I was going to write about my typical weekday lunch in an entry called “You’re Invited.” I would have described the rice and beans and stew I eat almost every day at about 12:30. Sometime I’ll get to it; the lunch routine isn’t going anywhere.

Matt told me he would take me to a birthday brunch on Sunday the 7th at Labadi Beach Hotel. He picked me up at 9 and we drove down Ring Road and then along the beach road. We parked in front of the main entrance and walked in. My mind was on eggs and bacon and the tiny glasses of fresh fruit juice they have. Mango and papaya and pineapple. Two steps into the lobby I heard the tune of Happy Birthday being played on the piano. I looked up and saw my mom sitting at the piano bench. You can imagine my surprise.

Well, I didn’t really know what to do. I think I quietly said, “Mom?” She was instantly recognizable in a familiar bright turquoise shirt.

She smiled and got up from the bench. I put down my backpack and gave her a big hug. We all continued to the restaurant.

I wasn’t afraid of waking up and realizing it had all been a dream; but the situation was fragile like looking down and realizing that the floor you’ve been walking on all along is made of lightbulbs. We had a big brunch and a cocktail outside by the pool afterwards.

Of course there were some particulars and real-life things going on. Nobody appears in the lobby of an African hotel just like that. There had been a flight and an itinerary and accommodations and all the other elements of an intercontinental journey. But the effect for me was like waking up to find everything covered with snow. Just like that, magic. Anyway she was here to wish me a happy birthday and she had a black duffel bag with her, full of gifts.

What else can you do but open them? Here on a hotel room bed in Nyaniba Estates, you can tear open brightly-patterned wrapping paper and wad it up and throw it on the floor, and get birthday presents. You can look through the What’s New section of the current issue of Popular Science and talk about the fancy futuristic gadgets in there, things like robot vacuum cleaners. Then you can plan to make spaghetti and meatballs for dinner, and think about when exactly to poach the four Bosc pears brought along just for that purpose. You might be thinking about the floor made of lightbulbs, and whether or not you’re actually weightless.

From Sunday until Wednesday we stayed in Accra. Mom came to the office and had a chance to see all the people I work with there. Some of them came out after work on Tuesday to a spot overlooking the ocean, and we had drinks and kebabs. Fred was adamant about ordering gizzard kebabs, so we ordered those and some other things, too. She got to eat the lunch of rice and beans and stew that I enjoy almost every day at around 12:30. She agreed that it was good.

We visited Peter (my first Ghanaian friend, the man who opened a snack bar a few months ago) and found that the snack bar was no longer standing. He told us that it had been torn down when vandals struck his house. Peter had intended to sell a portion of his land and hired a broker to manage the sale. Once a buyer had been found and some payment had already been made a serious misunderstanding came to light: the buyer thought he was purchasing all of Peter’s land, but Peter only intended to sell a portion of it. The sale was called off and the buyer was upset, so he sent a gang of thugs to Peter’s house. While he was home, they ran inside and ransacked the place and tore down the snack bar out front while they were at it. Apparently the broker himself was one of the thugs. When we saw Peter he was preparing for a court date. He is hoping to be compensated for the damage.

He has already made plans to reopen the snack bar. This time instead of a wooden structure he has ordered a sturdier, more secure metal container. He will be able to lock his goods and supplies up inside at night. The container will be painted red, white, and blue with the Pepsi logo. He expects to open in time for the Christmas season.

On Thursday afternoon we set off for Lome, the capital of Togo, about 100 miles east of Accra. We planned to leave in the early afternoon so we wouldn’t have to travel too much in the dark, but we had to wait almost an hour for the tro-tro to fill before leaving the station. The first two hours of the ride are over smooth, well-paved roads; but after crossing the Volta River at Sogakope the route is not so good. The tro-tro lurched and listed and swerved, and sometimes dipped a wheel into a deep pothole with a big, hard clunk and the whole vehicle shuddered. Mom described the seat as “a piece of plywood covered with a quarter inch of low-density foam” and she was right. The second half of the ride was like riding down a long wooden staircase on a piece of wax paper.

On the way I bought two loaves of bread through the window of the tro-tro while we were stopped. When we got to the immigration office at the border I gave them to the Ghanaian officers hoping the gesture would be a feather in my cap when they examined my visa, which was six weeks out of date. I thought the bread looked doughy and it felt like a soft pretzel when I poked it, but they liked it well enough to ignore the visa infraction altogether. So in the end I traded the bread for free passage, and that was a good trade for me. I’d say it’s on the order of trading a couple of saltines for a strawberry ice cream cone.

Once we were over the border Mom and I got to dust off the old French skills, which worked well enough to get us to a hotel with all our belongings minus four dollars.

Friday we spent the day walking around the city. Unbeknownst to us it was a Lome tripleheader: the last day of campaigning for legislative elections to be held Sunday, the pre-party for a soccer match against Mali that night, and preparations for Eid al-Fitr, the celebration marking the end of Ramadan. The streets were full of people in red and people in yellow (the colors of the two biggest political parties) having parades. Thousands of yellow plastic whistles had been distributed on account of the soccer match and people were blowing them nonstop as if they had never seen a whistle before. What’s this? Looks like everyone else is just blowing into this little slot…WOW! All that sound from this tiny thing? WOW! Just as much sound as the first time! WOW! It doesn’t run out! And so on. They didn’t tire of the whistles, and that gave the day a celebratory air.

We also walked across the beach that bounds the city to the south and dipped our feet in the Atlantic. The beach is hundreds of yards wide and, except for two neat rows of palm trees by the main road, completely bare. The only other people out there roasting in the sun were sweepers, sweeping the sand with regular bristle brooms. It was a big job they were up against: square miles’ worth of empty beach and not a trash can in sight.

The main market was not unlike Ghanaian markets. One big difference was the availability of couscous. A woman had a Tupperware bowl full of grey-white shards about the size of dimes. They looked like pieces of rock. We asked her what they were for and she made a motion as if to eat one. I told her, “I’m going to try it,” so I went ahead and ate one. It was just chalk.

That night we ate one of the best meals I’ve had on this continent. Tortilla chips and salsa, fattouch salad, a thin crust pizza, and a nutella and banana crepe for dessert. Also Belgian beer. The restaurant was outside in a courtyard with big trees and was gently lit by lamps covered by brightly-colored fabric shades in geometric shapes.

Sunday the week was up and I went with Mom to the airport to see her off.

I can’t find a good way to explain how happy I was that week. Imagine a day where you get four new packs of baseball cards and get to stop at 7-11 for a slurpee on the way home, and go waterskiing and then to the beach where the waves are big enough to body surf, then at night you get the brass ring on the merry-go-round. After a while you’d just think the whole world was full of only the best things.

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Last Friday I took a taxi from the office back to my house and I could tell that the driver was a nice guy. I knew it from the way he smiled and made conversation. On the way I asked him to wait for a minute while I bought some biscuits at the roadside. He happily pulled over and told me to take my time, he would turn the car around while I was buying the biscuits. When I finished he pulled up and we continued towards the house.

I told him, “I like the way you drive. I can tell you are in no hurry. I like that.”

He smiled very big at this and chuckled a little bit, and replied, “One night you will go to sleep and you won’t wake up. Any night you might go to sleep and you won’t wake up tomorrow. Once you realize that, why hurry? I am fifty-eight years old and I am doing what I love to do. Whatever small money I can take, that is God’s gift and I thank Him.” His words, and the whole car and everything in it, were filled with his smiling.