01/29/2024 Bikepacking Ghana Day 174 : You Are Home Now

“Ah, you need to hold onto this! Everyone here wants one of these!”

Acheampong handed me back my American passport. “You will want to stay here longer than 10 days. You will see Ghana is much more civilized than West Africa.”

In the background, one of the officers joked with Acheampong, “Right! He will stay here and you will go to the US in his place!” They all laughed.

You could tell these guys liked their job. I was in the office with these four men, and they were telling jokes, smiling, and fixing my downtrodden spirits quickly.

I said, “Guys, thank you. I’m so happy to be speaking English again, and you are making me feel really welcome.”

“You are home now,” replied one of the officers.

My eyes got watery when he said this, but I did my best to hide it in front of these four men who could all be point guards or power forwards. It has been a while since I have felt powerful emotions on this trip.

Acheampong said, “Here is my phone number. I will teach you about the culture of Ghana.” He wrote it down, and that is the only way I would have ever remembered how to spell his name!

In the background, two female officers were practicing their Spanish. Yes, people were studying Spanish in Ghana. And yes, women were doing a job that wasn’t physical labor while the men just sat around. This gave me hope. I spoke to them in Spanish and they laughed.

I was given 30 days stay at a cost of $150 USD. Most of the West African visas are expensive; The price of this visa was more than I spent on hotels (or food) during 11 days in the Ivory Coast. The cost of entry, though, was worth it for the pick-me-up alone.

My emotions had been a little fragile after Ivory Coast. If you’ve been following all the posts, you know I felt pretty hollow after 3 more of the puppies were lost, my friend Glenn was in the hospital, and to top it all off, there was something about this section of the Ivory Coast that didn’t feel welcoming. Maybe other parts of IC are better?

At first glance, the Ivory Coast should have been very likable: In the town of Man, some people actually yielded in their vehicles; waving others to go first. It had been a long time of aggressive driving in Guinea and especially Sierra Leone. There were even traffic lights in one of the cities in Ivory Coast… and people obeyed them the majority of the time.

After a complete absence of pets in Guinea and Sierra Leone (and a near absence in Senegal), some people now had dogs; none of which gave me chase. There was electricity, even in the smaller villages. I should have liked Ivory Coast. But for some reason, people chasing me down on motorcycles, only to snap a selfie and then turn around and go back… and many not talking to me…. Well, let’s just put that land behind us.

******

The officers at the border had said, is much more civilized,” and with civilization comes adherence to rules... In 5 of the previous countries, I had been able to illegally get a SIM card without any trouble. Technically, you need to have a national identification card to get a SIM, but a black market has cropped up in many places to work around that rule. In Ghana, though, there were neither money changers, nor SIM dealers at the border.

*********

Speaking of civilization, there were several checkpoints along the first 30 miles of Ghana. Since English is easy, I spent more time talking with the officers. The last time I had easy English was Sierra Leone.

At one of these posts, they took my passport into the office. My passport was returned after 10 minutes, and I continued to chat with the guys. A bit later, the “big boss” came out. He was hitching his pants up.

“I’m sorry I couldn’t meet with you. When they brought me your passport, I was using the restroom.”

I now had a nice visual of him sitting on the pot, reviewing the pages of my documents.

I hope he used his right hand to turn the pages.

“What is your name,” I asked.

“Eder.”

“Oh, that is a new one for me. How do you spell it?”

“P-E-T-E…..”

“Oh, Peter!” I exclaimed.

“Yes, Eder,” he replied. “So, have you encountered any trets on your journey?”

“I’m sorry, treads? I do not know that word?”

“T-H-R-E-A-T….”

“Oh, THREATS,” I recognized the word.

“Yes, how do you say in your country?” they asked.

“THreats,” I said.. placing emphasis on the TH. They laughed.

“Kind of like how we also pronounce the ‘P’ in Peter.”

They all laughed and Peter high-five’d me at that one.

“So what kind of threats do you mean?” I asked - expecting them to warn me again about the extinct wild animals of West Africa.

“You know, like robberies..”

This was the third time I had been asked about robberies in Ghana already. And I’d never been asked this once in the previous 90 days.

“Is Ghana dangerous,” I asked?

“No, no. Ghana is safe. Whenever you are in Ghana, people will help you. It doesn’t matter if they are civilian or security like us. Anybody in Ghana will help you because of our hospitality.”

It was reminiscent of talking with fellow Americans after returning from a trip to Latin America. Usually, the first (and last) question we get is “Did anyone try to hurt you or rob you?”

It almost seems as if the people of Ghana dissociate themselves from the African continent in the same way that the Moroccans did. I already get the feeling Ghanan people believe that “Africa is dangerous, but Ghana isn’t Africa.”

Well, I don’t know if Ghana is West Africa or not yet, but it is fun!

******

I realized that I’m running out of time and still haven’t explained West Africa as well as I could have. I have focused on a lot of the conversations and short bits of dialogue that in many instances represent the people and hopefully paint a picture of some of the good hearts that I have met along the way. There have been many people who are friendly and welcoming, and genuinely good. I have leaned towards that angle, and maybe disproportionately. That is certainly a part of West Africa that I would like to emphasize. Moving forward, I plan to do a little less of the dialogue, and try and better convey the daily details of what it is like for the people who live here. I’d also like to tie in some relevance for a mostly American audience.