Home Again

I practically ran from the customs check out into a muggy Friday afternoon in the bowels of Terminal 4, JFK. Winding up around a helix towards the Airtrain station it was white face after white face and I was bouncing along with Medeski, Martin and Wood. The pack on my back weighed nothing. There is an elevator that climbs two stories from ground level to the platform. It is a shiny glass box. The platform is scrolling LED banners and a cheery bing! announcing the arrival of each sleek monorail snake. Last stop on the Airtrain is Jamaica station, transfer to the subway and the LIRR. But first you need a ticket.

Great banks of touchscreen Metrocard machines stood empty waiting for poking fingers; bing! and the hall was instantly inundated by the passengers from the Airtrain. They formed orderly lines behind each machine. I stepped up and was walleyed—I’ve bought a thousand Metrocards but only for the subway. Besides, it was all discrete options: Refill or New Card? Airtrain+Metrocard or just Airtrain? I asked the man at the machine next to mine but he was equally confused. We were both strangers. Around us people approached the machines confidently, danced through the options, and marked the time while their debit cards processed with anxious foot-tapping. I wanted to tell someone, “I need to get to Penn Station. How should I go?” But this was a time for the poker face. Aware of holding up those behind me, I sheepishly canceled my transaction and walked back to the end of the line to watch what the others did.

The second time around I got a card and walked through a futuristic gliding two-paned gate that opened and shut in perfect silence.

The LIRR train was full of people heading into the city for a night out, dressed up, drinking brown-bagged cans of beer, talking a mile a minute in thick Long Island accents. I felt like I knew everyone on board.

The man in the seat in front of me takes Fridays off in the summers and usually spends them with his son; but tonight he was meeting “the boys”. He was sitting with three women friends he had run into on the train. They were on the way to a girls’ night out. Their banter was incredible—Work is slow and How’s Bobby and Gawd, that night don’t remind me. They seemed to manage a comprehensive review of the months since they had seen each other last.

(You might remember from an earlier posting this story about Oti: Driving through the neighborhood he spotted someone walking and, seeming excited, pulled over to greet him. “Charlie, How?” “Fine. You.” “Fine.” “Nice.” And we drove away. A few seconds later Oti said, “That was my good friend. I haven’t seen him in years!”)

Next, the incredible herd moving through Penn Station and onto the subway platform. In Accra I have a basic policy of looking twice at any obruni I see on the street. The ex-pat community is small and incestuous enough that I have a fair chance of knowing a random white face in town. The technique doesn’t play as well in New York. Ambling down the platform I looked half a dozen people up and down thinking, Don’t I know you? Were we in a class together sophomore year? Or maybe I was just looking for that glint of recognition in the great underground hive of anonymity. The subway! Nobody met my eyes.

Got off at 18^th St and walked up to street level where I approached a punkish girl dressed in denim and black with spiky hair and asked to borrow her cellphone (mine had a dead battery). She happily assented. Glancing up the west side the block (8^th Ave between 16^th and 17^th) I counted four restaurants: Thai, Mexican, sandwiches and wraps, and a diner. Exactly none of those foods is available in Accra.

Two hours later I was walleyed again in the great hall of Grand Central Station. I stepped up to the ticket window and spoke to a real person: “One-way to East Norwalk, please.” “What?” “Just one single, one-way to East Norwalk, please.” “No East Norwalk.” “Oh. I thought there was a train at 9:17.” “Not to East Norwalk.” “Is there any train that stops there?” “No.” “Um…” “Listen, there’s no station at East Norwalk. Where do you want to go?” “Well, it’s one of the Norwalks.” “Not East.” “Okay, what Norwalks are there?” “The 9:17 stops at South Norwalk and West Norwalk.” “Well…South Norwalk then.” “Ten twenty-five.” I only had a twenty. “Sorry, I don’t have a quarter.” He was visibly irritated; there was a line behind me. By the time I got my change I had taken at least 90 seconds in total.

I have never been a good golfer and this vacation was no exception. But a couple miles’ walk with my dad, uncle, and cousin on the verdant green carpet of the Weekapaug while the morning sun burned the dew off the back nine—golf didn’t have much to do with it. We returned home to a table erupting with bagels, cheese, five kinds of smoked fish, fruit, juice, and coffee. I ate a bagel cut in quarters with a different kind of cheese melted on each piece. On the porch we talked and read the newspaper; some of us fell asleep in hammocks or Adirondack chairs. There are spots in the shade and spots in the sun, and spots under a leafy tree that provide some of both. Out in front of the house the bay was full of ripples.

After the weekend we went back to Montclair where I slept in my own bed, sat on the swing on the front porch late at night, played the piano, and ticked off the episodes of the final Sopranos season On Demand.

The night of July 3^rd was the annual campout at Caumsett State Park on the north shore of Long Island. Five of us rode Rich’s Buick down the dirt track to the fishing beach. We set up camp just before the sun set and started the charcoal going. Some time later the park security came and made us take down our tents, but by then we were a couple beers deep, eating sausages and watching across the Sound as nine simultaneous fireworks displays bloomed over the Connecticut coast. We weren’t going anywhere. The night was a success. In the end we rolled out our sleeping bags in the open and got ravaged by sand fleas.

Returning to the parking lot in the morning dragging coolers, tents, and trash bags, we found the Buick under investigation by official types who wanted to revoke Rich’s fishing permit. Adam, far and away the best negotiator in the group, made an effort at damage control, but his overtures were roundly rejected by a smug officer not much older than ourselves. Growing tired of our appeals, he addressed all of us: “Hey, I could give you all summonses for trespassing. How would you like that?” As we looked around blankly (How could one reply? Oh, please, anything but that! We’re so sorry!) I think he realized how much of an ass he was being. His demeanor changed and his chest deflated slightly under his blue uniform. They took the permit and sent us on our way.

On the weekend we went back up to Rhode Island and to the bay full of ripples. It was late one night and four of us shoved off in a rowboat. The bay was quiet and dark except for a bright spotlight shining from beyond the golf course that runs along the eastern shore. At times it seemed to follow us. For a while we rowed towards the sandbar hoping to walk around, but after a few minutes of hard pulling in the channel found that we were fighting against an incoming tide, going nowhere. Instead we turned and made for the house and found ourselves assaulted again by the squinting, bright-white ember of the spotlight. A row of young evergreen trees along the edge of the golf course obstructed the beam, and the light played through like rays from a UFO. My cousin said, “I’ll do a monologue on the light.”

If we shadows have offended,

Think but this and all is mended,

That you have but slumber’d here

While these visions did appear.

And this weak and idle theme,

No more yielding but a dream,

Gentles, do not reprehend:

If you pardon, we will mend.

And, as I am an honest Puck,

If we have unearned luck

Now to ‘scape the serpent’s tongue,

We will make amends ere long;

Else the Puck a liar call:

So, good night unto you all.

Give me your hands, if we be friends,

And Robin shall restore amends.

On the way in the oars lapped the water like wooden tongues and the oarlocks squawked with each stroke. When the boat crunched up against the sand we got out and fixed the stern line to a cleat, then heaved the anchor out into the bay where it landed with a hearty plop. I could hear my aunts’ and uncles’ voices on the porch, desultory conversation and laughter.

Wednesday night I was back in New York on 19^th St near 5^th Avenue. I met my friend outside her office building and we walked to Madison Square. There was a small, open tent set up and about a hundred folding chairs, and the warbling sound of a Hammond organ. It was the Lonnie Smith trio, playing a free concert as part of the park’s summer series. We found a bench next to a lawn dominated by a large sculpture that looked like a big, leafless tree dipped in liquid silver. The Flatiron building glowed in soft evening light. I felt full to the brim and perfectly light, as if I had taken a deep breath of spearmint-sharp air that filled up my whole body down to the tips of my toes.

My aunt once wrote, “I feel like a balloon on the fingertips of everyone I’ve ever loved,” and mostly I felt so buoyant. But my family also gives hugs as filling as Thanksgiving dinner, and I had many helpings. They say you can never go home again, but they’re wrong.

It’s a long way to Kintampo. From the State Transport Company (STC) office near Circle in Accra, we waded through the morning traffic and took the northbound spoke, heading away from the city. Our first break was about two hours later at the Linda Dor rest stop, where the same GHC 1,000 can buy you a piss in a fetid urinal or a tasty fresh orange.

Another four hours and we were at the STC depot in Kumasi. Fifteen minutes’ stop to stretch and use the facilities and we were on the road again. But this time we didn’t make it more than 200 meters before the attendant stood up in the aisle and announced, “There has been a small fault with the clutch. We will return to the yard to have it fixed very well. We are sorry for the delay.” Stepping off into the midday heat at the depot I was sure it would be at least an hour. Imagine my surprise when we the big powder-blue bus lumbered out of the service hangar just 15 minutes later. We were back on and moving in no time.

Four hours later it was beginning to get dark as we turned into the Mandatory STC stop in Kintampo. A few minutes after I stepped off, a lone white face walked in among the myriad sellers of mango and pure water and bread and phone cards in that dusty lot. It was Pamela.

We bought bananas and a loaf of bread and walked up a hill along a paved street gouged with deep potholes. There were more potholes than street. It looked like someone had taken a giant mellon-baller to the road and stopped when he couldn’t get any more good chunks. At either side of the road was a canyon etched deep and smooth into the red clay by the rushing water of northern rainy seasons. In some places it was five feet deep. All along the length were rickety plank bridges leading to the houses on each side of the street. Goats and sheep in a variety of sizes and colors crossed our path.

Reaching the crest of the hill we came to the campus of the Health Research Center, a pleasant collection of one- and two-story buildings sprawled across grassy fields. One of these is a big, square two-story affair surrounding a large courtyard (more than 100’ square). The courtyard is bounded by two levels of railed walkways. When we walked in, these were draped most of the way around with laundry. The place was bustling with people talking and playing portable radios. Young girls floated through, making circuits of the perimeter balancing wide, shallow plastic basins on their heads. They were selling pure water sachets.

In Accra water sellers say: “Jahhhs pyi’awtahh.” (“Just pure water.”)

In Kintampo they say: “Pee-yooo waytahh.” (“Pure water.”)

Pamela had already bought pure water, though, so we didn’t take any. She had also bought beautiful red/green mangoes—for GHC 2,000 ($0.20) each!—which she cut expertly with a small machete she bought in town.

The next morning we assembled a lunch of fresh oranges, boiled groundnuts, and groundnut paste, honey, and banana sandwiches (local PBJ?) and made for the falls. Kintampo is the district capital of the Kintampo North district of the Brong Ahafo region. They’re not just handing out those district seats, either. The Kintampo falls, a few short kilometers up the road, are known throughout the country. When I mentioned to people at work that I was planning to visit the city, almost all of them advised me that the falls are a must. (Strangely, none of them had ever seen them before. “What would I be doing in Kintampo?” they asked.)

The falls have three stages. The first, farthest upstream, is a big overhanging rock shelf. Water flows over the lip and falls about ten feet, then disappears underneath a garden of large smooth boulders. The water seems to have been swallowed whole by the ground, but it emerges about 20 meters downstream, coursing up from its underground tunnel.

It’s a short walk to stage two, an extremely modest rapid whose report is an easy conversation of gurgles and slurps. Continuing downstream on a path parallel to the water, one reaches the top of a meandering cement stairway. From the ground 152 steps below, stage three of the falls announces itself with a healthy roar as a big rock shelf with a coat of slippery, shaggy black fur breaks the river’s sixty-foot dive. There was nobody else there.

We climbed up the shelf and sat right under the falling water. It was a hard, beating force on my shoulders and the top of my head. I had a laughing fit and I’m not sure why. That water, it just kept pounding down and I sat there soaked dead through, imagining how incredibly wet I was getting, and it seemed like the funniest thing. It’s a long time since I had a laughing fit like that.

Pamela slid down the furry shelf to the pool below and I scooted down in an awkward crab walk. The water was cool but not cold. Near one edge of the pool there was a rock with a perfectly flat rectangular face that sat like a tabletop a foot out of the water. We each did a sun salutation, then dried off and walked back up the 152 stairs to our taxi, waiting at the entrance to the falls park.

Next stop was Fuller Falls, a smaller and less-well-known landmark west of Kintampo. We rode the taxi 10km down a good dirt road to a wooden gate and waited. A few minutes later a man rode up on a bicycle and unlocked it for GHC 40,000. Then it was another 2km on a rough, winding dirt track to the parking area. The falls were beautified by a group of Catholic priests living in the area. A minute’s walk down the trail is a gently-sloping walkway of fieldstone set in cement. It leads to the edge of the pool at the foot of the falls and opens into a sort of stone patio overlooking the water. There are benches and tables and planters of the same stone and the whole thing seems to be a single, continuous surface tucked into the forest. It reminded me of the Parc Guell in Barcelona.

The falls are broad and not very high. We had just begun to wade into the pool when it began to rain. Fearing that our escape route would quickly become impassable, we hurried back to the parking lot. Our taxi was a Kia Tico (stands for Totally Inadequate Car-like Object), a very common vehicle in Ghana. Imagine a toddler’s crayon vision of a SmartCar: a big box for the body, a small box for the hood, and wheels the size of dessert plates. Incredibly, it managed to negotiate the treacherous dirt track to the main road. Constantly using one hand to wipe down the fogged-up windows with a dirty rag, the driver eased it through long, deep pools and straddled coursing muddy canyons all the way to the wooden gate, then ably navigated the dirt road back up the hill to the outskirts of town and the Health Research Center. When we got back to Pamela’s room we ate some boiled groundnuts.

The rain let up in the late afternoon and we set out westward on foot towards the descending sun. After about thirty minutes we turned back and watched the sunset from a paved road in town just over the crest of the hill. The sky was mostly clear by then and there were scalloped cirrus clouds high overhead and wispy stratus clouds beyond. They changed from white to pale salmon pink and we continued back to the campus.

Being so close to the equator, night in Ghana falls quickly and at almost the same time every day. Around 6:30 the sun sets and by 6:50 it is dark. Kintampo offers very little in the way of manmade artifice—floodlights, drinking spots with devastating stereo systems—to interfere with night’s abrupt descent or with the envelope of quiet licked by the disappearing sun and pressed shut by chirping and rustling nighttime sounds. When the power is on, the dormitory’s courtyard is alive with the sound of radios and televisions and, occasionally, a student rally; but the din is swaddled in a heavy darkness. We went to bed around 9pm.

Sunday morning we steeled ourselves for the ten-hour ride to Accra. The STC lumbered into the station almost on schedule and we boarded. It was cool and miraculously quiet. No radio, no Nigerian movies. No movies at all, actually. It was delightful. Around 9pm we were back at my house. The air-con has never felt cooler. And the vast array of restaurants to choose from; the fancy grocery stores (two!) with imported cheeses, the wide, smooth main drags; the traffic; the dank air heavy with acrid exhaust fumes and smoke from trash fires; the 24-hour internet café.

The vast majority of Ghanaians live in towns or villages much smaller—and with fewer amenities—than Kintampo. The Accra I inhabit is living abroad lite. I know because I’m typing this paragraph from a palatial house with broadband internet, a big lush yard, satellite TV, hot water, air-con everywhere, a microwave, and hardwood floors. (I’m housesitting.) It’s good to be comfortable, great to be pampered, and easy to forget the rest. Who knew myopia would be crouching in the shadows of the Dark Continent, waiting to pounce?

(Note: My trip to Kintampo took place before my vacation back home. For more on being pampered, wait for the next installment!)