Coming Home and final thoughts.

The taxi left our house in Hohoe around 15.30 on Saturday since it can take nearly 4 hours to get to Accra and my flight is at 22.40. There may have been few people around to see me off but  Ghana was very sad that I was leaving: she cried so much at my departure in fact (loud thundering sobs) that I seriously hoped Prosper was wearing special X Ray contact lenses and could see the road better than I could. 

The whole trip was otherwise fairly uneventful - which is probably the best way for a long trip to be. There were the usual familiar and tedious safety announcements: I usually try to ignore them (I might be sorry one day when my plane runs into trouble), but today, like traffic updates, they keep cutting across the movie I am trying to watch and I have little choice but to grumpily pay attention. I am also slightly intrigued by the air hostess' accent which seems to be a slightly odd combination of Irish and cockney. 

It is an overnight flight butI have as much trouble getting myself to sleep as my dad used to have when I was two - he used to resort to feeding me whiskey apparently, when all other sleeping aids and medications failed. I am usually quite good at sleeping but not for extended periods and not when I am forced to do it vertically. My dad, incidentally, who I like to blame for my travelling insomnia, is an anaesthetist....

We are served breakfast at around 5am and I nearly get tricked by what I suspect was a piece of chocolate cake disguised as malt loaf: it's sneaky stuff, chocolate. Still, I am excited to be back and the relief of getting off the plane to Scotland's natural air conditioning (as opposed to Ghana's overwhelming heat) is huge. It seems incredible that in 12 hours I can live in two entirely different worlds, separated only by a bad nights sleep.

One of the biggest personal challenges I faced in Africa was the slowness of pace and the vast amounts of free time. I am, on the whole, quite happy to have free time to myself, but that is when I have plenty of options for filling it. If you have ever been subjected to my random ponderings (which I suppose you have if you have been following for the last 6 weeks) you might appreciate how daunting for me was the prospect of a large amount of thinking time. Which I took the time out to seriously worry about, even before leaving Edinburgh!

Time takes on a different meaning in Ghana: it is not a commodity to be traded or guarded and I found my own attitude to what I was doing, and how much time it took, adapted significantly. I was more prepared to wait longer for something to happen, with no idea when this might be, and I would find myself stopping for extended periods to pass the time of day with somebody I didn't know, or shrugging off the inconvenience caused when things or people didn't run to time or amenities failed, making prior arrangements impossible. Maybe because I had no choice or was not really told about said plans in the first place, or maybe because I simply had nothing better to do. It was a very different perspective on life for me and in many ways, knowing that it will be unsustainable at home, I will miss it.

It is my approach to time that normally prevents me from keeping a journal (I am extremely bad at it): I resent the time it takes me to stop what I'm doing today, to write about what I did yesterday (though this of course, reduces the amount of stuff I will have to stop to write about tomorrow!). In Ghana however I have been glad of the project that this blog presented (and the time it filled) and I would like to thank you for giving me reason and motivation to persevere with it. Even if you weren't reading it - I didn't know that, after all. Thank you especially if you took time to comment on it (mum, you earned many brownie points) or otherwise e mailed to encourage me. As much fun as it all was, there was much at home that I missed and I was grateful to hear from you. 

But my African adventures are over - for now - as is the marathon documenting of them. There is still post-travel stuff to be done: things to think about and learn from, fondly remember or relish not having to do anymore, photos to try to recover from my stupid camera, which might as well have stayed lost, and recovery of some semblance of fitness which has probably all ebbed away from lack of exercise. Better close and get on with it then.....