Valentines in Ghana

Hmmmm, so it all started out with good intentions.

For some time the plot had been to score a nice high-end dinner on Valentines Day, and more specifically to check out Le Magellan, one of the three upscale French restaurants in Accra. I have been running like a madwoman this week, but before 6AM, and averaging five or six interviews a day. Today I had four places to be before 11 AM. That may not seem like much to you Americans, but it pretty much makes me Hercules here. And to top it all off, when I was getting ready this morning our water was out, so that meant a bucket shower and then into my best suit (aka my own personal sweat lodge).

By 4:30 today, utterly melted, I struggled home. Still no water.

When I got home we talked about making reservations. It was the sort of conversation that began, and then petered out somehow before coming to resolution. I never really knew if Terry called or not, I was just mentally checked out after mentioning the idea of reservations.

When the time came, I tried on no fewer than four different dresses to decide what to wear. I haven’t worn a stich of make-up since I got to Ghana and never get a chance to do more with my hair than comb it and maybe, maybe put it in a rubber band. So I decided to try to make some kind of an event out of it. I hauled out what qualifies as my best dress. I even decided on some shoes that were essentially flats but with a slightly dressy top to them. I figured that we were just going to take a taxi to the restaurant anyway. Its not like I was going to be trekking. Ahh, famous last words.

To start, we discover that we may not have enough cash on hand to pay for a nice dinner, especially since we don’t know how fancy this place is. So instead of hopping in a cab, we go off walking down the road to our bank to get some cash out of the ATM. At this point I am clomping along a bit, and of course already sweating profusely in the 90 degree heat. But I’m smiling and trying to make the best of it. So what is a little clomping on Valentine’s Day?

We get to the bank, which is only a solid 6 minute walk from our house, to discover that both ATM machines were straight out of cash. Sigh. We debate whether we can get by on what we have and decide we’ll try to pass by another bank on the main road and see if, even in Ghana, we can use our ATM card at another bank machine.

On our way out of the bank parking lot, feet already pinching a bit, we are accosted by a small troop of street-children aggressively begging for money. I have seen these children begging for money on the streets for more than three years now. They are professional, and I hate contributing to making a child profitable on the street while the parents sit off to the side collecting the child’s take. They are particularly aggressive tonight, grabbing my hands and bodily hugging me to prevent me from passing.

We get to the next bank and manage to take out some cash. Woohoo! Although at this point we could walk the 15 minutes to the restaurant, I am making a sort of wincing sad face at Terry (about my shoes) and he springs for a taxi.

We cannot find our restaurant. We know we are in the area, its on this street, but we can’t find it. Our cabbie is staring at us impatiently, so we just get down on the side of the road, and start walking around looking for the restaurant. At this point I am losing the good fight. I want to be the cool and patient easygoing gal, and sadly I discover that I am not. And I am certainly not that way when I haven’t been sleeping well, when I’m hot, I’m tired, and hungry. So Terry is awesome and patient and trying to make me laugh and I’m being a minor pain in the butt.

We get to the restaurant and lo, the security guard outside prevents us from going in. He explains they are booked solid for the night. What?! We are in Ghana, the land of the “I come two hours late.” Reservations aren’t even accepted at many of the mid-level hotels, and they are a total oddity at most restaurants. It was the sort of thing that I only really suggested because I was American and it was a reflex. We had never seriously considered that reservations would overrun all restaurants in Accra for Valentines Day. I mean, heck, it is even a totally imported holiday, and a recent one at that.

Okay so no Magellan. Arg. Notch that P.I.A. a little more. We debate the merits of going elsewhere, but I am worried that we may face this problem anywhere. We decide to look into Monsoon, which is also swanky and local, and so if we are disappointed at least we won’t have trekked half way across town. On the way to Monsoon I try to haul myself out of my funky mood by making jokes about just getting a take-out pizza if we failed at Monsoon too.

On the way upstairs we thought we had struck gold. In the big restaurant there were maybe only two or three tables with people sitting at them. Amazing! Awesome! We go in smiling. And immediately we get a snobby turn down. If we don’t have reservations we simply can’t hope to be seated. I look in disbelief at the totally empty restaurant to my left. I gesture hopelessly and say, “But, but there is no one there!” which was apparently an affront to his swanky ways, and he gestures to the right, “That is because all of those enjoying themselves at the bar have reservations and expect to be seated.” So Terry and I turn heel while talking about how odd restaurant management in this place is if on a night when you are booked solid you have people packed into a bar and 90 percent of your restaurant tables sit totally empty.

At the base of the stairs I tell Terry I’m just not up for another round of rejection. We opt to actually get pizza take-out and watch movies at home. We go into the food court (just below Monsoon) and order our pizza. As we turn to wait, I see something that stops me dead in my tracks. The food court is full of people, and not too far away sits a family of six. The mother is dressed up. She’s wearing a pink satin dress, like a Prom dress, with a rinestone necklace. Her hair is done in a stylish up-do. My first reaction is that at least I’m not the most over-dressed person here.

And then I feel immediately humbled. Because for this family, this is a place to be dressed up, this is a place to aspire to eat at…a special occasion.

It winds up being a nice quiet night at home. We put on our PJs, watch Dexter DVDs that Terry’s parents sent us, and eat our pizza. After pizza, we toast the event with a very small bottle of ice wine that I brought with us for just such an occasion.

So in the end it was actually amazingly romantic: because I behaved like a total troll and my husband loved me anyway and spent the night making me laugh.