We met the commander at the port early in the morning. It was quite crowded, with the usual Ghanaians selling random items, this time wading through water up to the rim of the long wooden dugout canoes to see who would take a bite. Others simply begged for money, putting on a sad face when you told them no.
It seemed there was a lot of confusion as to where we were headed and whether we would be taking a boat, ferry or canoe. It turned out it was going to be with the canoe. It felt out of my comfort zone but they assured me it was very safe. A 7ish year old boy was in charge of directing the boat and not one person had a life jacket on them. It seemed the group of children on the canoe weren’t fazed, so I figured I shouldn’t be, either.
We hopped in, excited to rest our bodies after the consistent cycling and stoked to see something new through a different form of travel. We would be traversing the largest man made lake in the world, however it was better in sound than the actuality of it. We were sitting directly under the sun, sweating. The views were not what we expected—foggy haze and empty gasoline jugs/water bottles floated throughout the dimly gray water, most of them used as buoys. People on the boat would consistently throw their trash out into the lake, adding more filth into the environment.
I distracted myself from the African heat by receiving a great view of a very attractive Ghanaian man who was also on board. His skin was silky dark and his attitude nonchalant. His jawline was sharp and structured. He had a suggestive look in his eyes that brought a rush of heat in between my thighs. He was working on fixing some sort of device just behind where I was sitting. I watched his hand move and twist a knob of some sort while I kept picturing it to be my nipple, instead. Then, he gripped his hand on a piece of wood that was an inch away from my upper thigh. All I could think about was how long his fingers were and how it would most likely hurt if he fingered me. I accidentally let out a full smile, then bit my lip and had to tear my dreamy eyes away from him to gather my composure.
“Oh my god, Freyja!” Dubu laughed. “You could not have made that any more obvious.”
I couldn’t hide my joy even if I tried.
“I would never hire you as an actress,” he said.
“He’s my boyfriend of the day,” I breathed.
The handsome guy looked over at Dubu. “Is she your daughter?” he asked.
“My wife.”
“Goddamnit, Dubu!” I whisper yelled through clenched teeth. “Why did you tell him that?!”
“Well what did you expect was going to happen? You were going to take him in the back?”
I just wanted to flirt. Well, really I wanted to fuck.
Then, a group of guys invited Dubu and I to sit in the shade with them since we were having a difficult time. We squeezed onto the wooden ledge beside them as they asked us where we were going.
“Kpando is our final destination,” I said.
“Dere are no boats dat ah going dere,” one of the guys said. “You ah going to have to get off at one of da villages.”
Apparently the commander in charge of getting us to our destination misunderstood where we were going even though we showed him numerous times. We studied the map again while the locals laughed at us. We weren’t even going to make it to the town that we expected to be in today (Kete-Krachi). That was where we planned to take a second canoe to Kpando.
The commander had told us we would get to our final destination in two hours from Yeji but I already knew that was a lie judging by the size of the lake and the amount of time it took to stop in small villages. I honestly didn’t even feel bothered by the fact we were getting dropped off in a small village where we were going to spend the night. I was excited to be on land and away from the hot guy on the boat because I would’ve most definitely felt him up if it got dark and no one was looking.
The rest of the time, I held myself over by studying his veins and observing the way his lips moved when he talked. I enjoyed his wide smile and his accent when he tried to speak English. At one point, we asked for more information on where we would be stopping, but the motor was too loud for me to hear him so he came extra close to my face. I still didn’t hear anything he said because his lips were too close to my neck for me to focus straight.
I have an hour left in me before I pounce on this guy.
Thank God we got dropped off 20 minutes later, arriving at a small village. A random guy asked if I wanted to be carried out of the boat to avoid touching the water. I said yes to which all of the men and women laughed at my ‘damsel in distress’ act. We waved goodbye to my boyfriend of the day. Then, Dubu noticed part of his bike got destroyed when the guys carried it out of the canoe. We went in the shade to work on it while all of the kids and teenagers from the village surrounded him as he worked on repairing the issue.
We stopped at the first guest house we saw. I waited for Dubu to check the room while numerous kids surrounded my bike and stared at me. I’ve never witnessed people actively stare so much as they do in Ghana. I could stare back and it wouldn’t make them uncomfortable. They were never the first to break eye contact. I failed to have a proper conversation with them—I didn’t know enough Twi, they didn’t know English. Instead, they stared at my tattoos, tracing the tentacles of the octopus then the scales of the snake, acting as if it was about to come off my arm and bite them.
Dubu came back out then we pulled out the paper map to make a plan. Everyone surrounded us like flies.
“You can’t pull out a map without 20 people coming around,” Dubu joked.
I asked the kids where we were, then they pointed to a place called Bagamsi. Dubu and I studied the roads on the map as we threw out some loose ideas. Eventually, we decided on not taking the ferry to Kpando anymore. I would honestly prefer to be on land rather than on water. Plus, it took the majority of the day to not even make it halfway. We were told we would leave from the same spot in the morning but with how slowly things moved here we figured it would be much later in the day. So, instead of waiting around, we decided to stay put for the night then head out tomorrow morning and ride to Dodoikope. From there, we would take a small ferry across to Dumbai and continue riding. The Wli Waterfalls were still on our itinerary.
So, we settled on a hot room for the night. It was the filthiest one we had been in yet, but expected due to the area we were in. We went back to ‘ceiling fan only’ and lopsided walls with broken doors—couldn’t beat the price ($3.50). Yet the shittier a place or village seemed to be, the kinder and more generous people would also be.
A little kid grabbed my heavy bag and carried it for me. He was around 4 or 5 years old and I couldn’t believe he already knew how to be a gentleman. When I laid down on the bed, that was only a tattered piece of yellow foam, I could feel the metal bars beneath me. I knew it wouldn’t be an issue—I had a talent for sleeping through and on anything.
I changed into my dress then joined Dubu outside as he was in the middle of conversing with a group of handsome men. I asked one of the boys if there was fried rice in town.
“I can prepare for you,” one said.
“You can make me fried rice?!”
“Yes.”
The other boys stood close to me and stared at my lips then made jokes in Twi, as if they wanted to ask me something but were holding back. It was most likely to find out if Dubu was my husband or just my friend. I couldn’t believe it but I was actually getting upset that the men would back off so easily when I said he was my husband. It was super respectful of them, but damn, I just wanted them to dismiss that and ram me up against a wall.
Dubu asked one of the guys if he could have a chilled beer and the kid ran across town to find one then didn’t even charge him for it when he brought it back. We sat outside in some plastic chairs while the kids suffocated us with their presence. It was clear we were unapproachable to a lot of them as well, some of them shyly waving at us then running away when we waved back. Others hid behind tattered wooden walls and stared through the cracks.
“You ah a beautiful girl,” a little boy said to me. Then he ran up to Dubu and said, “You are ah a beautiful boy.”
We met the mother and the father who owned the place. When I shook her hand it was rough and strong like a man’s. The father brought us out some cold beer as a welcoming gift but Tod already felt a bit woozy from the first one he had so we declined. They looked upset that we denied their offering so I asked for some orange juice.
The evening came around and we watched as the mother worked hard on mashing some food in a large pot using a thick wooden rod. I understood how she had such a strong and fit body now. Everything Ghanaians seemed to do on a daily basis required a full body workout.
Their son was in charge of making us rice. He rode his motorcycle to town to buy the ingredients then spent a few hours making us a hefty meal. We went inside the ‘dining area’ where they had laser lights and a bench that was nearly broken. We had to balance our butts the correct way so it wouldn’t break. We thanked him for the hospitality and how much time he put into making the meal. He was only 16 years of age, but had the maturity of a 50 year old man.