white man in ghana: 17. Mole, Malaria, Mavado and Menschs from Brooklyn (in that order)

after spending most of our time in accra which is the south/central region, and then travelling to the east and west for weekend trips, it was time to make the trip up north. the trip coincided with a work event / planning session which is the subject of another blog, but provided an opportunity for us to extend our stay and to check out mole national park.

we flew to tamale on a citylink flight. this involved waking up ridiculously early to 'beat the traffic' to the airport, despite the fact that the airport is about 15 mins from where we live. nevertheless we got up early, left early and of course arrived early only to be told the flight was delayed about 2 hrs. not too bad considering the domestic airport is a tiny room with a bunch of people running around screaming out the flight destination and time. the plane was a 33 seater propeller plane and notwithstanding the delays at the airport, the best customer i have ever experienced...50 minute flight, cheese sandwhich, apple juice and water distributed within minutes of being seated. what more can you ask for?

we landed, checked-in, went to our conference, and then off to mole national park. the park is about 4 hrs drive from tamale in the north west of the country. Although beautiful, and we had an incredible time, it is a sad example of the missed tourism opportunities in ghana. i don't want to get too preachy, but on a daily basis it would be relatively easy to extract heaps of money from tourists, volunteers and others, but for some reason the country is not set-up that way and instead of maintaining things at a price, they are left to rot?! anyway we went with a dutch couple here who are also volunteers and rented a driver & 4x4 for a few days to drive to the park. along the way we bounced up and down on the bumpy potholed filled roads for most of the time, and also managed to kill a goat. this time we stopped to see if we could pay the owner for the loss, but everyone seemed so excited by the opportunity to slaughter the goat and eat it for dinner that a nominal amount was handed over before we quickly moved on. we stopped at the oldest mosque (pronounced moks by the locals) in west africa which was built in 1421.

once inside the national park, we were overcome by a sense of relaxation and calm. we drove to our motel where a wharthog, bok and baboon were waiting for us outside the reception area and escorted us to our room. at reception our dinner order was taken immediately as it apparently takes a long time to prepare
food there. we swam overlooking a waterhole where elephants and other animals come to drink, and went on a walking safari where we came much closer to an elephant than i ever expected. we chased him around and he was easily identified by his one tusk (pronounced tuks). then we went on a canoe down the river just
outside the park. all very beautiful scenery and tours delivered by smiling happy ghanaians. at night we sat outside at the restaurant with a couple of drinks and dinner. unfortunately i was not very sensible about covering up from mosquitoes and on the final night my feet were eaten and literally covered in bites.

we flew back to accra on the morning of our one year anniversary on a flight with a lot of turbulence. this time i enjoyed the experience a little less. it was after this point that i started to feel a little unwell. i was sweating quite a bit (although most of the time here i have been covered in a layer of sweat) sneezing and generally feeling bad. i had also had a pretty bad stomach bug the few days before. we went to accra's top french restaurant to celebrate, only to discover it has a fairly lebanese based menu and that we would be the only people dining there that evening. we ate dinner quickly, both feeling a little sick, and made our way home where we crashed (metaphorically mum, not in a plane or car).... our most romantic anniversary yet!

the next morning i still felt unwell. we delayed our departure to the village in favor of getting a malaria test here in accra. 45 mins later i was told i had the parasite, handed a course of antibiotics and told i would be fine. i asked (pronounced aksed) if i would die, and they told me it was like the common cold and not to worry. they were right, except for the fact that along the way i felt many aches and pains, sweated a lot and struggled with the most basic bowel control. fortunately i am now fine and 5 days from diagnosis to full recovery is not a bad record - malaria 0, goldschmidt 1.

as i was recovering from malaria on the couch in our palace, i witnessed the arrival of jamaican music star 'mavado' in ghana. he is the biggest dancehall (still not sure what that is) act in the world, and is quite popular here. he has also cleverly named himself after a swiss watchmaker - my rap name is swatch. he was due to play october 1st at the football stadium, but on september 30th he was told not to come, they would play the local derby instead. i am not kidding, that is exactly what the press release said. so he delayed his flights, reissued concert tickets and created pres releases. a week later he showed up outside our home with his entourage of 150 people, 20 motorbikes, 15 4x4's and 1 white guy (not sure why he was there). for two days the quiet royal richester was a hive of activity.

at the same time i finally got a response from my friends at chabad about services for the high holidays. two bocherim were sent from nyc to run prayers at the offices of an israeli company. it was a somewhat surreal event, considering we were in the middle of accra ghana with 30 others celebrating yom kippur. regardless it worked, and felt like a normal shul service which i really appreciated. i am very thankful for the effort made by those guys.

sorry for the megillah, but now you are caught up on our last few weeks. if you have made it down to here then in ghanaian terms "you have done very very well."