It’s late November, give or take. Everything seems to be coming full circle with the annoying, early morning atmospheric noise. (It’s a good thing I’ve compensated for this.) Three political parties in Ghana have been campaigning for a while and the elections happen on December 7th. Political campaigns in Ghana are less like the unconscionable American television advertisements and more like parades starting at 6 am, consisting of trucks with giant speakers blasting Hiplife and followed by excited supporters. On Sundays these are preceded by the Jesus Parades as well. I leave Ghana just a day before the election, which of course means that I will miss it. No matter, the incumbent always wins (even if the incumbent happens to have died in office).
Ghana is an extremely religious country, so religious in fact that to be gay is illegal. The organization maintains that it is secular, and this is one of the reasons I was comfortable taking the job. I’ve found that this is not strictly true. Every staff meeting starts and ends with a prayer. Every. Single. Damned. One. I shouldn’t have to state that this really pisses me off (this really pisses me off), but I decided a few months ago that I would not go out of my way to explain my opposition to the practice unless pressed, as I have enough problems without people chasing me with pitchforks machetes. A few times I was asked to lead one, which I deflected without incident. However, I did decide that it would be great fun to do the last prayer, at my last staff meeting, just for shits and giggles. Coincidentally, this is the only staff meeting that didn’t have even one. Well played.
There’s no nutritious food, no distractions, no box wine, and I still haven’t been lucky enough to go more than a day or two without crying. I’m drinking my dinner in the form of awful whiskey cut with a lot of water and eating Laughing Cow cheese with awful wheat crackers. (I hate that bejeweled bovine. She laughs at us, not with us. Hideous cow.) At least I’m eating wheat crackers and not those cheap Chinese butter crackers that occasionally have something foreign embedded in them. I daydream about Broccoli.
There's No Room Back Here. 