Dead Goats, Teen Missionaries, and Other Fond Memories From Ghana

Try traveling to a country where there are virtually no tourists, no tourist attractions and very little alcohol. You may come to realize that traveling, in and of itself, is slightly absurd. Essentially, you go somewhere away from home and beg to be entertained.

And if there are no entertainment options? Well then, you sit around a lot. Which is precisely what my family and I did for a month in Ghana in the summer of 1999. My father, being an avid jazz buff, wanted to immerse himself in the region that gave birth to the syncopated beats and improvisational spirit of his beloved musical tradition. He hoped to deplane and find his senses assaulted by the singing, music and dancing that would consistently but spontaneously erupt around each and every corner.

My parents, sister and I didn't find any impromptu musical performances awaiting us when we got off the plane, but we did find music on our first strange morning in Ghana, when our jet-lagged minds all simultaneously became alert at 5:30 a.m. With nothing to do, we decided to take advantage of the cool morning air and venture to the market. We weren't the only ones up and about, and every passerby took a moment to stare at not one, not two, but four white people walking down the street--and at six in the morning no less.

When we finally located the market, enclosed in high cement walls, our senses were assaulted not by music but by the overwhelming stench of warm raw meat. Flies buzzed everywhere. We took it in stride, even my vegetarian father, but were a bit too delirious and overwhelmed to keep up with the market's frenetic pace. As a young man rushed past us, hunched over from a heavy load on his shoulders, my sister was accidentally whacked in the back of the head. The load he was carrying, we soon realized, was a newly dead goat.

As my sister tried to come to terms with the fact that she had just been hit in the head by a dead goat, music suddenly started blasting from some unidentified speaker. We recognized the song immediately. When I want you, in the night ... Droplets of blood spilled from the goat's neck, marking the man's path with a dotted red line. When I want you, to hold me tight ... A fly landed on my nose and I violently swatted it away. Whenever I want you, all I have to do ... From a few stalls over came the loud thwack of a butcher knife through flesh. ... is dre-eee-eee-eee-eeeam, dream, dream, dream ...

My father had wanted music, but I don't think this was quite what he had in mind.

In fact, it wasn't quite what any of us had in mind, but in retrospect, I'm not quite sure what we did have in mind. When you travel to another country, perhaps you come looking for something, as my father did, but there are still a lot of hours in a day, and it's nice to have something to do. You expect some Eiffel Tower equivalents, or some rugged wilderness excursions, or at the very least a margarita on the beach. But Ghana was just not set up for travelers: sight-seers, thrill-seekers and beach-goers alike.

As much as we wondered what we were doing in Ghana, so did the Ghanaians themselves. "Are you missionaries?" they wanted to know. No. Students? No. Peace Corps volunteers? No. Business(wo)men? No. "Then why are you here?"

Like pied pipers, we attracted hoards of eager young boys wherever we walked, who followed us around and peppered us with such questions. We told them we were here to get to know their country. They told us that they would very much like to get to know our country. Would we kindly consider adopting them?

These interactions hovered somewhere between amusing and disheartening. On the one hand, Ghana has managed to circumvent many of the problems that ravage other African countries: war, hunger and AIDS, to name a few. On the other hand, life can still be difficult, and the income gap between "us" and "them" was still considerable. We, with our white skin and fancy shoes, embodied both exoticism and excess.

The boys wanted to move to the United States to live with us; the men made a slightly different proposal. What if, they asked my father, my sister and I stayed in Ghana to live with them? "Senior wife," they said, pointing to me, "and junior wife," they said, pointing to my sister. My father always laughed, and even though they laughed back, I'm not entirely sure they were joking.

Over the month we spent in Ghana, we got used to these questions, just as we got used to the incessant stares. We often went days without laying eyes on another white person. And when we did, the experience was not always pleasant. One afternoon, out of a mix of desperation and pure boredom, we sought refuge by the side of a pool at a fancy hotel. We were enjoying the quiet and the comforting scent of chlorine when a whole (gasp!) busload of white people pulled up--all teenagers, save for two frazzled-looking adults.

"Cowabunga!!!" one chubby teenager hollered as he cannon-balled into the pool.

"Hey Justin!" another screamed. "You're a fart face!"

"Your mom's a fart face!"

My family members and I exchanged weary looks. Up until now, we had kind of been missing the company of other Americans, but this was more than we had bargained for. And say what you will about stereotypes: Americans are loud.

We finally worked up the courage to speak to one of them, a friendly freckled redhead. We asked her what they were all doing in Ghana. "Oh, we're a church group from Iowa," she said. "We're here to like, teach these people about God and stuff."

We still didn't know quite what we were doing in Ghana, but it certainly wasn't to like, teach people about God. Or stuff, for that matter. We were there to learn, and learn we did, even if at the time it seemed like we were spending most of our days sitting around and re-applying deodorant. Did my father find the music he was looking for? Not quite in the form he imagined: like most cultures these days, music has become more formalized and less spontaneous--less a part of everyday life. But we did see some amazing drumming and dancing, and we tried our hands at some rhythms ourselves. My father was even told that he drums pretty well--"for a white person," that is.

In the end, when it comes to traveling it's never what you're looking for that you remember, even if you do end up finding it. You can spend your days checking items off a list, or you can spend them absorbing heat and sounds and smells. Either way, what you remember is what finds you. You seek out the Eiffel tower, and you look at it, and you snap a picture. Maybe it moves you and maybe it doesn't, but the first thing you remember when you think of France isn't a building; rather, it's the smell of almond paste from a bakery. Or, as in the case of Ghana, the buzz of the market and the smell of raw meat.


____________________________
Kerala Goodkin, Travel Correspondent:

Kerala's column, "On The Verge," published every other Monday to Gather Essentials: Travel, shares stories and reflections from the less-traveled corners of the world.

Kerala is co-founder and Editor in Chief of the Glimpse Foundation, a nonprofit that fosters cross-cultural understanding and exchange, particularly between the United States and the rest of the world, by providing forums for young adults to share their experiences living abroad. Read their stories at glimpseabroad.org. Kerala has also recently published her first novel, "How Things Break," which won the Elixir Press Inaugural Fiction Award and relates a year in the life of one young woman in small-town Michigan. It is available on Amazon.

You can find all of Kerala's "On The Verge" articles at www.gather.com/OnTheVerge

Keep up with Kerala's other postings and Gather activity by joining her Gather network -- just click here and select the orange "Connect" button on the left-hand side of the page

You'll find Kerala and other Travel Correspondents, plus expert tips and plenty of other travel lovers at travel.gather.com