Sylvia's Journal

Even my comfortable business class seat was hardly wide enough to hold me and my sling contraption. It took me several hours over the Atlantic to get comfortable enough to fall asleep. Luckily I had no neighbor; he or she would have been whacked a few times with my slinged arm on a shelf.

It was a good thing I had some sleep. As soon as I had checked in to the hotel, before my luggage even made it upstairs, I was on my way in a taxi to a health facility on the outskirts of Accra to meet up with part of the team that is running the coming retreat.  Despite Axel’s admonition at our goodbye (‘now, take it easy’) and my answer (‘sure! you know me!’) I did not want to miss the chance to visit the health facilities that would be hosting the most senior leaders from the ministry for their scanning visit and I also was curious to see what my team mates were actually saying about the retreat and the field visits.

What struck me right away was the absence of context setting. I guess people are used to headquarter folks coming in and handing them a letter telling them to be here or there (usually in just a few days) or hosting this or that group. The conversation was short and straightforward but if I had been on the receiving end I would have wondered, ‘what’s this all about?’  Maybe the health facility staff did wonder but are used to never question people higher in the hierarchy.  I started to add some context to the retreat and soon my colleagues added this to their introductions and I could sit back again and watch (and trying not to yawn).

I visited more places, offices, hospitals and health centers than I can remember. I was in a bit of a fog from the 11 hour flight and the 4 hour wait at JFK. Besides, the weather was hot and humid, just what I had escaped in Massachusetts and New York; travelling under such conditions is hard at any time.

The roads were either bumpy, requiring us to zigzag, tripling the distance, or newly paved which the driver took as a sign to accelerate to twice the speed limit. What really did me in was the constant getting in  and out of the large ministry of health  SUV, the kind that you have to pull yourself up in; it’s tricky with only one arm. Halfway through the afternoon I was getting very sleepy and  wondered why I was putting myself through this. Now, back in the cool hotel, after a bath and a change of clothes I am pleased again that I went. It was very illuminating.

So now I am back again in the land that tells sexual deviants, right at the immigration desk, to go someplace else (for their own and others’ good). I am trying to imagine someone walking up to the officer and saying that he’s a deviant and that it would be better if he goes someplace else. On which plane would they put him? The Virgin Nigeria that was parked in a far corner?

I am also in the land where nearly everything you need can be bought from your car window; like Ethiopia, this is a country full of entrepreneurs – money can be made in a thousand different ways but most seems to be made in tiny increments from selling telephone cards, cheap stuff from China, snacks or cold drinks.

The city is still full of pictures of candidates who lost the elections. It will help with name recognition, I suppose, in the next elections, some years into the future. Accra is also full of signs that our president was here: there are tiny Obama chop shops (local food shacks). Enormous billboards feature the partnership for change with John Atta Mills and Obama shaking hands – they both ran on a similar change and hope platform.  

Most striking is how clean the city looks. A man in blue coveralls with  a yellow safety vest is weeding the sidewalk of one of the main drags with gloved hands. Maybe no one told him he could stop now and that Obama has left; or might it be possible that the municipality of Accra plans to keep this up? That would be something to write about.