A FALSE FRIEND IN THE BLUE FOREST
I blink my eyes open and my gaze falls on dried palm fronds crisscrossing – not the white of my bedroom ceiling. For a minute, I am confused. Where am I? Then it comes back. I’m in my grandmother’s village in Bamboung, in the middle of nowhere. To get here, Baye and I boarded a plane in Accra, got off in Dakar, changed to the most uncomfortable taxi in the world, hopped on a ferry boat, entered a car with a big hole in its floor, crossed in a canoe, and finally loaded all our luggage on a donkey cart. It was such a long walk to Yaye Sedar’s village that by the time we arrived, I was half asleep. I hardly saw Yaye Sedar who had given up her bed for me.
– show everyone that Mummy is training me well – which is what she kept repeating as she helped me pack my suitcase and what she whispered in my ear as Baye and I got aboard the Ghana Airways plane. I have to
