A Quiet Day in Kumasi

April 7. Breakfast at the Four Villages, joined by Daniel and Priscilla. The meal turns into one of the delights of travel, meeting an unexpected fellow traveler, in this case, Nicole Poindexter, who is pretty-much a full time resident of the Four Villages, though her home is in DC, she was born in Texas and has lived in Zimbabwe and South Africa. Nicole developed a business in the US, which she sold, giving her the freedom to do what she was passionate about. To her surprise, that turned out to be providing electricity by means of solar energy to rural villages in Ghana.

Her passion bursts through clearly as she describes the interesting journey that she and her co-founder have been on for two years now in Ghana, through their company, Black Star Energy, Ltd. Daniel is extremely interested, and both he and his dad may be great contacts for Nicole. We also plan to put Nicole in touch with the Kipharts’ friend, Willy Foote, who runs a company called Root Capital that funds rural projects around the globe. Few things give me as much pleasure as discovering and trying to foster these kinds of neat connections. (Aside: we all pay a pretty high price for what technology enables, but there are definitely upsides. Between the time I wrote a draft of this post and the time I was ready to post it, Nicole and Willy had already exchanged emails.)

After breakfast, Phoebe, Priscilla and a friend of Charity’s head off to shop at the bustling main Kumasi market. The plan is for them to be back by 11AM, and for all of us to head for Dr. Annie’s clinic. But, we’re operating on Ghana time here, so the market takes much longer than planned and they decide to go on to shop at a mall, where Phoebe buys gifts for family and friends.

Meanwhile, Dr. Annie arrives at the Four Villages with her beautiful daughter, Anne, who is a junior at university.

Carol and I sit with them on the porch and chat for what we anticipate will be a short time before Phoebe, Priscilla and Daniel arrive. We have a lovely, relaxed and long chat ranging from politics to life in Ghana, before the rest of the group arrives 1 3/4 hours later. Phoebe reports that the market experience was “interesting”, read “chaotic.”

We decide to have a quick lunch at the Sports Bar, before heading off to Dr. Annie’s clinic. But the quick lunch is not quick. At all. Priscilla has to be at the hospital for work, so her lunch is packed to go. The rest of our meals arrive slowly, one at a time, except for Carol’s lunch, which arrives only after the rest of us are finished. So, we tell them to forget about it.

We pile into the car to head for Dr. Annie’s, but it’s almost three, it’s a forty minute drive in traffic, each way, so we bow out and call Dr. Annie to tell her. She is very understanding.

Instead of the clinic, Phoebe has a cooking lesson back at Four Villages with Charity, who is an accomplished Ghanaian cook, and, in fact, teaches cooking.

Excellent dinner, prepared by Charity, with an assist by Phoebe–chicken in a delicious, spicy sauce and a dish with spinach and hard boiled eggs.

After dinner, we played a few games of Bananagrams with Daniel. I did not win any of the games, though, personally, I think I was robbed when the others disallowed my word, “qizenvam.” When challenged, I said that the word meant to trip over your left foot, as in the sentence, “watch out, Betsy, don’t qizenvam.”

Retired early. Though not a lot of fireworks, it was a pleasant day.