21 July 2008: Accra Monrovia
Goodbyes
Leaving our life in South Africa was hard, for lots of reasons. Saying goodbye to friends and family is horrid. But I SO want to thank all of you for all your goodbye messages, your good wishes and support and love expressed through phone calls and emails and visits. They have made us feel strong, and not alone, even if far away. Especially thanks for your last minute airport calls, Mocke, Diane, Dinah & Ma, and sorry I could not speak long but they were very much appreciated. I don’t think we’d even have left without all the help from my mother: entertaining the kids; helping to pack; and taking us to the airport when it really was time to go – Dankie Ma!
Continental Travel
The first three days were Sam & Tumi’s first taste of international travel beyond southern Africa. The whole drill of airports, planes & taxis was both exciting and exhausting. The kids enjoyed aeroplane food and the incredibly silly inflight movie. We landed in Accra at about 11pm West African time (GMT – 2 hours earlier than SA) and could immediately feel we were somewhere totally different – it was hot and humid late at night, and stinky too from all the airplane fumes. Once in the airport, the smell
changed to a sweetish smell of things alive in a tropical environment, which is all over here – I love it. Sam & Tumi found it strange.
As promised by Uncle, the proprietor of the hostel we’d booked 2 nights in, a nice big taxi was waiting and took us on a 20 minute drive through dark streets of Accra to the Crystal Hostel. We could see the shape of low buildings lining the streets, and trees among them. I wondered what it would look like in by daylight. Next morning, from the walled roof of the building, we got our first real view of Accra, with the sun rising all golden through clouds and mists, lighting up rooftops and palm trees.
View from Crystal Hostel rooftop, Accra
Tumi looking at view from rooftop
Accra is a huge city, we did not even see the main part of town – instead it happened that we spent most of our time in, and driving between, vast lower/middle class suburbs. Densely occupied, with little or no garden space; the bigger, fancier buildings expanding upwards two or three storeys a bit like in SA townships. What’s really different from SA is all the street markets – pavement stalls selling everything you can think of. Most of the builings along the main street are small shops too, selling provisions or hardware or clothes or plastics or cell phones. Beauty salons are big, too.
We were tickled by the names of shops and mottoes on vehicles: IT IS A LONG STORY on the back of a pick-up truck, and By God’s Grace Auto Electrician.
Sunday morning Paul’s friend Fui took us to a larney buffet breakfast at the Golden Tulip Hotel with some local friends & their children – a very friendly welcome to West Africa. Sam and Tumi loved having bacon AND fruit AND waffles. In the afternoon, we tried to get to a nice beach, but ended up at one that was pretty much a rubbish dump. Later we set off to try out Accra street fare. So we had dinner of roast mealies and spicy pork kebabs on Darkuman Main Road in the twilight, hopping over the dirty gutter and enjoying the warm night air & friendly atmosphere.
Then Monday, it was back to the airport and on the plane to Monrovia. The plane was packed, with a mix of local and international travellers that all looked like very nice peole – encouraging. Everyone had short, neat hair – Liberia is clearly not the kind of place that attracts hippies, I thought.
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