Escaping the Humidity

Accra is tucked right into the coast, where the waves create a rip-tide worthy of championship surfers and the weather picks up all the moisture in the air to make it 90 per cent humidity. So once you're out of the shower in the morning, there's almost no sense in towelling off. You're just going to be dripping with sweat in about five seconds. It makes for frizzy hair and sweaty clothes, which are already taking a beating being hand washed and wrung out and "drying" in the afternoon air. My towel stinks because it never dries properly. Everything is moldy and mildewy. For the most part, my hair falls in fat sausage curls and I just let it do its thing. There's no sense fighting it. I'm not much for make-up on the best of days, but here it's useless. It just streaks down your face and gives you raccoon eyes.

So, seeking an escape, we decided to head out of town to Pram Pram, a beach town where the waters were rumoured to be cleaner than what's in and around Accra. (Unfortunately, because most Ghanaians can't swim, they don't appreciate their beaches. They tend to be full of garbage and people use the absorbant sand as a toilet. The water literally reeks of sewage.)

We took off around noon; Joanna cannot be ready on time to save her little life. It was lots of fun. Kristy made a mixed CD, Nana Aba brought a couple magazines. We stopped for snacks and then drove for an hour out to Pram Pram, where we had the beach to ourselves. The beach was about as bad as Kokrobite, dirty and filled with garbage. There’s nothing like standing knee-deep in water and having a plastic bag wrap around your shin. Feels like the Loch Ness monster has a grip on you. There were a couple of old hulking boats out rusting on the coastline, where they hit a shelf of rocks and sank. There were also lots of fishing pirogues and when we first spread our blankets and laid out, a gaggle of half-naked boys gathered around to stare at us, like we were in the zoo or something. Finally Nana Aba asked them to go away and they scattered. It was pretty annoying and slightly weird.

After a quick shower, we piled into the car and went in search of dinner, a misadventure if there ever was one. We stopped at one place, which didn’t have a menu and was selling jollof rice for c30,000, a stupidly expensive price. We drove on to the next town, only to find there were no restaurants and the locals directed us back to the first restaurant. We went, ordered and waited and waited and waited and waited. Nana Aba and Joanna even had time to drive back and get the Scrabble board, which we played for about half an hour before food arrived. Kristy and I got spicy fried chicken with limp, spicy fries. Nana Aba and Joanna got fish they thought was supposed to be grilled but turned out to be “pan grilled,” meaning it was fried, and rice that, as Nana Aba put it, “tasted like ass.” Joanna sent hers back. Nana Aba nearly choked when she heard it was c41,000. Pretty pathetic. We left terribly disappointed, but managed to wash away our woes with beers and Sparks and some drinking games. It was fun, a lot of laughs.

The next morning we got up late, after a huge rainstorm and found the beach deserted and damp. The weather never really cleared, although it got humid and muggy. We left around 4 p.m., driving into the city with Nana Aba’s muffler hanging by a thread – literally tied up with a piece of fabric – and drivers staring at our noisy ride.