Leaving Ghana

Wednesday September 12, 2007
Accra

It goes swiftly now, faster than words can be wrapped. In Accra on the day of departure with too many ideas in mind, I cannot hold. I can only let them flow, now, and maybe later write epilogues of all the things that did not get written.



Such thinking shifts my brain into list mode. I didn’t write a blog yet about my trip on Lake Volta, although the Calgary Herald took a story; haven’t written about our voodoo wedding, although that will make a good column in the Yukon News; adventures in Togo are still waiting for the pen. But we have run out of time.

To London tonight. Sometimes I thought this moment would never come, but it is upon us. This time tomorrow we’ll be in the UK, heading to my cousin Katherine’s home.



We carry with us more than we came with, and not all our belongings can be seen. The simple truth is that this place — this African nation, this Ghana, this place where we lived — has affected us in unforgettable, inexplicable, unexpected ways. Neither of us will ever be the same.

But isn’t that the way of life? The people we meet and the places we visit make their mark on our memory, and we bring them along.



Now it’s time to pack these things in our little room at the Beverly Hills Hotel in central Accra. Get everything together for the afternoon drive out to the airport, then ask the manager if we can keep our things here past check-out. Then once more into African streets.

Some goodbyes we’ve said, some we’ve yet to say. But it’s the hellos I look forward to most, now.