Ghana on my mind

I noticed yesterday that I’ve been unconsciously surrounding myself lately with stuff that reminds me of Ghana.

Kente inspired fabric from head to toe

The above bedding is a classic DIY fail by the way: the pillow case is too large and the comforter case or whatever you call it too small for any standard sized stuff in EU or the US. So I can only use it in the summer, when I actually don’t need a … blanket – what the hell is a Bettdecke called in English?!

Anyways, so it’s summer now and I’ve been dreaming about Africa on my ATL pillow. Then I bought these shoes and noticed the same dots on them. Then I connected the dots and remembered that I had an old shoe box  with photos from Ghana.

Omg, why?

Why do I have a box full of prints from twelve years ago? Here in my apartment in DC? How old was I back then? Omg 2! Why haven’t I looked at these for a decade? Why am I looking at them now? What was I doing in Ghana again? Omg 3. Why am I in DC now?

But I digress.

I actually remember the exact moment I took this picture. I had had terrible stomach problems for weeks by then and was exhausted, staring at the ceiling in our Kumasi hostel, sweaty. It was dark outside already although it was just 6pm or so. The tropics. Dust and noise was coming in from the street and we might have had plans to eat dinner somewhere. Fufu. I think I wanted to go home.

I hadn’t thought about this moment for twelve years. But then it all came back – the absolute amazement I had felt traveling to Afrcia for the first time! Words can’t describe the constant culture shock paired with awe that I experienced there for two months. It all culminated in a conversation I had with an old farmer under a tree (bus stop) in rural northern Ghana one day. My best travel experience of all times.

– Where are you from?

– Germany.

– Aahh, from the north, where it’s cold. What are you doing here?

– Waiting for the bus. Just traveling, getting to know this country.

– Oh what a beautiful thing, to have come from so far away, to get to know my country!

It turned out this man had never been outside of Ghana and only once to the capitol city Accra. He was interested in what types of trees grow in Germany and what people eat there. He was amazed to hear that we can buy all the foods grown in his country in our supermarkets – even pineapple! – and that we eat a lot of chocolate, made from cocoa harvested on plantations surrounding his farm. He had eaten chocolate once, in his childhood.

He knew a lot. I was at least as fascinated as he was. People started watching us, because we were talking for so long. Eventually the bus came. I will never forget him. The fact that an old man, who had never lived outside of his tiny village hours away from the next paved road or power line, found it beautiful and intriguing that a young woman traveled the world just to get to know places – that stuck with me.

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