Ghana- Land of Forgotten Passports and Generosity
Trip Start
Jun 03, 2003
1
2
9
Trip End
Jun 2005
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Accra,
Ghana
Sunday, September 12, 2004
Rewind three hours. Suzy and Kelley are at the border of Togo and Ghana hitchhiking in the rain. We walk up and down the street trying to flag down nice cars heading to Accra, avoiding mud puddles pulling down on worn sandals like sink holes. Exasperated, we decide to give it five more minutes before giving up and paying for a damned taxi.
And then came Fred. Fred was a very nice Nigerian man who picked us up and gave us a lift all the way to Accra. Sleepy after the long trip, I kept nodding off in the back seat and as we passed border check points, I sleepily handed my passport to the policemen again and again- a seemingly simple gesture. But, my half-concious mind placed the book between the back seat and the back seat window after the latest interruption in sleep...
After a friendly goodbye with Fred, we made our way to the salvation army started to unpack, and yes, back to the beginning...
There I was without a passport, without an identity, and without a plan. All we knew was: The driver was a Nigerian named Fred who drove a red volvo, and that he would return the next day to Nigeria. Many schemes were hatched in the next 24 hours.
Me with the friendly customs officials
I would go to the radio and make an announcement asking a Nigerian named Fred to please bring my passport to the salvation army. We went to the police who called the border to ask them to stop a Nigerian named Fred if he passed on his way back to Nigeria. All possible scenarios passed my mind: He could take my information to the embassy, they will call Peace Corps Benin, I am on the next plane home. He could take my information to the Peace Corps Bureau in Accra, they would call Benin- again, next plane home. He could just not give a rat's ass and do nothing in which case I could try to go into Ghana's interior and cross the borders illegally into Togo and Benin- then report my passport lost. Possible endings: Happy Kelley back in Bembereke, Sad Kelley in jail in Togo. Alas, it seemed I would have to bite the bullet and call Peace Corps myself... next plane out?Then, we hatched out a great plan- we would wait at the first border check point leaving Accra towards Togo. He would have to pass this point on his way to Nigeria. So, we arrived before the sun to this checkpoint, spent the day with friendly Ghana police officers hour after excruciating hour. Around 11 A.M., I began losing hope because Fred would have had to leave early to make it to Nigeria by nightfall... The police were stopping every Volvo with Nigerian plates (Turns out that almost every Nigerian car is a Volvo)... Life was bleak.
And then, a red Volvo flashed its headlights from the line of cars waiting to go through the checkpoint-- and a tiny crack of salvation opened up in the sky. Yes, Fred from Nigeria was a good man as my intuition had told me all along. He had been searching for us all morning he said, which was why he was late getting to the checkpoint.
So, all is well that ends well, it is said: but, it also must be added that each good deed must be reciprocated in this universe of possibilities... and how I will do that, I do not know. Moral of the story: Only here, in this place so often lacking hope does it rise and expose itself so strongly: Belief brings into being.
Another: Don't not claim vacation days because you are strangely adverse to beaurocratic paper pushing...
...UNLESS the stars are aligned... as they evidently are over Ghana this week.
