A rose by any other name...

I've arrived!

It's amazing to me how much my emotional state -- my aura, perhaps -- changes valence almost as soon as I land overseas in ways that I can't predict (though generally in a positive direction). It's partly based on actual events and observation, and partly simply on shedding the professional/busy/competent DC Taren and taking up the mantle of the curious/open/relaxed-but-alert backpacking Taren.

In this case, I stepped off the plane into 90-degree weather not dissimilar from a normal DC summer day, and was greeted almost immediately by an airport employee in uniform holding a sign with my name on it (spelled correctly!) Courtesy of my host family, who are well-connected, he escorted me briskly through security and the visa processing area and introduced me to my host's nephew Nasir. Outside we met with my host (I'll come back to his name) and his daughter Sarah, who is approximately my age and is a lawyer at a big Accra law firm.

My host, Abdulai Iddrisu, went to graduate school with my mother in Australia before I was born. She and my father helped him financially with his treatment after a bad car crash several years later. He has walked with a cane ever since, but raised his family of three daughters and continued a successful career in livestock consulting.

On his name: I asked Sarah what to call him and she repeated what he had told me in an email, which is that all of his children, nieces, nephews, etc, call him "Uncle Negro". I of course felt a little bit uncomfortable with using this phrase as a white American, but apparently I'm not the first to have reservations so after they laid out their usual points about why it was silly to feel uncomfortable using a name that isn't remotely offensive here, I decided to go with the flow. As Shakespeare might say, "What's in a name? A Negro by any other name..." OK, see, that still sounds really bad to me -- this is going to be hard :-)

Sarah and I drove back to the house and I put my bags upstairs in the room we'll be sharing for the next two weeks. Then over the course of the afternoon met many other members of the extended family, including Sarah's sister Faiza and her daughter Kalila, who you'll hear a lot about later.

Right now I'm struggling to stay awake (8pm Ghana time -- just need to stay awake for another hour and then get a good night's sleep, and jetlag begone!) but am so pleased to be here. Tomorrow, I'll be off exploring the city of Accra!