January 16, 2011

Last night I lay in bed and heard the roar of the waves. They crashed one after another onto the sandy beach and slowly retreated again and again, as I lay listening. When I first awoke I thought the constant noise was the air conditioning, but then I realized that we didn't have any and I certainly was not cold. I got up and turned the switch on the fan to "low" and it sparked in the dark. Then I realized it was the mighty Atlantic making that noise. Morning brought coffee and some sweet goodbyes for the boys who continued on to Accra to take photos of footballers and return the car and Richard to his home. It's now coming on sunset and Jen, David and I are sitting by the beach. They're reading as I write, David is engrossed in "Murder on Safari" while Jen reads Freedom by Franzen and occasionally quotes highlights. The scene is bucolic, I wish you were here. Just now, three eagles are swooping above the waves and earlier, a set of puppies cute as buttons were tumbling head over tail in their glorious beach game. We have a resident monkey. He's a little fellow with a long tail, a tawny coat and a petite black face with a patch of fur in the shape of a heart. He's a rascal. I say so because although he was quite shy to begin with (just sucking on bougainvillea flowers), he quickly became emboldened when he detected the biscuits in our room. David and I were inside and I had my back to the door when he noticed a tiny hand quickly followed by a little head peeking in at the bottom of the door. "Look out, the monkey is about to get in!", David exclaimed, at which point I had one of those fits of laughter that make one feel euphoric and absurd. We did some internetting and walked around town in search of shampoo, which we ended up finding at a tiny beauty salon. We frolicked in the waves and jumped and floated in the warm and swelling ocean for a while, trying to keep out of the way of the surfers.
Right now, we're hanging out at the corner of soda pop and beer. Sometimes, after a particularly refreshing first sip of something, David opens his mouth and squints his eyes and makes this sound "ahhh", which is the sound of rightness and refreshment. I have found myself making this sound also, especially after a cola. I feel my relationship to cola has been recontextualized in Africa. Did I tell you that Souleyman showed us the kola tree on one of our walks in Kpalime? They nuts grow inside pods about the size of your hand and they are bitter when bitten, but leave a sweet and pleasant aftertaste. I ate one standing on a jungle path and after chewing and swallowing felt ready to climb like I never have before. Stimulating! Souleyman was saying they are an important part of culture as well, when a man asks for a lady's hand in marriage, he presents her father with 200 kola nuts in a bowl covered by banknotes. Anyway, I don't think I can I have aver been so consistently refreshed by a product of multinational corporate manufacturing as I have been by dear sweet coca cola. Just sayin'.