The Shalom Spot, part 1

Rather than venture back to Accra, which had been our plan, we returned, instead, to the Odumase house so we could keep an eye on Jeanne for the night. After suffering through the multi-hour drive in a fevered trance, she immediately took to her bed clutching a copy of The Big Book of Horrible Tropical Diseases. We all felt for her.

As we unloaded our bags and wiped off the layer of red dust that had collected on us during the drive, Shawn actually began to feel sick as well. Mostly just tired, she claimed, she took up a post in bed with a book. The rest of us, perhaps sensing our number could be up at any moment, did what any reasonable person would do: We went out for drinks.

To use the word “bar” to describe the typical drinking establishment in towns the size of Odumase is really an insult to actual bars. Usually referred to as a “spot,” as in Kwame’s Spot or Chicago Spot, they are often little more than just that, small, spartan, interchangeable nothings that are barely a step up from a lemonade stand.

The place at which we had first stopped, only to find it closed, is little more than an old shipping container that has been outfitted with a couple of crude tables. The “bar” is a Rubbermaid cooler that manages to make the beer only slightly colder than it would be if simply stacked at the foot of a nearby palm tree.

We had intended on one beer. By our third, at around 11:30, the sleepy proprietress, having weighed the relative benefits of sleep and a group of five increasingly intoxicated obronis (whites), inexplicably chose sleep. And so it was that we found ourselves bounced back into the night.

(Picture: Laura and Calum enjoy the cheap seats during our journey.)