Kofi had exchanged his sedan for a tro-tro style Toyota van to accommodate the four of us more comfortably for the hours’ long drive east. His selection of “High Life” music set an upbeat tone to the trip. I bounced in my seat to the mix of Ska, Reggae, and dance music.
Beyond Accra and its sprawling new developments, everything became greener and rural. Fields dotted with towering termite mounds, mango farms, and smaller villages flanked the two lane road we traveled. Vultures picked through plastic-filled trash dumps at the edge of the road. In the distance, verdant, round mountains broke up the flat landscape.
Kofi pulled over at a convenience store/gas station, which would have been at home anywhere in the States. However, here it sat awkwardly alongside a road where a man herded two large white cows with a long stick and random goats chewed who-knows-what in the adjacent ditch.
Ursula bought me a frozen strawberry yogurt called Fanmilk. The name was appropriate. I was a big fan of my pink rectangular packet filled with strawberry flavored delicious coldness. I happily sucked on the sweet frozen treat from my spot in the last row of the van. Memories of family road trips around the Western US came to mind.
I pulled out my phone to text my mother. Another text message from Gerhard caught my eye. We had texted intermittently throughout the week. Him asking questions about my stay, and me telling him what I ate and drank. Nothing flirty or romantic, but I grinned when his name appeared on my phone.
*Staying in Rotterdam for the weekend. Sadly, no monkeys for me. Have fun.*
I replied.
*Knowing my luck, there will be fecal flinging or embarrassing displays of monkey love.*
I texted my mom an update of my adventures.
Another message from Gerhard pinged after I hit send.
*As long as you’re not the one engaging in either behavior.*
I laughed. Ursula glanced over her shoulder at me, raising her eyebrow.
“Ignore me.” I held up my phone.
Chuckling, and maybe blushing a little at the thought of monkey sex with Gerhard, I typed my response before putting my phone away.
*Never the former and only the latter with the right man.*
My Fanmilk frozen brain made me bold. Thoughts of monkey sex with Gerhard made me horny. Damn. I left Dutch BOB at Ama’s.
*Good to know.*
We drove over the Volta River and into the hills of the east, heading for the Hohoe region. Signs giving kilometers to Ho and Hohoe informed us we were getting closer to the monkey sanctuary.
Upon arrival at Tafi Atome, Kofi parked near the guest house in the village. I bounced out of the van, succumbing to my monkey excitement.
We were surrounded by the cinnamon-colored earth I had expected to find in Ghana. The dusty, unpaved road led into the forest beyond a small cluster of buildings, a pastel painted school house, open stall shops, and the guest house with a dozen brightly painted huts serving as rooms.
Inside the lobby/gift store/sanctuary entrance, I bought a room temperature orange Fanta and a large bottle of water. After collecting the keys for our rooms, Ezekiel, the man behind the counter, told us we should wait until later in the afternoon for the monkeys. With a promise of meeting up at the entrance, I wandered over to my room in a red painted hut with a tin roof. A simple double bed and a night table holding a single lamp were the only furniture inside. No air-conditioner, but mosquito netting hung above the bed, screens covered the windows, and hopefully there would be a cross-breeze with the shutters open to enhance the small ceiling fan.
I glanced at my phone again. No signal. I turned it off to save the battery.
Accra was a capital city full of modern growing pains, like never-ending construction and traffic. Now more than ever, I felt I was in Africa. The air smelled of rich earth, wood smoke, and something spicy, and I was about to hand-feed monkeys.
We met at the office and followed our guide, Kwami, to the edge of the forest where a group of children played on the dirt. Boys kicked around a soccer ball with their bare or sandal covered feet while girls chased each other in a game of tag. Goats milled about, and a scrawny kitten attempted to climb inside an aluminum bowl.
Upon seeing us, the children ran over, calling out “hello” and “candy.” Sensing something maternal about Nadine, they surrounded her first while I stood to the side. Adorable faces, scuffed with dirt, above mismatched, motley-clothed, thin bodies smiled up at Nadine. Despite my feelings about children, my heart clenched over these sweet beings. I reached for my supply of pencils inside my purse to give to them.
“Thank you, auntie,” said a wisp of a voice belonging to a girl with huge brown eyes. Her head reached as high as my hip.
“You’re welcome.” I smiled down at her.
Kwami said something to the kids, making them laugh and scatter.
“What did you say?” Nathan asked.
“I said you came to visit monkeys, not silly children.” He handed us each a bunch of miniature bananas to feed the primates.
Chatter in the branches above alerted us to the arrival of the Mona monkeys. Suddenly, there appeared two, then three, then a dozen black, gray, and brown monkeys in the trees around us. Kwami demonstrated how to hold the banana. A monkey clambered down the tree and jumped on his arm to carefully open the banana and eat it, while calmly sitting on his forearm.
I clapped my hands together in pure joy.
Carefully, I squatted down and held out a banana, holding my breath. A small monkey dashed over and ripped the banana from my hand before scampering across the dirt and into the tree. Startled, I fell back on my heels and sat heavily on the ground, laughing.
Kwami laughed and helped me up, instructing me to tighten my grip. Sure enough, the second monkey acted less wham-bam-thank-you-ma’am and sat on my arm, politely eating bites from the banana. Her bright, deep amber eyes focused on mine for a second.
There were firsts you remembered your entire life:
First kiss.
First love.
First sex.
I would never forget my first Mona monkey.
I named her Mona Lisa. I felt certain we shared something special, and she would always remember me, too.
AFTER MONA LISA and I shared our moment, the group followed a path through the sanctuary’s forest. New monkeys approached for bananas and to chatter at us from the trees.
Not a single piece of feces was flung.
No monkey sex was observed.
Under strings of round lights at the village’s one restaurant, we shared stories about our travel adventures over dinner. Ursula had us in tears with her story of boxing a kangaroo that tried to steal her backpack in Queensland. Nadine warned us about the side effects a dip in the Dead Sea could have on a woman’s tender bits. Nathan reminisced about tacos al pastor he found near a bus station in the Yucatan. We bonded over our adventures well into the evening.
Far from the light pollution of Accra, our flashlights lit a narrow path through the inky night down the road to the guest house; the sky too hazy for starlight.
Not until I tucked myself under the mosquito net did I think about Gerhard and how well he would have fit into our international group.
The next morning, I reluctantly admitted I wasn’t as much of a world traveler as I pretended. After a night of sweating under the netting and thinking malaria-carrying mosquitoes had become trapped inside with me, I confessed to the group I needed air-conditioning and a proper toilet that didn’t require a walk through the deepest, darkest night with only my flashlight lighting the way. Ursula agreed with me, saying she longed for a toilet where you could flush the paper instead of putting it in a little trash bin. We acknowledged Western plumbing had spoiled us.
Unshowered, covered with a thick layer of red dust and happier because of monkey love, we piled into Kofi’s van. I napped for a short while until we stopped for Nadine to buy Kente cloth from a simple wooden stand along the road. If Tafi Atome was a village, this cluster of huts with thatched roofs, round, plain adobe walls, and chickens scratching the barren dirt was an outpost. Young men with bare feet worked looms, creating long strips of geometric patterned cloth at amazing speed. I handed out hard candy to the children, who once again surrounded us, wide smiles and big eyes happy to see Obruni. Each of us bought something from the stand; a few cedis went far in a village with physical evidence of real poverty around us.
Reality of this subsistence living left us quiet when we climbed into the van. There by the grace of God we went, blessed by our birthright as Westerners. I turned in my seat to watch the village shrink behind us. A pack of children chased our retreating van down the road for a bit, arms waving, smiles big, and silly antics abounding. I waved at them, helpless to fight my tears or grin.
Nadine patted my arm and handed me a tissue. “They’ll break your heart and make you believe in God all with a single look.”
Smiling, I sniffled. “I don’t even like kids.” I laughed. “Damn them!”
With a sympathetic look and a shake of her head, she turned around, chuckling at my outburst.
On the return to Accra, Kofi blasted the Sunday soccer game on the radio. My understanding of the game began and ended with the universal “goooallll” shouted by the announcer. If Kofi repeated it, we cheered along for his team scoring, bonding over the commonality of us versus them.
MY WRITER’S NOTEBOOK transformed into a travel journal during my first weeks in Ghana. I never imagined writing a book about my experiences here, but the local sights, sounds, and smells fascinated me more than pirates who resembled Norse Gods, at least for now.