Ghana! A Travel Journal of Ghana and West Africa

As my time here dwindles to a close I look back on 2 and a half months spent here and wonder at how it went by so quickly sometimes and so aganizingly slow other times.

I remember my first unsure steps off the airplane and out of the airport. I remember getting the first taxi outside of customs. A taxi driver approached me, cautiously and taking an obvious interest in his surroundings as a drug dealer might as he approaches his customer. He asks too loudly from 5 feet off if I want a taxi. When I nod my affirmation he comes in for the awkward extended handshake and pulls me uncomfortably close and says under his (fowl) breath

“you want some cedis (the local currency)? I got cedis, you change dollars? Euros? Pounds? I got it all, I give you good rate, black-market rate. Come, lets go”

I go with him because a) He’s offering a better exchange rate than the banks and b) I’m tired are jetlagged and it would be so nice to change my money and get a ride to the hotel all in one swoop. Mind you it’s not quite legal but it’s not something you would get in trouble for, I felt uneasy mostly because he made it feel like I was buying crack not cedis. We hop into the back of his beat up old Peugeot taxi, he slides in next to me after obviously scooping out the environs, I’m not sure if he was looking out for police, more customers or what but it didn’t do anything to appease my unease. I slip him my $100 US bill (yes slip- I fancied myself being all cool and subtle like in movies, of course those who know me probably also know my complete ineptness in this arena!) and he pulls out a duffle bag stuffed with cedi notes. $100 US equals about 1 million cedis and he’s giving it to me in all 5000c notes. That’s like getting $100 in 50 cent notes!

He counts out 250,000c and passes the thick wad to me, I try and stuff half in my wallet, which now doesn’t even come close to closing, half in the pocket, in which it barely fits and 5000c notes are spilling out the top- a great way to travel around my first day in an unfamiliar city in Africa! He gives me another 250 grand, which I clumsily stuff in my backpack. By the time he gives me the last wade of currency I have money stuffed everywhere, in both pockets, in every nook and cranny of my backpack, and my wallet, so I have to carry the last 250K just in my hands- because that isn’t asking for a mugging at all! Of course now I REALLY feel like I’m either doing a drug deal or selling secret nuclear information to the Soviets (oops, I guess now I have the CIA’s attention on this blogsite!).

At most stoplights here (They actually, generally, stop at red lights here!) there are beggars of all kinds. So now, on the ride to the hotel, at every stoplight we pull up to the beggars spot the white guy and come running to my open taxi window (why not close the window one might ask, a grand idea if it had and attached hand crank intstead of the metal stub from where it had broken off). I hate my self as I’m sitting there with oodles of cash sprouting from all over me, making me feel like I’m literally made of money, while I tell an elderly blind man with a disfigured stump for a left arm that I can’t spare him any change. It might sound heartless and more than just a touch cruel, but after much soul searching and travel I’ve formulated a personal policy towards this that I consider grounded in benevolent reason. It doesn’t make me feel any better as I’m sitting there, however, with the beggars mangled stump beseeching me through the open window. It is always so terribly tempting to cave in on my morals and hand the guy some change, but deep down I know I would merely be assuaging my guilt rather than acting on any selfless expectation of rectifying the inequality presented before me. It would feel good to give him money, but it would do more harm than good.

That sounds like an easy out, a perfect way to do nothing and dress it up with all the frills of altruism. But I think- no, I hope- that this is not the case. The reasons I give for this are so irrevocably intertwined in my personal attitude on aid/development work and human nature that any discourse on such subject would make a great philosophical conversation, (ahem, Kiran and Katie!) but requires a mastery of prose that thus far eludes me and as such precludes it from making it onto this page.

Wow, don’t I sound like the pompous ass! I've only been here for little over 2 months, which is how long the orientation period is in the Peace Corps, and I'm acting like an expert. What do you guys think; it would be great to get a dialogue going on something like this (the whole beggar type thing, not pompous ass thing:-).

For today I think i'm off to the refugee camp for one last time, show Justine around, take one last meal at Brotherhood (hmmm egg and bread mayonaise sandwich...) and say goodbye to everyone.

Oh, and Atlanta family, I'm not sure but I was thinking of trying to go to the cabin for my fall break, which is usually around 10-12 of October, would any of you guys be around then?