Larium Nightmares and Local Flavor, Late August 2003

Just when I think the side effects of Lariam are dying down, I have another terrifying nightmare. This week I tried to convince a serial killer not to kill me, and watched someone else jump off a bridge. I’ve never dreamed anything so frightening before. That’s it. It’s time for a shift in medication. There are other anti-malarials out there that supposedly have fewer psychotic side effects, and I’m going to check them out.

We still live in a large, empty house. Our household effects we packed up in the U.S. in June are probably on a ship somewhere between Brazil and Africa. Or they could be at the port, labeled with someone else’s name. I heard this was the experience of one Embassy employee who suspected as much after four months of waiting for her air shipment. After going a few rounds with Embassy employees who were not exactly aggressive about helping her out, in a bout of frustration she went to the airport herself. She convinced the airport employees that some of the mislabeled boxes were actually hers. And they were! Maybe I need to send my husband to the port on a field trip.

Next door at the garbage-burning neighbors, a baby goat was born. I have a view of their backyard from our office. We basically have our own personal animal planet within a block’s radius. The rooster next door crows at all hours of the day and night, much to my husband’s chagrin. The Internet café car park across the street is infested with lizards that are white and black and grey with some red stripes that do this weird push-up thing, which I’m guessing, is their way to threaten other lizards, because they always seem to be fighting. Thousands of frogs living in the sewers lining the streets of our neighborhood croak incessantly. And unlike any other country I have ever lived in, I don’t see any stray cats or dogs. Someone told me that Ghanaians sometimes eat them. Yikes.

The sewers in our neighborhood are a hazard. They are basically uncovered, 4-feet deep, concrete ditches lining all the roads, with no safety barriers. If you don’t watch where you are walking or driving, you can easily find yourself down about five feet into one. More than one Embassy family member has ended up driving, or falling, into one of these sewers, and most often not under the influence. There are no sidewalks in our neighborhood, so walking around is an adventure. Even more treacherous than the sewers or the lack of sidewalks for walkers, are the crazy taxi drivers who rev up to about 50 miles per hour on a side street and beep every two seconds. I am guessing they beep to say, “Watch out, I am driving like a bat out of hell!”, or to ask, “Hey, wanna ride?”, or to say, “Hey, foreign lady! I want to say something unintelligible to you that is most likely an insult!” But I digress.

We have been doing a lot of socializing since we arrived. People are kindly including us in their parties and dinners. Also, my husband’s position requires that he be properly presented to his new contacts through official welcome events. Us “spouses” are invited to many of these. And I have to admit, I have met some interesting people at these events. For example, there is a very nice Ghanaian professional couple living across the street. The woman is a Deputy Minister in the Ghanaian government, and her husband is a successful financial services entrepreneur also involved in technology. The husband is also a runner, something I haven’t seen much of here. Maybe that is because he runs early in the morning to avoid the traffic and heat, so if I ever wake up at 6:00 am, I could have a convenient running partner (fat chance of that happening!). At a different event, we met a guy who runs a U.S. government-funded tourism project here whose wife went to Hunter College in the Bronx before it became Lehman College (where my Dad works). And last night I met a Cuban woman married to a Canadian diplomat. She said she could hook me up with some tennis partners and the Spanish-speaking women’s club that gets together once a month to socialize and chat in Spanish. I have to admit that all this socializing, although a bit forced, takes some of the sting off of moving to such a different environment. If we keep meeting cool and normal people who enjoy their lives here, so can we, right?

My husband is very busy at work. This is his first time in Sub-Saharan Africa, and he has to learn everything there is to know about Ghana's economy immediately, so he can advise the Ambassador and brief the Embassy’s many state-side visitors. To get up to speed on the local economy, he is always meeting with some Minister or having lunch with representatives of U.S. companies. Interestingly, in between discussing Central Bank politics or economic policy, he often gets hit up by the Ghanaian officials for visas to the U.S. In the other places we have lived, people would at least try to get to know you before they asked you for a visa favor, but not here. No one is above visa-grubbing in Ghana, even in the most inappropriate settings. Other than the odd visa distraction, he is enjoying his job and is not working the insane hours at our last overseas post (Sarajevo). Also, the work schedule at the Embassy is different here. The workday starts early (7:30 am) so people have Friday afternoons off to hit the road for the beach or to just relax. Sometimes I even go to the Embassy during the day and my husband has time to go out for lunch with me. I actually get to see my husband in the evenings and on weekends, a real treat for a State Department spouse overseas.

As part of my husband’s “welcome to Ghana” orientation, the U.S. Ambassador hosted a fancy dinner for him at the Ambassador's residence, and I (as "the spouse") got to tag along. The residence is beautifully decorated, mostly due to the Ambassador’s efforts. I get the impression she put a lot of her own time and resources into fixing it up. The walls are painted vibrant colors of reds and yellows; her personal African art collection is prominently displayed, mixed with Nambé pieces and original modern art on the walls, on loan from the Art in Embassies program. The dinner was delicious, served at a long table decorated with crystal and china stamped with the U.S. logo on it. It was the best meal I have had in Ghana to date. The company and conversation were also excellent. One of the Deputy Ministers who attended went to college in the Bronx and got his J.D. at New York University. We had an interesting chat about remittances and Ghanian-U.S. connections. Another participant was an African-American woman who runs a local consulting firm, and heads up the local branch of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce.

In fact, I recently signed a contract to work for this woman on a trial basis for a few months to help her firm increase its presence in the local microfinance arena. It’s a great opportunity to help, but also to learn some more about Ghana and get some exposure. It’s also temporary enough so I can still pursue other opportunities. We will see how it goes. So far what I'm finding in my research is that in spite of being around for about 15 years, the microfinance field here is somewhat underwhelming in terms of performance. I'm confirming my initial reaction that there is a lot of the "same old” here on the development front, which is rather depressing given the level of poverty in Ghana. Maybe when there is not a lot of money there is less room for creativity? I bet more money is spent on development efforts in Los Angeles or Philadelphia each year than in all of Ghana. This morning I started to wonder where I could get my hands on a research grant so I can explore my own work. That might be just a bit ambitious for me. For the short-term I will just continue weighing whether the sporadic consulting work is worth it, or whether I could live with myself if I picked up golf and took tennis and horseback riding lessons to fill my days. Probably not.

In our free time my husband and I play lots of sports. Doing sports here is such a great way to make friends, not to mention being an awesome form of stress release, something I think is really needed in places like West Africa. We play soccer (or “football”), ultimate Frisbee, softball, tennis and swim at the Embassy’s sports field each week. One Embassy family also hosts a bring-your-own-beer/food, family-oriented, badminton night on their huge front lawn once a week. In addition to Embassy sports activities, last night I attended Accra’s “Hash House Harriers” for the first time. For those of you who are unaware, “The Hash” is a worldwide network of irreverent adults who describe themselves as “drinkers with a running problem.” The Hash is made up of people who run around the city on a plotted course and, very willingly and with great sense of humor, make fools of themselves. It’s a good strategy to keep the ex-pat ego nice and low. Anyway, the interesting thing in Accra is that the Hash crowd is mostly Ghanaian. So not only do you get to run around and explore different parts of the city with the security of a group, you get the added benefit of getting to know some Ghanaians, something that is not that easy to do, given the obvious foreigner-local cultural and economic divides. This Hash group is particularly rowdy as hashes go, not exactly family-friendly in terms of the language they use or the songs they sing if you get my drift. Few kids attend this hash, and going involves having to listen to lots of sexual innuendo, but it still is good fun, and another scheduled activity in a place with limited entertainment options.

Apparently there are lots of venues for live music here. Last weekend we tried to go see a Ghanaian band at a local bar with one of my husband’s work colleagues and her husband, but the band canceled their performance at the last minute. I'm learning that in Ghana, canceling at the last minute or just not showing up is perfectly acceptable, or maybe just common. Anyway, there were no excuses offered for the “no show”. Given that we had driven across town for the show and there wasn't anything else going on that night, we sat down to have a beer. Before we could even order, the waitress showed up with a round of drinks purchased for us by a Ghanaian customer. He guessed we were Americans and just wanted to say, “Welcome to my country.” When was that last time that happened to you? And no, he didn’t want a visa.