Nicolas the taxi driver

Before I came to Ghana, a good friend of mine told me to write every single day, about anything in my mind. I told myself I would, and have not lived up to that at all. In some ways it is unfortunate because there are so many wonderful moments I would like to have written about. In reality though, I wasn't writing because the good times were too many and too long, and the time to write about them would have taken away from others that were still to be made. 

Now, nearly everyone has moved back to their home country and I have the time and energy to write about my life here in the past month or so. I want to write about a small moment today that really reminded me of why I love Ghana.

I was going to see my friend Anatu at Labadi Beach, so I grabbed a tro-tro that I thought would take me to her house. Instead, it took me near her house, but far enough away that I still needed at taxi cab. I took the first one I found, directly across from the beach and we started driving toward her house. The road is an undeveloped beach strip. Double lane highway with construction and rubble standing in between you and the white sandy beach and rolling waves. One day, this will be a tourist hot-spot.

My driver's name was Nicolas. As we were driving we saw a car crash that must have happened only minutes before. Nicolas was looking back at the accident and then he looked at me. I could see a curiosity on his face, the same curiosity I see on my dad's face whenever a police car goes by with its sirens ringing. I was not in a hurry, so I said to him, "want to go back and check it out?" He smiled, and agreed.

He stopped the car, and drove in reverse along the ditch until we were beside the accident. We went and looked. There was no injuries aside from both cars, a woman's bloodly lip, and the ruined tro-tro driver's career. After assessing the scene for three minutes or so, Nicolas and I got back into the car and drove on. It was so simple and so human, to be able to stop and experience the moment, even though he was technically losing time and money for doing it. It reminded me also of the tro-tro driver at the station two days ago who stopped his vehicle and got out, ran across the street and helped push a tro-tro that was being bump started. Or the guy who led me four blocks out of his way to make sure that I got where Iw as going safely, and then refused my money for his help. Or the two people in Togo who let us stay in their house all weekend just because they saw we needed a place to stay. This is serious, oh. Life here is free.

I have a lot of reflecting time coming up. Watching all of my international friends leave made th reality of my own departure real for the first time. I can't even decide if I am ready.