Election day
Trip Start
Nov 06, 2004
1
15
25
Trip End
Apr 30, 2005
Lawra,
Ghana
Monday, December 6, 2004
After an uneventfull days riding, with a lunchtime stopover for beers at a place called Jirapa, (which was bursting at the seams with spots playing reggae music for some reason) I got to Lawra, only to discover that the only 2 lodges were full up with guys from the army posted there for the election the next day. Consequently I set off to find Jerome, who I'd met in Wa. The guys at the petrol station where he'd suggested I ask for him sent me off with a kid on a bicycle to show me the way to his house. Not unexpectedly, he wasn't there, so we set off back into town after leaving a message for him, only to meet him about half way. He'd heard I was in town and had set off to find me.
Election Day Drinking Spot
Funny guy, Jerome - we set off for his local bar to have a cold beer, where a pattern of events that was to repeat itself a few times took place - namely him buying the beers, putting them on tick with the obviously slightly disgruntled bar owner, and then heading off to another bar to repeat the process.
Over drinks he explained that he was the local nurse at the eye clinic (quite a responsible / respected position, given the scarcity of qualified doctors, plus the high incidence of relatively easily cured but potenially serious eye infections in the local population), and had put himself through school etc by working in the Ivory Coast for a few years, as his father, being a farmer, hadn't believed in school. He also told me at one point that he had to be carefull not to lose his temper, as he couldn't control himself when he did, and would end up getting in fights - something I wasn't keen to see, but which luckily didn't occur while I was there.
He had a brand new Chinese bicyle with him for transport, but seemed barely capable of maintaining more than a walking pace with it. It turned out that the reason he had the bike was that his scooter had been used by a local lad while he was away, who had ruined the engine, and it was currently undergoing expensive repairs, hence the reason why he didn't have much money and was putting everything on tick until next payday
Jerome and I outside his house
. We later dropped my gear back at his place and walked back into town, again at a very slow pace, and had dinner and another couple of beers at another spot. By this time it was quite late, and the town was very quiet, but on getting back into the centre of town Jerome announced that he was exhausted, and too tired to walk back to his house (a distance of no more than a kilometer), so he set about finding somebody with a scooter to give us a lift back. After much faffing about this was managed by apparently trading some eye ointment with the guy who gave us the lift.
The next day, Jerome emerged looking somewhat the worse for wear, which didn't seem warranted by the relatively few beers we had, and after a very slow start we headed back into town on our bikes for a beer 'to get him started', first dropping into the hospital so that he could sign in an show me around.
Being election day all the spots were closed by official decree, but after some hunting around Jerome found a place that was willing to serve us, once again on tick, although this time with some quite vocal opinions on the matter.
Finally, at about mid-day I collected my gear and set off for Sawla, having first made sure to give Jerome what I calculated to be a bit more than we'd spent over the previous day on beers and food, and getting my hand kissed in thanks in return.
It was only later that I put two and two together - Jerome seemed to be able to only manage about 200 metres at a time on the bike before having to get off and walk for a bit, and seemed to have problems with physical activities people a lot older than him wouldn't blink an eye at. He'd also mentioned at one point that he was sick but after some tests on his stomach for a suspected ulcer the doctor was looking for some other cause, and problems with his heart might now be a possibility. He'd mentioned this pretty casually so I hadn't really thought much of it at the time, thinking more that the alcohol and cigarettes might be the real problem, but looking back on it I think he was quite seriously ill with some form of heart disease, with no real prospect of treatment if that was they case. Poor guy - I hope he's OK.
