A Fish Story

Sixty kilometers east of Accra, where the shores of Ghana meet the Atlantic Ocean, the white sand beaches stretch out and bask in the noon heat. The small village here is called Ada Foah, and on this July afternoon like every other afternoon, this coastal community’s young and old work together in two long, straight rows to heave in a far reaching net and the days catch. This is where I found myself that afternoon, having one of those simple traveler thoughts that has been hitting me hard lately – Ghana… I am here. Before I came here, I had 24 years to wonder what it might be like. I had an idea, but the truth is I had no idea. Isn’t that always the way!
Feet planted in the sand in pulling stance. The right hand is behind on the rope, palm down, and the left hand is up front, palm up, holding from underneath. That is what everyone else was doing, so I did it too. Pulling and pulling, moving farther and farther back up onto the beach until running up to the front again. As we worked, the other end of the net, far down the beach, pulled slowly towards us bringing our ends close until we crossed, sealed the catch and pulled it up onto the shore. I got tired after a while, so I stopped and a mother handed me her baby to hold. I had no complaints about this new responsibility, being anything but rusty with babies now having held more since arriving here than in the last five years combined. I stood back then as the net was pulled on shore and watched as everyone eyed the catch; a variety of sea life, including giant shrimps, lobster, barracudas, jellyfish and an ENORMOUS brown and yellow striped sea snake that scared the sarong of me when I noticed it slithering.
The baby fell asleep on my shoulder and a man walked over and presented me with a small fish, for helping I figure. So there I was with a baby in one hand and a barracuda in the other, thinking about nothing profound, except feeling deep inside somewhere that this was the kind of place and the kind of thing that leaves an etching. So I stood there and stared at the ocean and marveled the catch and cared for the baby and wondered what I was supposed to do with this wiggling fish.
That was two days ago, and now I have time to sit and think and write. I am sitting in my cool, dark room in Sega listening to kids playing and distant drumming, coming from the school on the other side of the village. Sega is 30 minutes away from two days ago; so small and off the bumpy red dirt road that those fishermen at the coast had never heard of it when we asked. Maybe it is its size that magnifies the community feeling that hits a person when they come here. It sure hit me. I have never seen a community to integrate people faster. The kids jump up on ledges and yell “catch me!” and you swing them around as they giggle, they run and give you hugs, tell you stories and invite you to play their games. The adults wave and always seem ready to talk, they let you stir their dinner in their giant pots, help you find your way, invite you in to meet their parents, to see their farm and introduce you to their babies, ask you where you are going and where you have come from. People stop to talk to each other and at first I thought, what are we going to talk about? But that has become less and less of an issue. This all happens around a patchy network of hand-made brick, tin roofed houses and mud hut kitchens, interspersed with enormous wide trunk, broad reaching trees… surrounded by the peoples farms of hot peppers, tomatoes and cassava, and a school (that is where I come in). It would be hard not to feel like I haven’t already been here a long time.
There is nothing about going to this new country, and continent for that matter, that doesn’t surprise me. Things surprise me either because they are exactly what I imagined or because they are very different from what I imagined; and that covers everything with an element of surprise. My idea of here is transforming so rapidly with all the new things I see and do. It is difficult to write about it because I imagine I will see it so different tomorrow, as I live each day here.
It was a beautiful place at that coastal village of Ada Foah but I think I am going to stay around here in Sega for a few weeks and try and learn it. I won’t be pulling in any ocean nets again soon, but I feel like coming here is pulling in my own kind of net; a real big net full of real knowledge about this place that I used to only imagine.