Africa and Africa

This weekend I learned that there is Africa, and there is Africa.

There is Accra, and there is Manso Nkwanta.

I was in Accra from Saturday to Wednesday. I had arranged to pick up a variety of health education material from the likes of the Ghana Health Service's HIV/AIDS and STI Program, the Nutrition Unit, the Health Promotions Unit, and I had a meeting with the Ghana Sustainable Change Project, a USAID funded initiative that produces a lot of good health materials.

But that was during the week. First there was a glimpse of the expat good-life, as it were.

On Saturday and Sunday I stayed with the project's Accra based UNDP (UN Development Program) liason, Rafael de Ecuador, and his wife Ezgi (de Turkey), both graduates of of Columbia's School of International and Public Affairs (SIPA? is that right?).

In Africa, you get a vegetarian sushi platter and all the accouterments (though you might pay nearly NYC prices).
In Africa---well, you have rice.

In Africa, you jog with Rafael through the upscale Airport Residential Area which is oddly reminiscent of southern California, and continue to the Airport Social Club, an Air Force associated facility that includes a nice weight room, where you listen to Tupac while blasting your pecs.
In Africa, you run down farmer's trails with sneakers that now permanently smell of tropical mildew, and on nights where you don't work until 10 you do a few pushups, and maybe some handstands.

In Africa, you take the car out to KoKo beach, for a post-workout beach resort meal, and relax in the shade, drinking house wine and feeding the peas which fell off your vegetarian pizza to the cute wall gecko who begs like a dog.
In Africa, there are some stagnant pools. But you don't go in because you're trying to keep your parasite burden down. There are no peas. But there are plenty of geckos. They still poop on your stuff.

In Africa, when you head to stay with your friend Liz at her hostel in the teaching hospital (because Rafael has left for a work trip to Ethiopia), and you hear your name called, you so expect to see an African who you met once 4 months ago and of whom you have no recollection, that it takes you several seconds to process the fact that you just ran into Celia, a medical student from your class at Columbia randomly doing an elective in Ghana.
In Africa, when someone calls your name, it really is an African who you met 4 months ago and who you don't remember. And your name is Obroni.

In Africa, you find Crystal Hot Sauce (your favorite) in TWO supermarkets in one weekend! Which, coincidentally, ranks African grocery stores somewhere above the Gristedes in Washington Heights.
In Africa, you occasionally poor a few drops of Crystal into your palm and eat it. Oh man, I love that stuff.

In Africa, inspired by Crystal Hot Sauce, you organize home-made burrito night at the hostel with Liz and Celia. And it's everything that you dreamed it would be. Expect that the chewy lebanese flat break that you're using for tortilla makes keeping your burrito together a little difficult.
In Africa, you think longingly about home-made burrito night, and eat another peanut butter and jelly.
________________

On an unrelated note, next week I'm traveling overland north through Burkina Faso into Mali. Wish me luck (in french). Here's hoping I make it to Timbuktu.