First hours in Africa

It was my favourite part of any flight where you make the descent and the detail of the landscape below gets more and more elaborate until you become part of the world of which only moments before you had been a distant observer. I am not a particularly infrequent flyer, ashamed as I am to admit it, but the experience this time was somewhat surreal. As though the size of everything was reduced from a distance (as normal) but the perspective was lost so that I appeared to be flying into a miniature world. Perhaps this was just my initiation into a totally surreal few days.

Stepping off the plane was a bit like walking into an overheated room that hasn't had any air for a while. It was 9pm and the sweaters I had been wearing all day were definitely no longer needed. I wonder whether I will be putting them on again before I come home....

After a long wait in the customs queue at Accra airport, I met my chauffeur, Prosper, and we headed off on our three and a half drive to Hohoe. The closest experience I have previously had to this was driving long distance in Australia where the roads were long and straight with no buildings for miles and the journey was slowe only by the possibility that a kangaroo might appear in front of you any any moment. The 'kangaroos' came in the shape of goats and pedestrians and cyclists meandering across the road. I'm not sure whether bicycle lights have made it across the med yet.

The difference with this drive from Accra was that there was plenty of civilisation, if not buildings, and that Prosper was absolutely not slowing down very much. The gap between our car and the car in front was the kind of proximity that embarrasses me when I have parked my car and leaves me walking away surrepticiously in case onlookers think I have actually just crashed .

The road was probably the Ghanian equivalent of an A road. I have no idea whether or not there is a speed limit but the randomly placed speed bumps did a good intermittant job of suddenly slowing us down. The speed bumps were worn down more in some places than others so by swerving around you could take out the sting and avoid having to slow down so much. This unfortunately meant that sometimes we fell off the road altogether.

There were frequent barriers and police checks - apparently car worthiness and driver competence are inspected routinely. They did sometimes seem to function only as glorified stop signs however, as there was not much checking going on.

The dilemma I found that presented itself during this drive was whether it is better to keep one's eyes open (a task that was becoming increasingly difficult in any case) so that you had a few seconds to prepare yourself in the event of a crash, or to shut them and remain blissfully ignorant of any impending disaster. I opted for a combination of the two, firmly reminding myslf that since I was not in control of the car I may as well stop worrying about the potential outcomes.

Thankfully the outcome was that we arrived safely at our destination. The CCS homebase resides at the end of a long and bumpy mud track, along which each turn, most disconcertingly in the dark, feels as though we are veering off the end of the road. The homebase is a comparatively large and impressive building within the community although reasonably basic by western standards. It is not so far removed from those of our neighbours as to isolate and separate us but probably does a lot to protect us from the huge cultural shock that we could experience if we truly lived as some of our neighbours do.