The long ride to Tamale

The bus from Accra to Tamale, the capital of the Northern Region, is scheduled to take 12 hours. Such crystalline timetables are just not how it’s done in Ghana. One would, in fact, be just as well prepared if one were to make plans based on an 8 Ball: “Signs point to yes.” Time is more elastic here, it’s relative. When someone tells you on the phone “I am coming” it is only the fool who assumes he means this instant. So we prepare for a trip of a long but uncertain duration, stuffing our bags with cookies, crackers, bread, PB&J and other provisions.

The bus, expensive by Ghanaian standards at 21 cedis (about US$21), is air conditioned and comfortable. Checking the posted numbers above the seats against those on our tickets, we find ourselves relegated to the very rear. Shawn delivers the perfectly timed bon mot, “Obama wins and we get sent to the back of the bus.”

We drive through early-morning Accra, a chaotic sprawl of a city that proceeds each day with all the grace and quietude of a one-man band jumping on a trampoline. On the radio, two men excitedly discuss the U.S. election results.

“For Africa,” the DJ says, “what it really means is, as Barack said, ‘Everything is possible.’”

The hours add one to the other and we relax into the rhythm of the road. Shawn makes conversation with a missionary who has just picked up his younger brother from the airport in the city. They are now on their way back to the village outside Tamale where the older brother has spent the past two years teaching.

She loses interest when he “unapologetically” concedes that he believes homosexuality is wrong, but still contends anyone is free to attend their church. Just keep your chaps and showtunes at home.

I learn that the younger has never actually been out of the U.S. And that seems to explain why in looking at him I’m reminded of the antelope on Animal Planet just before it’s devoured by the lion. I ask him about the recent election news.

“Obama is the Democratic Party and Bush the Republican, right?” he asks me.

This does little to convince me he is equipped to have ventured so far from the boundaries of his fundamentalist Arizona church. God’s speed, little antelope.

(Picture: A couple of yam sellers along the road to Tamale)