At home in Ghana

We’ve been in Ghana for only a few days, but already we’re getting an intimate, local’s-eye view of the country. Our new friend, Yaw Aboagye, leads us deep into the aisles of the huge Makola Market, where vendors beckon us to their baskets of red palm nuts, green mangoes, and brown yams, and to their stacks of batik fabric that reach toward the tin roof. He takes us past dilapidated homes on a street in James Town, the old colonial section of Accra, the capital. People in this area often refuse to be photographed, or “snapped,” but using a local dialect, Yaw convinces a family to let us get a shot of them pounding fufu, a traditional dough of cassava and plantains.

He then escorts us even further off the beaten path, through a fishing village at the harbor. There men repair nets and wooden fishing boats, and women hold babies on their backs while they stir tiny pots over open fires. A crude public facility and an open sewer gutter serve as toilets for all the village inhabitants.

Most vacationers wouldn’t want to venture to this neighborhood. And though Ghana is a popular tourist destination with sunny beaches and a stable political environment, even the more heavily traveled parts of the country are a world away from my home in West Chester, Pa., USA. But my 15-year-old daughter, Kathryn, and I have come to Ghana on a Rotary Friendship Exchange, a program that enables Rotarians to stay in the homes of Rotary club members overseas. That has made all the difference, allowing us to experience the most exotic sites while taking comfort in the shared fellowship of Rotary friends.

We were made to feel at home the moment we arrived at the Accra airport. Waiting for us at the doors, which were decorated with signs reading Akwaaba (“Welcome” in the local language), was Kathleen Boohene, of the Rotary Club of Accra-South. She greeted us with smiles and hugs, drove us to her comfortable house, and spent several of the following days ferrying us around town and teaching us about the area’s culture. When Kathleen absolutely had to be at work one day, she introduced us to her close family friend Yaw, who quickly became our friend too.

Even that initial drive from the airport was eye opening – a hodgepodge of the perennial and the modern, the poor and the rich. Women in cotton dresses weaved through the bumper-to-bumper traffic, almost all of them with babies on their backs and gigantic platters of peanuts, mangoes, or plastic bags of drinking water balanced on their heads. In one city block, a modern office building towered over a field of beach umbrellas, the only shelter for an outdoor market. Men with briefcases and traditional-style tunics walked alongside men in Western-style business suits. The city reverberated with activity and life.

We traveled from the busy multilane streets to bumpy red-dirt roads to a quiet gravel lane bordered with flowering trees and tall gates. At last, we arrived at the Boohene family’s house – the place we would call home for the next five days. There we met Kathleen’s husband, also named Yaw. (It’s traditional for male Ghanaians born on the same day of the week to share the same name; Yaw is the name given to Thursday babies.)

Nearly every night, we were fed a delicious home-cooked meal, including a ground-nut soup made from a family recipe. My daughter and I helped set the table and wash the dishes, all along talking to the Boohenes about nearly every subject under the sun. We talked about Ghana’s natural beauty, our children, our parents, and the importance of water – so dear to Kathleen because as a schoolgirl she had to walk long distances to the nearest well. We talked about Ghana’s wooden coffins, many sculpted and painted to resemble items that were meaningful to the deceased: a Coca-Cola bottle, a Bic pen, a truck, a cow, a fish, or a chicken with outstretched wings, symbolizing protection of the family beyond the end of life.

On our second day in Ghana, we attended a Rotary Youth Leadership Awards gathering, where Kathleen’s 16-year-old son, Nanakwesi, introduced Kathryn to some students her age. And that evening, we attended a meeting of Kathleen’s club. When you’ve just landed in a foreign country, where many things are wildly different, there’s something wonderfully familiar about the structure of a Rotary club meeting. After some time for fellowship, the meeting started with an invocation and a tune from the Rotary song book (“Clementine” was the choice that evening). Charles Quist, who helped arrange our trip as the Friendship Exchange coordinator for District 9100, which covers 14 countries in western Africa, came to greet us, and I was asked to give a brief speech introducing myself and my daughter.

The camaraderie fortified us for the next day’s adventure to the market and fishing village with Yaw, the family friend, and for our many other explorations. One memorable day, we ventured out of Accra, driving with Kathleen north to the region where she grew up. The hilly area, covered in palms, bamboo, and soaring Sky God trees, was misty and mysterious looking, with every shade of green and gray imaginable. The road twisted and turned along sheer ridges without guard rails and eventually passed the school that Kathleen attended as a young girl. She pointed out a dirt path down a steep hill where she and her friends had walked each day to gather water. It was a chore, she explained, but it was also an opportunity to get away from her strict headmistress and have some fun.

We stopped for a birthday luncheon for one of Kathleen’s school friends, and then we all visited the Aburi Botanic Gardens, a top tourist draw with special ties for Kathleen. Sir William Crowther, an immigrant from Scotland who planted many of the gardens’ trees, was her great-grandfather. It rained on us during our short hike, but the views and good company had us all feeling quite exhilarated by the time we headed home.

Toward the end of our visit, we presented gifts to our host family. We’d heard that the Boohenes enjoyed barbecues, so I gave Yaw an apron emblazoned with the logo of the Rotary Club of West Chester’s chili cook-off, a community event and fundraiser that supports numerous international and local projects. He put it on immediately and grinned. A large man, he couldn’t begin to wrap it around his middle or tie it at the back. “No problem. I never liked to cook on a grill anyway,” he said, and then continued to wear the apron around his neck for the rest of the evening, its edges and strings flapping as he walked.

We parted not with goodbyes, but with “Hope to see you soon” and a plan to meet each other at the RI Convention in Los Angeles in June. As we drove to the airport, back along the same side streets and bustling avenues that had brought us to the Boohene home, I thought about the differences between Ghana and Pennsylvania, and I recalled a familiar proverb: The road to a friend’s house is never long.