Africa--The Prequel

I've decided that my favorite question for the last two months has been a variant on this base:

"Why the hell are you going to Africa?"

The typical response to my upcoming trip to Ghana has not been "That sounds pretty cool!" or "Take a lot of pictures!" (although I admit that a few folks have led with that); it's usually started off with "Seriously, why the hell are you going to Africa?" This has been one of the highlights so far as I have been prepping for my trip (I leave soon for about ten days) and I have been very intrigued by how many people have gone out of their way to sound negative about the trip and further, to inform me that they have no interest in ever going to Africa. I don't think of this as good or bad, just surprising.

I had originally planned to go to Europe this fall with a friend who was planning a big birthday celebration there, but when that did not materialize I decided to use the roughly-$2,000 in trip expenses for the Europe trip for another vacation. My friends Terry and Erin (you may remember them from the wedding in Wisconsin essay last year) are in Ghana doing work through Northwestern University again for six months this year after doing a similar trip last year, so while they had put out the open invitation for me to visit them this year I hadn't seriously considered going until my other trip fell by the wayside.

But, then I started doing research and realized from both an experience and a cost perspective, Ghana made a lot of sense. Ghana is one of Africa's best starter countries to visit--it's English speaking, it's slightly closer than other African destinations (it's technically in Western Africa, east of the Ivory Coast), it is relatively inexpensive for Americans to travel there, and the people are some of Africa's friendliest. Add in the fact that I've got a floor to sleep on and friends already set up there, and it didn't take me long to book the ticket.

The bigger deal for me, though, is the experience. By that, I mean to say that I generally have gone to places that are, for lack of a better word, comfy. They have mainly been first-world places, top-notch locales that have great sights but also easy accommodations, dozens of guidebooks available for all of the activities that can be done, relatively safe from a crime perspective, certainly places where drinking the water is okay, where the shopping can be done with my Visa card or travelers cheques in hand. They usually have well-established train systems or underground routes to get around on...from a number of angles, they are new places but easy to pick up. And, to most people, that makes sense when you go from your standard of living here in the States to another country--you want to experience new sights but the same standard, which going to a first-world country can afford.

Ghana doesn't appear to be that place. And, I like a little kick in the ass from myself every so often, because I could always use the broadening experience that comes from a place where many of the roads aren't even paved, health conditions are sometimes poor, you have to wash your own clothes by hand and shopping is done in open-air markets, not at Best Buy Ghana or any other retail establishments where I can walk in, pay a price, swipe the card and go back on my merry way. As Erin joked during a call we did a couple of weeks ago, "It's not like you can just roll up to Target to pick up the things that you don't bring with you." As much as I'm excited to see Ghana and see my friends, this is a test for me that I'm excited to take, one that I think will help me appreciate what I've got as much as--or more than--any other trip I've taken.

So, planning got rolling right away. (With Africa, "last-minute planning" is NOT a good idea.) Roundtrip air from Dulles to Ghana (via Frankfurt, through Nigeria before eventually getting to Accra, the capital city of Ghana) was just south of $1,200 to go in November; to do the same trip in September or October, I was looking at $1,800, so the delay was quite a large cost-saving move. So, the ticket was booked (United via Lufthansa), and then, I needed to secure a visa to get into the country. Having been to Europe a few times and never needing this (ditto for Mexico), the visa app process was new for me but reasonably painless.

The Ghanian Embassy, conveniently, is located about 20 minutes from my apartment...it's funny when you think about the fact that this country has just one embassy for Ghana and of all the places it would be, I'm lucky enough to be able to drop by over the lunch hour, thanks to being local to Washington, DC. I had to fill out a form in quadruplicate for the folks at the embassy, detailing my travel information as well as two contacts in Ghana (I had my friends supply me with a friend of theirs for my second entry) and--for reasons I still don't understand--the embassy needed a copy of a recent bank statement to show that I had enough dough to fund a trip in Ghana. I naturally was fuming about needing to give a bank statement to someone to show I had enough money to afford a $15/night hotel room in Ghana (no offense, but come on--Ghana isn't Monaco, Dubai or Tokyo), but I simply blacked out my account numbers when I included the form in my application. I'll give the embassy this much--they were fast, and a week later, I had a nice little 90-day visa slapped into my U.S. passport.

Plane ticket bought, visa confirmed, now, it was time for the good stuff--SHOTS!!

As you can imagine, you can't just roll into Africa without the right vaccinations. In fact, you have to get a form indicating a recent vaccination for yellow fever on a WHO form before they even let you into Ghana. So, I visited a travel immunization clinic near my office one day about a month ago to get all of the shots that I would need:

Yellow fever
Polio
Tetanus
Typhoid (I opted for the pill on this one, instead of the shot, because the pill is good for five years against typhoid, versus two years for the shot)
Hepatitis A
Hepatitis B (this last one--blood-to-blood protection--is recommended if you are planning to be in Africa for a long period of time or if you are in the business of getting roughed up regularly; as I am planning to play the role of tourist on this trip, the doctors at the clinic advised against it)

I also had to get an anti-malarial prescription (which runs from just before I leave until a week after I get back) and a prescription for anti-diarrhea pills, because getting diarrhea in Africa is like getting stuck in traffic from Centreville to DC--it's GONNA happen. The doctor actually filled out a prescription for five anti-diarrhea pills, to which I immediately responded, "Doc, I need a pill for every single day that I'm gonna be there...when it comes to diarrhea, I think we should err on the side of caution." She gave me ten pills for my ten-day trip.

Here's what I will say about the cost of the shots versus pain: The shots are easy. The cost is killer. The shots plus the typhoid pills cost $450 (!!), and tacking on my annual HIV screen literally made my hand shake when I was signing the credit card bill...I hadn't even gotten to CVS yet to get the anti-malarial and anti-diarrhea drugs yet. Luckily/strangely, my health care covered the cost of these drugs down to my prescription cost (about $25 a piece); health insurance does not cover preventative shots like the ones I had because there's no need to protect against things like yellow fever in the United States. Bottom line--I dropped $500 just on things to take care of my body in Ghana, so when you tack on the plane ticket plus the cost of the visa plus a travel guide and some additional clothes I needed for the trip, I had dropped almost $1900 on this puppy, and I hadn't even gotten to the airport yet.

A note about clothes--despite heat that will scorch the skin during the drier months in Ghana (apparently, I'm just missing the rainy season), it is a bit dangerous to walk around in shorts and a t-shirt in 90° weather in Ghana because bug bites and skin burn can get you badly. (And, according to my recent e-mail from Erin, women that wear skirts that are above the knee aren't known as "risk-takers", they're known as "hookers.") So, this is why people are always wearing light suits in movies about Africa!, I thought to myself...you can't have yourself exposed to much in the way of bad bites. Long-sleeved white cotton shirts, good-air-flow khakis or cargos, walking sandals or tennis shoes and visors/baseball hats are the uniform for my trip, and since I'm going to hand-wash my clothes halfway through, I'm bringing some clothes that won't be making it home with me when my travels are over. This is for the best as well, according to the Bradt Guide for Ghana; it's best to look like you fit in, not like a foreigner with some cash, as that will only lead to you getting more attention from any shady locals that you come upon. That also means that any of the flashy jewelry, doodads or gizmos that you were planning on bringing should be left at the casa--save for my iPod and my digital camera, that shouldn't be a problem. (Late-breaking note: Erin mentioned that I would be okay not being so crazy about getting chewed up by bugs during the day time, so apparently, I will have to amend this and know that I'm cool to wear light-colored short-sleeved shirts during the day. But, after dark, it's long-sleeved stuff only!)

All of the prep has been completed and the trip is just a few days away. Erin and Terry are fired up; Erin's cousin Kim will be coming as well, so we've got a solid foursome to check out the sights and sounds of Ghana, which will hopefully be a fairly diverse dance card. I expressed interest in game reserves, castles, Ghana discotheques, local cultural celebrations and hitting the markets; in addition, we've got a couple of decent ideas that--if they come to fruition--I'll write about when I get back. As always, I'm most excited to meet and learn more about the people of Ghana, and I'm hoping that the lack of a language barrier will allow for me to come back with some real insights on what life is like as an African, not an African-American.

Wish me luck!

Random Bellviews, courtesy of Bell and Longer Community Trust:

Cupcakes at Sprinkles in Beverly Hills, CA: Opening Weekend
Long weekends: $9.50 Show
UVA football through the first six games; UVA football through the last three games; UVA's chances of making a bowl game; being a UVA fan at all: Matinee
Watching your sister give up meat: Rental
School bus drivers that molest one kid, let alone "over a hundred": Hard Vice

bellview--whole lotta zoomin'

Africa--The Prequel