A Note on Driving and Cold Drinks

On Saturday, I woke up to find that it was raining cats and dogs here in Elmina. Or goats and chickens, or whatever. Anyways, it was pouring. So since nothing gets done when it rains anyways, or on the weekends for that matter, I decided to take the opportunity to go to a little place up the road called KO-SA. I had heard that this was a nice little getaway, only 15K away, off the main road. So, I hired a taxi to drive me there, and off we went.

Now, driving in other countries is always exciting, especially when they drive on the left side of the road, like in Ghana. Let me clarify: the "rules" of the road state that you should drive on the right, like we do in America...but this doesn't seem to be common knowledge. Now the drive to KOSA only took about a half hour, during which I felt like a year of my life slowly ticked away. These kind of drives always seem long to me, when I am the only passenger in the car, because everyone wants my contact info, wants to marry me, "like you very much, you like me too?", etc. So if it's not a share taxi jammed with other people, it can seem like you're trapped on a terrible blind date. This ride was particularly awesome, and please let me explain why. Since it was early in the morning, I was not in the best of spirits to begin with. Plus, it was raining, which also makes me a tad cranky. Then, my driver started in with his "I want to be your friend, I will visit you at the school tomorrow, what is your phone number, are you married?" talk. This put me in an even more foul mood - I had just woken up. Then, he proceeded to get out his phone, which was buried somewhere deep within the cushions of his seat, and type in my phone number and name, looking up every ten to thirty seconds to dodge oncoming traffic, people, goats, chickens, and potholes, potholes especially taking priority over oncoming traffic. Occasionally, we actually veered off into the bushes lining the sides of the road (not neccessarily OUR side) but he would remedy this with one swift jerk of the wheel, sending us careening towards the bushes at the other side. Meanwhile, its raining outside so the ceiling is busy making me look like I had an embarrassing accident, and sometimes, when the roof would relieve itself of a particularly gushing stream of water, the driver would take notice and fish around on the floor for an old holey shirt, and use both hands and both eyes and otherwise all attention to make sure that the puddle pouring onto my lap was filtered through a dirty rag.

When I thought (or rather, hoped) that we were just about there, the driver pulled over to ask if I knew the way to KO-SA. Uh, that's why I hired you. So he drove the rest of the way with his head out the window, yelling "KOSA???" at kids and navigating by arm signal.

Fortunately, I made it in one piece, and settled in to look at the menu for some lunch. I saw that there were banana shakes, which made me very, very, excited, almost beyond belief. I really like banana shakes. I had been craving something cold and delicious, since all we eat at the school are soups and stews and hot tea. I was practically drooling on the table when I heard the sound of the blender, and oh boy here he comes walking over with my delicious refreshment....but then I learned a valuable lesson. Ice is hard to come by in Ghana. Note to self: do not order a banana shake. Ever. Water is hard enough to find, and so ice is basically unheard of in these parts, probably because there's no electricity to keep it cold. So what I ended up with, was warm banana babyfood injected with some air bubbles...sort of a banana mousse that quickly turned brown in the heat. YUMMMMMMMMMMMM. pause. NOT. But hey, I paid for it, so you better believe I ate every last bit, and then ordered a nice, room-temperature beer, which managed to get me thouroughly drunk. Ah, the joys of never drinking and getting really, really skinny in Africa!

Miss you all!