Well, it's Saturday, one day to M-day (marathon day)! We left Cape Coast on Thursday after a morning of running around, visiting with a few people, packing up and coming to Accra. Nana's brother came to visit so I had a nice chance to meet another of his family members, and his two nieces were just adorable. Once in Accra, I began to appreciate the many contrasts between this large densely populated city and the much smaller town of Cape Coast. The biggest problem here--- traffic, and I mean traffic like LA freeways. It took us 2 1/2 hours to get from the van drop off point to the hotel, and it was bumper to bumper the entire way (hard to estimate how many miles it was, but suffice it to say we never left the boundaries of Accra). And you think NYC has terrible drivers, imagine a place where there are few if any stop lights, no stop signs, pedestrians on both sides of the road and sometimes in the middle on the yellow lines, and NO SPEED LIMITS! Can you say "formula for disaster?" You have to see it to believe it. Needless to say, I've spent as much time in a cab in Accra as I have seeing the actual sites.
Friday was quite a day. Nana took me to visit the memorial sites for W.E.B. DuBois who lived and died right here in Ghana, and is a great national hero here. We also visited the memorial site of DuBois' best friend and first President of Ghana Kwame Nkrumah, a god and savior to the Ghanaian people. What an awesome experience to be in the space and presence of two giants, human beings among the greatest perhaps to have ever lived. There is much too much to tell about each one, so I'll share something that struck me about both. At DuBois' house and burial site, (and it is in the actual house where he lived and where he died), I was struck by how much the world loved this man, this scholar and humanitarian Pan-Africanist, yet how sad it was that the United States of America, his home, denied his return and entrance back into the country in 1961. His heart was broken and he was probably never the same--- perhaps he became even better for it. At the President's memorial, again, a man admired and revered the world over; my favorite picture there was of him in the back of a car with President John F. Kennedy, both talking and sharing with each other, I imagine, the fun and the horrors of ruling a nation!
Then, while once again trying to exchange travelers checks, I got a call to arrange a radio interview about my run on Sunday, and Nana received a call to come directly to the President's Office (yes the President of Ghana) for a meeting, right away. To say the least, we scurried quickly over to the Castle (as they call it here), for his meeting with what Nana thought was a meeting with one of the President's close advisors. As one might expect, we sat and waited for quite a while and the time came to decide if we should wait or try to make it for the radio interview. Nana being the pragmatic and flexible soul that he is, asked if he could reschedule his meeting that afternoon to Monday, so that we could leave and get to the interview. So that's exactly what we did! The interview was fun, but not at all the big deal we thought it might be--- they asked me two questions, and I talked for a total of 2 minutes I think. But it was fun, another learning opportunity, and Nana was able to network with some really good people, so it was well worth the trouble to get there.
After that we stopped by to see an American friend, someone who's lived in Ghana for 27 years though all of his previous children still live in the states. He has children aged 53 yo - 3 yo!!! Yup, he made a joke about planting seeds in as many places as he could. Baba was a film maker, screen writer, actor, turned engineer and says he could never live again in the US after so many years here connected to the people and places of Africa. From there we finally made our way back to my hotel, cut up an avocado and pineapple which became a light and satisfying dinner. I'll talk about the food in my next post.
In the states, my father was buried and carried off to heaven in services that called back many, many friends and family members to honor him. I, here by myself, went down to the beach around 9pm and gave him my own personal send off, as I, too, told him I was ready to let him go off to the better place in which he will now rest. I made him promise, though, to be back here, bright and early on Sunday--- we've got a long race to run!!! I loved my dad--- and feel that I must have a special purpose somewhere in the world to have been born his daughter.
I'll share a poem my sister Lauren wrote for him, I think it says so much:
If tears could build a stairway and memories a lane,
I would walk right up to heaven and bring you home again.
No farewell words were spoken, no time to say goodbye,
you were gone before we knew it, and only God knows why.
My heart still aches in sadness, and my tears still flow.
What it means to lose you, no one will ever know.
~ Lauren Groce, September 23, 2010
Until next time, hopefully after I've successfully run, AND COMPLETED MY VERY FIRST MARATHON. Oh, by the way, my bib number is . . . . . . . #1!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
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