Goin' to Ghana

Confession: today I became a little jumpy about next week’s trip to Africa and I’m pretty sure it has something to do with my spending hours perusing the internet for pictures of guinea worm infections when I should be reading about freedom and democracy in Ghana. Casey, incidentally, already knew everything there was to know about guinea worm.

What’s curious is that this edginess should have been erased by the fact that my body is somewhat bullet proof to several infectious diseases thanks to the miracle of modern day vaccinations, including, but not limited to: typhoid, Hep A, Hep B, MMR, yellow fever, polio, meningitis, rabies, and ipi-ipi (there’s really no such thing, but doesn’t it sound fun). Barring any dim-witted behavior, such as immersing onself in a pool of standing tropical water, or photographing mosquitoes next to said standing pool of water, or drinking that water, all should be fine for a few weeks.

But maybe this anxiety highlights what’s so fascinating about our relationship with Africa, especially those landscapes south of the Sahara. That is, our ability to glibly reduce a continent down to a skeleton of disease, warfare, and poverty, when that same continent gave birth to man, and to coffee. George Kimble summed it up best: The darkest thing about Africa has always been our ignorance of it.

This week I shall read through tomes on Africa in preparation for next week's trip across the Atlantic – geography, history, environment. I do this in anticipation of taking the longer view Kimble recommended. Still, I’ll be carting along the overpriced anti-malaria meds.

Note: Accra, Kumasi, and Cape Coast are the target destinations: will try to post pictures en route.