Chance encounters

Shawn began her work in earnest on Monday. As part of Global Mamas’ new line of shea butter, she met with Renae and Comfort, a local woman who makes the shea butter, to discuss possible scents and packaging. We enjoyed spending much of the rest of the afternoon and evening brainstorming names for the products. A blood oath forbids me from revealing the contents of these discussions.

From there we ventured to the waterfront and the Osekan Restaurant for lunch. The Osekan overlooks the Gulf of Guinea and the scattered fishing boats bobbing a few hundred yards offshore. The boats resemble small galleons, powered by teams of oarsmen, who, working in tandem with other boats, draw in large fishing lines, all of it done without benefit of cover from the sun.

The Osekan is simple place with plain wooden tables and chairs and a nice breeze. Almost immediately we began chatting with the man at the next table, who introduced himself as Manny. Born in Tema just up the coast, but now a U.S. citizen, he lives with his wife and a small daughter in Connecticut. He had spent the previous week unsuccessfully trying to arrange visas for his two older children.

“It is very hard,” he said. “We have been apart for eight years now. My daughter doesn’t even know me and wouldn’t really talk to me.”

Despite his disappointing news, he treated us to nothing but smiles and the boundless good humor that we’re quickly learning is a national trait among Ghanaians. We thank him for introducing us to shito, a popular if unfortunately named condiment made from dried pepper, smoked dried fish, and a variety of species, and helping us get a good price on a couple of towels we bought to take with us to Cape Coast.

From the restaurant we walked the nearly gridlocked main streets past the National Court of which our taxi driver had said, “You go and they save ‘Come back tomorrow.’ And you come back and they say ‘Come back tomorrow.’ They love the word ‘tomorrow.’” My attention, it should be said, was divided between this story and the vendor who approached my window with a string of desiccated rats for sale.

It had grown hotter since we’d sat down for lunch, and Shawn’s washing down her food with a Ghana Guinness, which we later learned is made here with a 7.5 percent alcohol content, made the sun seem very close.

Our plan was to visit the nearby art center and then venture over to the sprawling Makola market. Something about the combination of the heat, the beer, the shito and the assault of stall vendors at the art center proved too much for Shawn. I offered to secure her a tincture of desiccated rat but she preferred an early return to the house and a nap.

For dinner she and I and Renae and Callum, a volunteer from Scotland, enjoyed a fantastic dinner of Lebanese food before taking in a few nightcaps at a nearby pub. We attempted a few games of pool but had more success with the drinking.