Searching for White

Another bomb weekend of traveling! I think the greatest thing about our location in Accra is the accessibility to all other amazing locations. Haha. Not that this city isn’t fun to stay in, but it is just so easy to travel to the most incredible places. This weekend, it was a town in the Eastern Region. Ada Foah.

This is a stretch of land where the Volta River meets the ocean. There are a bunch of islands that line the estuary that you can take a boat out to. First of all, a location that you can only get to by boat! Yes! We ended up going to a really beautiful (and affordable!) hostel out by the mouth of the river. The hotel rooms were actually small huts built on the beach. I’m talking sand floor and everything. It was a really interesting scene, because as you look to your right, you have a typical beach scene. White sands. Standard Ghana garbage everywhere. And then to your left is an incredible lake scene. Placid waters. Standard Ghana garbage everywhere. These two vibes so close together!

We walked along the beach, through this standard Ghana garbage, for a few hours to the tip the peninsula where you can actually see the waters of the river and ocean. As we neared this point, we saw two men standing at the shore just watching the horizon. After a somewhat unintelligible conversation (hand gestures may have been involved), we found out that they were fishermen who stand there all day watching for patches of white. Once they see the white, they know there are fish, so they can throw their nets out. Can you imagine this being your job? Standing and watching for white.

So that night we partied along the island with a bunch of tech students from Accra. We had some good conversations about “the difference between blacks and whites” (as one of the other students put it). At this point, I think I am used to the degree of openness about race here. Conversations like this happen all the time and they rarely occur because they hold some resentment against me for being white. Rather, they are born out of genuine curiosity, which I really appreciate. I wish we could have such open dialogue about race in the US

But I have to give my country credit. For all Ghanaians that have asked me if the US really is as racist as people say it is, I usually respond that ‘yes, racist institutions are significant part of our country’s history, but at least we have a perpetual debate about it. Even if that debate is manifested as racial tension, at least we recognize its existence to some extent.

The next morning, we took a small canoe out to one of the islands to visit a shrine. This was no tourist’s shrine; it was strictly local. Judging by the locals’ reactions, we were the first whiteys they had seen in a while. The fact that we were actually able to do this with relatively little suspicion is largely due to the Ghanaian friends that traveled with us. They translated everything, including the part of the conversation where the priest wanted us to pay GHc10 to get in. “But it’s free to pray!” Well we did go inside the shrine and participated, or observed, a ceremony. First of all, let me set this scene. The shrine was slightly smaller than my bedroom, with a sand floor and rafters on the ceiling that had drums hanging down from them. At the front of the shrine were three wooden statues that were decorated to extent that they were the focal point of worship. The statues were dressed up with fabrics, knives and animal skulls. All had their mouths carved open and had drips of what may (or may not) have been blood dribbling down…..Hmmm. Well then, let the ceremony begin. Prayers were recited (that I didn’t understand, of course); we went through rituals (that I didn’t understand, of course) and concluded the ceremony by pouring the gift of Schnapps that we had brought him on the wooden statues. And then, by some cosmic miracle!, he dropped some of the alcohol at the feet of the statues and three clouds of smoke exploded to ceiling! Very cool. We thanked the priest for having us by kneeling and shaking his hand. As a parting gift, he gave us a bottle of holy water, which actually smelled more like sewage water but who is judging, really?

We drove back to Accra on motorcycles. Which was sweet!! I have to be honest that I was completely terrified for my first bike ride, but I discovered that pretending that you actually ARE as badass as you LOOK eases the fear. Riding through like that really makes you feel like you are touching the scenery. Like you are a part of the landscape that you usually only see behind glass. Really amazing. Although riding on a motorcycle in a bathing suit and shorts through Ghana…on a Sunday…attracted some dirty looks.