benches under an awning watching Michael Jackson and Eddy Murphy dancing on a large screen. Women milled around selling Fanta and Coke from basins on their heads.

We found Isaac and Mr. Narteh waiting for us in the parking lot. They took our bags and after waiting for the rest of our group, we headed down to the Pink Hostel. Mr. Narteh had brought us some sandwiches--a fried egg between two pieces of thick white bread. The others were paying one cedi per hour to use the internet.

I was so tired when we got to the room, I barely made it to the bed. I threw down a twin sheet and collapsed in a heap. We tried to plug in a power strip but didn't check the voltage. Something exploded, despite the adapter, so we were too scared to charge our phones or computers.

One more night in civilization, and off to the island.

Flying

A series of miracles got us to Accra, and smoothly I might add. Our passports arrived a day early--I still haven't figured out how they got from DC to Salt Lake in less than 24 hours. The Salt Lake airport was almost closed due to bad weather, but we took off just in time. Our flight wasn't grounded in Memphis; we passed through without any problems. And it looks like the Amsterdam airport is clearing out very quickly.

I'm sitting in a cramped airplane seat, flying over the Atlantic in the middle of the night. All I can see when I look out the window is a white half moon. In a way I feel like an astronaut -- flying across an empty place; the earth is far below; nothing to distract me from my thoughts, because I'm not actually in the world right now. I find when I'm on a plane that my mind automatically drifts to the problems of the world. I feel more focused up here. I'm reading the new classics of poverty alleviation: The Bottom Billion and Fortune at the Bottom of the Pyramid. A classmate & fellow traveler doze next to me. The Amsterdam-bound Europeans stare around in a bored, travel-weary way. I'm sure they're glad to be ending their vacations & finally getting back home, given the airport closures of the last week.

I'm always surprised by the awkward combination of boredom and excitement I feel when traveling on a plane. I guess airports are a very anticlimactic way to begin a trip. I'm actually going to a new continent; this magical place I've read about for months; but all airports are basically the same. You sit for hours at a time in a numb state of purgatory, punctuated by brief moments of mild panic: "What if I miss my connection?" "What if my bags don't arrive?" "Will they ground us somewhere strange and cancel our flight?" But for the most part this trip is like any other trip--uneventful. And for once, I'm glad.

I can't get David Bowie's "Space Oddity" out of my head.

Bureaucracy Blues

We've been really anxious over this Iceland thing. Most of the flights in Europe have been grounded for five days because of a lingering cloud of caustic volcanic ash from a volcanic explosion in Iceland. These Icelandic volcanos aren't very nice: a few hundred years ago one went off and the resulting worldwide famine caused the French Revolution. The last time this particular one blew was in the 1820's, and there was no summer that year.

So it blew again last week and European officials instantly closed down the airspace over most of Western Europe. Here's the problem: they never actually tested the ash to see if it would harm planes. Five days later they run test flights and discover that there probably wasn't a need for the ban. Millions of people have been stranded for almost a week; the airline industry has lost over a billion dollars now, and countless businesses from Kenya to Nebraska have been strained or even ruined from this little mistake. Now that the bureaucrats have realized their mistake, it still might not be until Friday until they pull their heads out and get flights fully moving again.

We are flying out tomorrow (Wednesday) at 1:00 pm, with layovers in Memphis and Amsterdam before arriving in Accra. There's a high possibility that we'll be grounded in Memphis for a few days. I'd much prefer Pediatorkope to Tennessee, I'll tell you.

We thought that was the only headache to worry about, but it turns out bureaucracy is everywhere: in order to travel to Ghana you need to pay $50 to apply for a tourist visa. You mail your passport to the Ghanaian embassy in DC, and then they stamp it and mail it back. We sent our applications to the BYU travel office weeks ago, but just found out that they sat on them until it was too late. They paid the fees to rush our applications, but the Ghanaian embassy is backlogged with paperwork right now and says they won't be sending our visas back until this morning (Tuesday). So they will hopefully be arriving tomorrow or the next day, and I have to get on the plane tomorrow. If this delays my flight, I don't know if I'll be able to get on standby or rebook.

This whole week I've been praying that the volcano would stop its antics: turns out I should have been praying for bureaucrats to do their jobs--an even more impossible request.

How NOT to Pitch an Idea

I had an interesting experience today. For the last few weeks I have been talking with a friend about ideas he had for the BYU Experimental Theater Company. Yesterday we were tossing around some thoughts, and we had an epiphany: why don't we turn this club into a student-run immersion program? It could be structured like a real production company, have industry experts on the board to guide us along, and students could take it as a capstone class and gain real experience producing a play. This would round out their skillset and make them more marketable once they are looking for a job.

It's a very feasible idea: the PR department at BYU formed a real PR firm that is run by the students. They complete projects for real clients and gain valuable experience. The PR department was recently ranked in the top five programs nationwide. I am on the executive team for Grantwell, a mock-foundation housed within the Romney Institute that gives students great experience in foundation work, as we complete consulting projects for real foundations. Heck, the student newspaper is run the same way. This is not a new concept.

We put together a proposal and met with the rest of the ETC student board today. I was expecting an overwhelming response, pats on the back, maybe some cheering. I mean, we were pretty much saving the world here. This was a no-brainer decision.

They hated it.

Really hated it.

"We can't make it a class, because the faculty members have too much to do already." "We can't call this a professional theater company, because BYU would have major problems with that." "The department already teaches this stuff: you just have to fill out a proposal and get special mentoring." "I'm talented enough to get a job, I don't care about production." "This completely changes ETC and we don't like that", etc.

I was amazed by how quickly, unanimously, and violently they opposed our idea, until I realized that we had made the mistake, not them. We were dumping a complicated-looking new program on them without showing how it fulfilled their own goals. We also made the mistake of pushing a full-scale program with no warning, on a group of people who were already overwhelmed by the complexity of their current organization.

In the future, here what we should do differently:

1) Highlight what everyone wants to get out of this.

"We want to learn how to produce plays, not just act in them."

2) Describe the problem briefly.

"We do all these student activities but still don't have marketable skills to get a job after graduation."

3) Touch upon the main point of the solution.

"We should create an organization that looks and runs like a professional production company. That way, we graduate already having real experience."

4) Reinforce the idea's feasibility.

"Many departments on campus have used this model successfully. We can learn what worked for them and duplicate their methods."

5) Only introduce the initial tactical points.

"We can start slow, by finding someone in the industry who can help us build the right organizational structure. We will need to change the way we brand ourselves, but we'll mostly be doing business as usual in our day-to-day operations."

6) Outline a brief vision of what the organization could become down the road.

"Eventually, we could be an official capstone experience for theater students. We would be widely recognized and students would want to apply to our department, because of what we do here. We would place more graduates in prestigious jobs, and they could come back and make the company even better."

I wish things had gone better this morning, but I learned a valuable lesson, and hopefully won't repeat this mistake again.

Ghana Plans: Pediatorkope

I've been so distracted by Ghana plans lately that it's hard to focus on school. I'm really excited about a new addition to our trip plans: some of us decided to fly out a few days early and stay a few days late for a layover in Amsterdam. We had been juggling a few options: stay a few days in Kumasi, go up to Tamale and do a walking safari in Mole National Park, or maybe cross the border to Togo or Ivory Coast (not very feasible given visa hassles).

My wonderful uncle Ben suggested a great idea: why don't we just hunker down in a village for a few relaxing days and get to know the people and their lifestyle. It sounds like a wonderful idea--we had been getting a little stressed out arranging the details: if we went to Tamale that involved an 11-hour bus ride plus 3-4 additional hours to Mole. It would have been expensive and stressful.

Ben suggested the island of Pediatorkope. It lies at the confluence of the Volta river and the Atlantic Ocean, about two hours east of Accra. I found a few pictures of the island, and it sounds like a tropical paradise: mango groves on the edge of the river; colorful canoes plying the water, going from island to island in the river delta; the locals live in thatch huts; the women pound fufu and the men fish. There are a few nonprofits operating in the area--we'd be able to visit with them and learn more about what it's like to operate in West Africa. There's a little church on the island, so we could hold a service there on Sunday.

As I constructed this romantic picture of life in the village, I started to see difficulties they face: the Volta River is very polluted, teeming with typhoid, hepatitis, and other exotic diseases; the Akosombo Dam has significantly lowered water levels and fish populations downriver; the people live in poverty and have no power or light.

I am very curious to see what village life is like. We will be staying with families there, probably sleeping on concrete under mosquito nets. We'll eat whatever they eat (and hopefully not get sick), go fishing, explore the islands by canoe, sing with the kids, pound fufu, and learn how to cook.

I'm so excited to go, but I wonder if my current lifestyle is too cushy--I don't know how I'll be able to sleep on concrete, in stifling heat, under a stuffy mosquito net. I probably can't even deal with 20 hours of jetlag. I hope I don't get malaria, or typhoid, or food poisoning.

I'm conditioning myself to sleep on the floor. It's kind of pathetic. I took a nap on the couch yesterday and afterward my hips ached because I didn't have a pillow between my knees. How will I live for a week (or good portions of a month) without a pillow? I guess I have some toughening-up to do.

Packing List for Ghana

I'm starting to feel better from the crazy vaccines this weekend. I'm still really tired, and when I sweat I smell like...typhoid, but I think I'm mostly out of the woods.

I'm getting excited about the stuff I'll need to bring. I guess it's the Boy Scout in me--I like to pack for a trip. I'm trying to be well-prepared but also pack light, and do it on a budget. That can be either the perfect storm for a traveler or a very fun activity.

I had a birthday yesterday (yeah, I'm getting old) and had a few bucks of birthday money to blow on fun stuff. Alisha and I decided to go shopping for Ghana stuff. We first went to Missionary Mall to get ideas about what we would need. The prices there were pretty high, so we made a list and drove down the street to Walmart. We were able to get most of the things on our list at Walmart for half the price.

Thanks go out to my Uncle Ben for many of these ideas.

Here's my list so far. It will probably grow over the next two weeks, but hopefully not by much:

Microfiber towel -- like a shammy; compact, absorbent, and much smaller than a cotton towel. $29.95 at Missionary Mall, $3.95 at Walmart.

Crank LED Flashlight -- Small, clips to your backpack, and requires no batteries or replacement bulbs. $10.95 at Walmart. Ghana is pitch-black at night, and even on the grid there are frequent rolling blackouts.

Twin Sheet -- You will probably end up staying in some interesting places. It's nice to have a little control over what you sleep on. $4.99 at Walmart.

Composition Notebook -- I call the oreo notebooks. They're the perfect journal: inexpensive, easy to lug around, and you can get lined, graph, or unlined versions. $.89 at Walmart

Immodium Plus -- when you leave the U.S., plain Immodium won't do. Take them before you need them.

Baby Wipes -- Sometimes you won't be able to shower, and wipes will be your best friend. You also want these around to wipe off the little bags of drinking water before you tear them open.

Universal Adapter -- a must whenever traveling, unless you don't intend on plugging anything into a wall. $18.99 at Walmart.

Culture Smart: Ghana -- I'm looking for a good guidebook to the culture. This one seems to be the most popular. Haven't made my decision yet. $5.43 on Amazon.com

Bradt Guide: Ghana -- Supposedly the best guidebook. $11.59 on half.com

Security Belt/wallet -- I'm on the fence about this. It's a belt you wear under your clothes that holds your money and credit cards. They're kind of awkward to use, but I guess they can keep your stuff fairly secure. $9.95 at Walmart.

Water Purification Tablets -- You can usually buy bottled water anywhere you go (or those little cachets of water), but I figure these might come in handy. I read a list somewhere of all the stuff in the water over there (typhoid, yellow fever, sleeping sickness, raw sewage etc.) and I'm not dying to ingest it anytime soon.

Ghana pt.1: Vaccinations

My Ghana experience has officially started. I'm still in the states, but I'm sick as a dog. I guess fate is giving me a booster shot of reality. I got vaccinated the other day. After a few weeks of phone calls, waiting lists, and a little panic I was finally able to squeeze in to the student health clinic. The nurse rattled off a list of recommended vaccines, had me read a sheaf of laminated information sheets about various diseases, and I made my selection from the menu. It felt like an exotic sadistic restaurant:

"I'll take Yellow Fever, Typhoid, and the new-and-improved tetanus booster."

"Are you sure you don't want Polio? You're at high risk of Polio in Sub-Saharan Africa."

"No, I'll take my chances. I don't have the money."

"Ok. Take the Typhoid pills home and keep them in the refrigerator. Slight pinch. Don't allow them to freeze or get too hot. Don't expose them to light. Don't eat or exercise an hour before or after taking the pill. Don't take antibiotics or steroids for the next week. And go immediately to the ER if you have any reactions. This vaccination contains live Typhoid. Slight pinch again…"

I could tell that the nurse had done this hundreds, if not thousands of times. I'm sure it takes a certain skill to repeat a memorized script while injecting a person with multiple live diseases. I was glad for her nonchalance; it kept my mind off the fact that my body was now full of African diseases, and there was nothing I could do to stop whatever they would do to me in the next week. I shut those thoughts out of my mind long enough to stop by the pharmacy, pick up my Typhoid and four weeks worth of antimalarials and Immodium. I am now ready to survive Africa…I think.

Later on that day I started to feel flu symptoms. I had read on the yellow laminated sheet that 25% of people receiving the Yellow Fever vaccine actually catch a minor form of the illness (and I stress minor--full-blown Yellow Fever kills you 50% of the time). I thought little of it and went to bed.

I woke up Thursday morning with hives on my arms and legs. My skin felt hot and itchy, like I had slept on an anthill. I panicked, downed a few Benadryl, and drove to the Health Center. $25 and ten minutes later I was told to be careful and keep taking Benadryl (thanks doc), and went back home. The hives cleared up and I thought nothing of it. By this time I was having a bad flu. All my muscles ached and I could barely move. No matter what I did my feet and legs were cold. I put on some sweats, crawled under three blankets, and went to sleep.

I woke up later that afternoon completely covered in angry, red hives. My skin was raised like a bad sunburn and looked like some kind of map. The itching was agony, and my skin had swollen so much it felt like it could rupture. I popped more Benadryl, made a few frantic calls to the Health Center, and was told to go into the ER. I'm not a fan of the ER. I usually feel like an idiot for going there, and it's so expensive. I decided to wait it out, and sure enough, after 45 minutes the Benadryl kicked in and the hives started to go away.

I woke up this morning with just a few hives and the flu has mostly gone away. I think I survived my first brush with Africa, but it was brutal.