The Anloga yevu population has officially grown from two to four. The arrival of Halla and David on Monday and Wednesday, respectively, brings a fresh spin to la casa de Lumana. Along with the new shipments of American chocolate, coffee and television series DVDs, we’ve got twice the brainpower to unleash upon the Volta Region.
Halla’s trip into Anloga was rather seamless. Other than a quick bout of haggling with an airport taxi driver, we made our way home in good time and without many surprises. David’s trip back from the airport, however, was a bit more obstacle-ridden. After picking him up from his late-evening landing, we spent the night at our new Accra haunt, the GILLBT (an acronym for something I would rather not Google right now), with the plan of waking the next morning to start our return trek to Anloga. We had a few stops to make, including the purchase of our new office whiteboards, negotiated down from 450 Cedis to 25. As it turns out, whiteboards in Ghana are much more valuable than anywhere else in the world, but I got a very special deal. After that we had more stops to make: going to Melcom for the dry-erase markers we called ahead to make sure they had, going back to the Accra Mall to look for dry-erase markers since Melcom didn’t have them, and several other quick stops within the Mall walls. Traveling with a 3×5 whiteboard in Ghana is harder than it sounds, but we eventually found our way into a trotro to the Tema Roundabout. The driver insisted we continue with him all the way to Anloga instead of boarding a different trotro as we normally would. We’d just have to wait for ten minutes so he could have a quick look at the brakes before we continued along. David soon learned about Ghana time the hard way. Over an hour later, after being instructed to have a seat on the station mechanic’s “bench,” A.K.A. previous backseat of a deceased vehicle to watch all four brake pads be tediously replaced, we were on the road and just barely home before dark.
With over a week under their belts, between spending time with our Ghana staff in both the Atorkor and Anloga offices for free Ewe lessons, grocery and fabric shopping on the two market days they’ve both been present for so far, hitting the beach for a Sunday swim and even taking a shot at the local dish, tilapia and banku at Happy Corner, Halla and David are both certainly soaking it all in. You can look forward to hearing about their experiences first hand, coming soon to a Ghana Make You Sweat near you.
This Saturday is the all-Ghana-staff boat trip in the lagoon/river (bit hard to tell where one ends and the other begins) organized by our friends at the Meet Me There eco-lodge. It should make for magical moments in Lumanaian history…