Calling

 I want to actively experience my time in Africa, not indirectly through Scott or Dakota’s upkeep, or passively through entertaining Elle. I want to dive in myself and become part of life. I want my own identity here, an identity that will leave some type of mark when I leave. Scott urges me on as well. “You can make a difference here,” he cheers, “Change the world, Molly!” In every direction, needy people struggle. At every turn, organizations and businesses flounder. Potential projects in all fields imaginable call for leaders and sponsorship.

It didn’t take long to learn that living in Ghana is hard. It takes mental, emotional and physical strength just to get through each day. Strength I doubted I naturally possessed. In order to find and maintain the energy and drive to get through our 5-month stay, I knew I would need to find my personal motivation; a passion intense enough to withstand, and embrace the daily hardships in order to satisfy it. I searched for it wherever I went in Cape Coast.

People who know me would have surely gritted their teeth in frustration observing my search in the first few weeks. I can imagine them cupping their hands around their mouths and calling from the sidelines, “Molly, you know your passion! Hello, you already know your calling. WAKE UP!”

Within a month in Africa, I recognized that to find my calling had nothing to do with looking around Cape Coast for needy foundations. My passion was sitting right there inside of me, legs crossed, fingernails patiently tapping, checking the clock. It was just hanging out, waiting for me to simply glance within myself. It was confident, sure of itself. It knew it was so obvious, so grand a passion, if I took only one second to search within, the answer would be clear.

No matter where you drop me on this planet, whether it’s in the inner-city or a farming community, or a fishing village in Africa, that calling forever dwells within. I am a teacher.

John Sackey Primary School sits atop a rocky cliff overhanging the seashore. It’s not accessible by car. To get to it, I have to walk through a dirt-pathed fishing village and up a steep hillside. The sandy coast, lined with wooden canoes is on my right. Rickety wooden shanties line the path on my left. In the morning, I see the residents preparing for the day beside their little one-room shacks. A woman crouches beside a pot perched atop a small wood-fire. Bare-chested fishermen spread out their nets. A dusty-clad child hauls a basin of water on his head toward his bare-bottomed brother awaiting a bath. Three men and one old woman sit on benches shaded by a rigged awning, a distinct herbal aroma wafting from their circle. Children wave to me. Some approach to shake my hand. The men and women yell out, “Obruni, How are you?” One asks if I am going to teach at the school. Another asks me to take him as a friend.

As I begin ascending the hill to the school, the path narrows and the shacks stop. Trash blows across the rocky terrain. Grubby pigs wander around me, pushing their snouts through the villagers’ waste. I tread carefully to avoid slipping on loose rocks or stepping in pig shit. The filthiness at my feet and in my nose fades from my senses when I turn to my right. There I see the blue ocean and sky spread out forever. The whitecaps rolling toward a now rocky shore push strong, cool wind across my face. As I climb, the view widens and becomes more powerful. At the peak, the refreshing gusts of ocean air penetrate my sweat-slicked limbs. Long, thin canoes in the distance, gracefully, noiselessly, glide across the water. Huge waves crashe against giant black rocks islanded in the sea, white foam splashing all around. Beauty easily overpowers ugliness here.

The path turns to the left where the hill crests and the school comes into view. The children spy me first and they begin to shout and cheer, waving and running toward me in their little matching purple uniforms. The adults turn their attention in my direction. There are Martin and Kingsley, the upper elementary teachers. They are well dressed young men, slim and tall, late twenties, in khakis or pressed jeans and short-sleeved button up shirts. The woman who teaches the tiny kids is in her late thirties. She wears a more traditional cloth dress with a busy print. Martin is my host. His English is smooth and he comprehends my American accent the best. He stands beside me and points at a man sitting on a cement block in the shade of a tree. The man has dusty, bare feet, a bare back and thin whitening hair. He leans over a pile of broken cement blocks, choosing one and examining it then tossing it into another pile.

“That’s the headmaster,” Martin says. As if he hears his title mentioned, he springs up and hurries toward me on short, muscular legs, hand outstretched. The toughness of his tight mahogany skin contrasts with the soft, tenderness in his glistening brown-blue eyes and huge cheery smile. Despite his old age, his physique remains young, with defined abdominals and tiny curls of hair traversing his pectoral muscles. “You are welcome! You are welcome!” He repeats, nodding and smiling. His excitement seems to overwhelm his English vocabulary so he shuffles beside us nodding and smiling as Martin speaks.

I hear a hand bell clanging and the children split up. The smaller ones climb three cement stairs into the front side of the school. The older ones walk in groups to the back of the school where there are two more classroom entrances.

 There are five rooms in the school, separated by cement half walls. Each room has small wooden desks teetering on rocky, uneven floors. The children sit two to a desk on narrow wooden benches. The school lists with the grade of the hilltop so the chair where I sit leans forward. I mop my sweaty face with a washcloth. The first few days, I observe the oldest students, class 6 and class 5 combine into 15 students. Kingsley teaches English. His students listen only to his lesson, despite the clearly audible voice of Mr. Martin lecturing behind us, and the small children reciting numbers beside us. I listen to their tiny high-pitched words, “Zay-ro. Z-E-R-O. Oon. O-N-E. Too. T-W-O. The-ree. T-H-R-E-E. Fo. F-O-U-R…” They recite one through ten over and over, spelling each number. If I stand, I can peek over the wall. The numerals are written in white chalk on an external wall painted black. I would call it a blackboard, even though there is no board really. A small girl in her purple dress points a strait stick pointer at each number as the students complete their choral recitation. The girl passes the cane to a different student, who begins the round again. They repeat and repeat and repeat the number lesson for at least 20 minutes, the student leader changing each round.

On the opposite wall, the teacher leads another group of small students in a lesson. I try to make sense of the vocabulary on the black-painted wall. She has drawn two pots on the board. One pot is large and has five small marbles pictured within it. The other is a small pot with the same number of marbles inside. The word “few” and the word “small” are written beside the pots. The teacher points to one of the pots and asks, “Is this few or small?” One child raises his hand. The teacher calls on him and he stands, stating, “Few.” The other students wait silently until the teacher smiles, “Yes, that’s correct. Clap for him.” All the children clap a pattern of 6 rhythmic claps together and the student sits back down.

Kingsley has written the definition of “preposition” on the board. He writes the words “between” and “among.” Then he copies six sentences from the class’s one grammar book, leaving a blank line within each sentence. The students sit silently waiting for him to finish his writing. The air in the room is still except for a thin breeze sneaking through two square openings in the wall on either side of the “blackboard.” I would call them windows but there is no glass, no screen. The students examine me curiously while their teacher’s back is turned. They smile shyly and turn back to the front of the room when I smile at them. He turns from the board and points to the sentences with the cane in his hand. “Fill in the dash with the preposition, “among” or “between” so that the sentence expresses the proper meaning.” Their heads go down as they begin copying down the directions and the sentences. Kingsley returns to his desk. My instinct is to stroll around the classroom, looking over the kids’ shoulders for progress, but the room is cramped. I can only manage to squeeze between the two rows of desks, then spin 180 degrees and walk back to the front of the room, stopping to squint at the flimsy composition books of those students seated closest to me.

While they finish their work I focus on the lesson Mr. Martin is teaching to the class 2 and class 3 students behind us. He’s describing a mouse. A mouse? I hear him describe a monitor, then a keyboard. It occurs to me, he’s explaining a computer. It’s computer class. My curiosity gets the best of me and I peek over the back wall. There is not a computer. There isn’t even a picture of a computer. He’s holding a book about computers and describing what he sees and reads. The children write the key words he’s written on the bIack board into their composition books. I have to physically stop myself from knocking myself in the forehead with the heel of my hand. Of course they don’t have a computer Molly, they don’t have electricity! But they have computer class!

Break time comes at 10 a.m.. The prefect, the most clever student in the class, takes the bell from the teacher’s desk. Francisca walks out what I would call the door, except for there really is no door, just an opening with a raised cement threshold she has to step over. She rings the bell. The students don’t react how I expected. They stay in their seats working, until Kingsley stands and listens to the sentences they have completed. He calls on a student. The student stands and reads his or her sentence. Kingsley says “No, sit down,” or he says, “Yes, Clap for him,” and the class claps the same six-beat rhythm together. As far as I can tell, the students don’t necessarily understand why “between” or “among” is the more appropriate answer. Frankly, I’m not quite sure myself why one word works better than the other in the sentences. What I can deduce for sure is that these students are geniuses at reading nonverbal cues and subtle intonations in their teachers’ questioning.

Not until every sentence is recited does Kingsley dismiss the students for break. Mr. Martin and Kingsley each take a plastic chair and walk to the front of the school where they sit in one shady spot beneath a tree. Mr. Martin barks to one of his girls who happily runs off to bring me a plastic chair as well. It’s her privilege to have been chosen for the task.

The boys and girls split up into their own games. This isn’t a school yard with a playground or basketball court, just one dirt clearing in front of the school. There are no jump ropes or balls. The girls sing songs and play jumping or clapping games. The boys chase and wrestle. One boy uses a stick to skillfully push a plastic spool along the bumpy ground. Two other boys race, pushing old tires toward an imaginary finish line as the other boys cheer.

One large old woman, with straitened hair sticking out in all directions works beside us. She’s wearing a ribbed tank top tucked under massive breasts. Her brown belly hangs over a long cloth wrapped around her waist. She leans into a wooden stand holding two silver pots. She’s stirring and dipping a spoon into the pots then dumping fish stew, with bones and heads into tiny bowls. Balls of whitish dough sit in the bottom of the bowls. She passes them off tiny hands reaching up to her with silver coins. The kids take their bowls and squat in the shade beneath the wooden stand, using their fingers to scoop the stew up to their mouths. Martin explains, “If a student brings small, small money, they can get some stew at break time.”

Other kids wait gathered around a woman sitting on a low stool beside a large silver basin filled with oranges. Their 10 pesewa coin tinks into a smaller silver bowl beside her. She cuts the tough green peelings from the oranges one by one, slits the top third off then hands them to awaiting hands. The kids squeeze the orange with both hands and stick the cut top between puckered lips to suck out the juice.

Kingsley, Martin and the Fish Stew Lady

When I stand up to get a better view of the fish stew woman’s food, she turns and begins yelling to me in Fanti. Her lips are pursed out and her index finger wags at me as she yells in deep, raspy incomprehensible words. I turn to Martin for guidance. He and Kingsley just smirk and shrug their shoulders. Fish stew lady yells and yells in Fanti, one hand on her hip. Her eyes twinkle with amusement and I realize she’s actually repeating the same phrase. I understand only the number “twenty thousand.” She repeats her phrase over and over and I nod and smile, totally confused. Then her phrase changes. She repeats it slower and slower each time, separating each word, and points to me over and over.  She wants me to recite it back to her. I struggle with each word. The kids laugh at my effort. When I finished the sentence, the fish stew lady laughs and pats my should. Martin and Kingsley giggle between themselves, wagging their heads. In hindsight, I’m pretty sure I told her I’d give her money, because every time I go to break time from that day on, she yells at me in Fanti, demanding the money I promised her. Her mischievous, teasing eyes give her away, though. Later, I find out that she is the headmaster's wife.

 

I can’t sit for long at break time. The little girls sing and dance in their circle. I must join them, which delights them and me. I mimic their choreographed movements with each song. Sometimes, the headmaster enters the middle of the circle and calls out the name of different songs then the children sing it and watch as I struggle to match their movements. Sometimes a class 6 boy named Oscar sits on a stool in the middle and plays a drum for us. All the adults and children smile and laugh in the hot sun. The joy of it all is so wonderful! The lower elementary teacher calls from outside of the circle, “You teach us a song, Madame Molly!” I teach them Hokey Pokey. They erupt in hysterics when we get to “Put your backside in. Put your backside out. Put your backside in. And shake it all about!” Every break time they request the hokey pokey. Soon the oldest girls are singing the chorus with me. Although my job at John Sackey School is to teach English and grammar, I really just want them to sing the whole hokey pokey with me by the time I leave!

 

The tiniest student at the school is Loratia. She is the sweetest little two-year old with cropped hair and gold earrings. Her purple uniform dress hangs on her tiny frame. After only a few days, she’s come to look forward to break time when I pick her up and carry her. Sometimes, she can’t wait and will wander from her classroom in the front of the school all the way around to my classroom and stand at the door waiting for me to see her. “My baby, Loratia” I announce to the giggling students and swing her into my arms. I tell them I want to take Loratia home with me. A class 6 girl named Victoria gives me permission, “I asked her aunty and she said Loratia can go to your house with you.” Loratia talks Fanti to me, and the older girls tell me what she’s trying to say. She examines my face intently and touches my nose and lips with her tiny exploring fingers. I can see the wonder at my strangeness in her eyes. When I’m not holding her, she follows close behind, her little bare feet scurrying across the dirt. She holds my hand and stares at it curiously, spinning the shiny silver wedding band.

I’m only expected at the school one day per week to teach English, but I can’t keep myself away for so long. I bring Elle up to spend break time with the children on some days. Some days I go up the hill with school supplies sent in care packages from friends in America. I’ve never really wished for tons of money in life, but now I find myself wishing that I had millions, so I could give them more.

 

When my moms visit from America, they bring loads of school supplies and books to donate. Once organized, the gifts fill every pocket in a full size suitcase. My mom and I stand at the base of the hill wondering how we can possibly haul the packed, heavy bag up the rocky path. I call Martin and ask him to come down to help. He comes, along with Kingsley and Francisca. The two men pull the suitcase from Big John’s taxi and place it on top of Francisca’s head. She balances the heavy load on her head and walks effortlessly up the steep hill, four empty-handed adults following her. As we trudge up, Kingsley leans toward me and quietly says, “Your mother is so young!” He doesn’t want to say it too loudly. It’s not a compliment here. With age comes respect and honor, so unlike us, the women prefer to be considered older than they are.

The headmaster tours my mother around the school while I lead a lesson on personal pronouns. He’s dressed in a colorful African shirt and pressed pants in honor of her visit (so did his wife). He presents the different class rooms. The students stand and recite, “Good. Morning, Madame. You are welcome.” He’s most excited to show her the future of his school. He proudly flourishes his arm over an area dug out for the foundation of the junior secondary school. The location of the interior and exterior walls are mapped out by the furrows dug in the dirt.

One Friday morning, Elle and I walk through the fishing village and climb the hill to find the teachers, children and headmaster in work clothes, building the walls of their new school. The smaller kids play in the school yard while the older kids create a system of hauling huge, rectangular cinder blocks from the bottom of the hill. Two boys struggle to lift the block over the head of a third boy. They carefully balance it atop a cloth rag circled on his head to protect his scalp. The boy climbs to the top of the hill where two other boys heave it off his head and add it to the existing pile of blocks. Martin, Kingsley and the headmaster work in the dirt furrows, laying the cinderblocks and cement. Their dark skin glistens in the sun. They stop occasionally to wipe a sweaty rag over their wet faces, heads and necks. The progress on the building is evident; the walls are coming up layer by layer.

 

My first inclination is that the hard labor is horrible for these kids but, of course, as I watch them work, my opinion changes. Their sweat and pride are part of the mortar holding up these cinder block walls. How can they not love their school when they’ve built it with their own hands.

The headmaster climbs up to ground level to stand beside me. I feel the rough skin of his hand wrap around mine. We look down at the future school, holding hands. The sea breeze tempers the burning sun. The children gather, and Martin and Kingsley stop their work to look up at us. He says, “Madame Molly, We are so grateful for all the help you are giving to our school. I would like to name this new school for you. When it’s finished I would like to have your name on this school. And the day we open it, we will have an opening ceremony. I would like you to be here for the opening.” I am shocked. I am incredulous. I am overwhelmed. I am humbled. I am honored.

I don’t deserve this, I know. The joy and love and fulfillment I gain on top of this hill is so many millions of times more than I can ever give back in my short time here. In that moment I hope with all my heart to be in this spot on the day the new school opens. I feel doubtful because there’s no way the project will be complete by our departure date, and the expense to return is more than Scott and I can afford any time soon. I tell Scott about the headmaster’s plans. His face brightens. He beams. There’s no question in his eyes. “Well, I guess you’re coming back to Ghana!” He wags his head, grinning with pride and praise. “I told you…Change the world, Molly.”

"I don't know about changing the world," I say, "but I know a group of African schoolkids on a hill who will know how to do the Hokey Pokey!"

Rollercoaster

            When Elle rides in the back of Big John’s taxi, she laughs and cheers as he swerves back and forth around deep divots in the dirt roads. She cheers when he bounces over sets of three or five speed bumps placed randomly over the paved roads. “Rollercoaster, Rollercoaster!” she squeals and claps. One day Scott asked Big John if he knew what a rollercoaster was. Big John pursed his lips so subtly and furrowed his brow in uncertainty. “No, please. I don’t think so.”

            While sitting in the reception area of the University hospital just a few days ago, shock and stress and worry overcame me and my eyes began to well up. Big John was waiting with me and he held up his hand, shaking his head, “No, sista Molly. Don’t do that. You must be quiet and trust God knows.” Then he waved his hand up and down, following an imaginary path in the air up and down and up and down. “Life is like this.” It turned out John did know the meaning of rollercoaster. But to him, it had nothing to do with an amusement park ride, it was life.

            After a day in which I had felt the lowest depth of fear, the highest feeling of relief and the lowest pang of disappointment, I awoke in paradise. In celebration of our moms’ visit to Africa, Scott had booked a vacation at Busua Beach Resort. Quaint brick chalets lined the shore of a bright blue cove of the Atlantic Ocean. Cobblestone paths wove around green lawns, palm trees and three graduating pools, each creating a water fall to the next. A huge thatched roof gazebo served as the outdoor dining room and bar, overlooking a white sand beach, nearly deserted of anyone but us. The bartender delivered drinks with ice right to our front porch table, just feet from wooden stairs leading to the flawless beach. The sand was so fine, it was firm and flat. When the waves lapped at the shore, the water remained atop the sand in the thinnest layer of glistening water like crystal.

            My mom and I strolled down the shoreline collecting shells and sea glass. The warmth of the sun, perfect ocean breeze, my mom beside me.

            Elle paddled in the smallest pool, only a few feet deep. She pushed around a blue inflatable airplane we’d bought from a roadside vendor. Scott’s mom lounged in the shade watching her granddaughter’s carefree splashing.

Scott rented a SeaDoo, and he and Dakota took turns zipping over the salty water. They playfully jumped the waves and posed for pictures. I rode on the back with Scott after he promised not to go too fast. We buzzed toward an island in the distance then circled around toward four anchored canoes with colorful flags flapping.

As the sun set, we ate dinner and drank wine or cocktails under the gazebo, listening to the waves crash and African reggae music.





After dinner, a band complete with African drums and trumpets sang American favorites and contemporary African songs with a reggae and Latin flavor. Dressed in a silky loose beach lounging set, I danced and danced in the warm night air. Elle danced with me. My mom danced with me and Scott even danced with me. I disappeared into the music and spun and bounced and shuffled and twisted and waved and shook every tiny ounce of anxiety away until only the music and the wind and the warmth and the sound of the sea existed. I owned that high of peace and joy and beauty.

When we returned to the chalet, Dakota complained of a worsening headache. That afternoon, he’d laid down to rest when the headache started. Throughout the day, he’d felt worse. His headache spread to his eyes and he’d needed to close the curtains to block the sun. Nausea overtook him once and he couldn’t make it to the toilet. I would have dismissed it as a stress migraine had I not felt his forehead throughout the afternoon and evening. Sometimes he felt cool and clammy, while other times he was hot and sweaty. “I feel like I ate something bad; My head hurts so much; I’m just so tired.” By the time night fell, he was still woozy and feverish. He was so exhausted he slurred his words.

The man at the front desk called the nearest doctor who advised me to bring him in. My mom insisted on coming with us. Our driver for the weekend, Eche, drove fifteen minutes through jungle and bumpy dirt roads up a rocky hill.  The hospital parking lot had no lights and goats wandered around the gravel drive. We followed a cracked cement courtyard into a dimly lit emergency room. It was a small square room with cement walls and floor. The maize yellow paint on the walls was dingy with age and a broken wheelchair stood propped beside a stone stairway up into the dark. Wind billowed in the long dusty curtains covering screened windows. A mosquito hovered around a hanging light bulb.  My mom later described the hospital as looking just like some muffler or oil change garage.

Dakota laid across a waiting bench facing the desk. He closed his eyes and draped an arm across his face. I described his symptoms to the R.N., a young Ghanaian man in his late 20s, early 30s. His older plump assistant stuck a digital thermometer under Cody’s arm then began writing his information in her ledger of patients. “What color was the vomit?” was the nurse’s only question.

Dakota answered impatiently, “I don’t know…maybe yellowish.”

Without hesitation, the doctor diagnosed him with malaria and insured us, “I’ll give you an injection. You’ll like it.” He turned to a table standing against the wall behind him.

“What’s the injection?” I didn’t want to sound insulting but I’d never imagined allowing someone inject something into my son without any explanation of what it was, what it would do for him, why the nurse was even so sure of his diagnosis.

“I will give him two injections. One is an antimalarial and one is an analgesic to make him feel better.”

“And how do you know it’s malaria?” I knew malaria was usually diagnosed using a blood test.

The nurse tilted his head, confused by my question, as if I had just asked how he was so sure the sun would rise tomorrow morning. “Well, his symptoms.”

“Which symptoms?” I pushed, determined to keep my voice calm and trusting.

“His fever and headache. The color of his vomit.” He addressed Dakota, “Do you have a bitter taste in your mouth?”

“Yes.”

“Do your muscles ache and your body hurt?”

“Yes.”

He turned back to face me, “There is a blood test for malaria but we wouldn’t get the results until tomorrow afternoon. I can tell it’s malaria so I can start the treatment sooner if we give him the injections now. Then he can start his orals tomorrow morning.”

Dakota quipped loud enough for the nurse to hear, “I hope you have a clean needle!”

The nurse led Dakota shuffling into a small room beside the waiting area and told him to drop his pants. I heard Dakota’s fear turn to anger when he yelled at the nurse, “Where is it going? Where is it going? IN MY ASS?”

My mom nudged me, “Doesn’t he know you should never be rude to the person about to push a needle in you?”

Cody emerged from the small room pale and sweaty. He could barely keep his balance and when I asked if he was okay, he shook his head, “no…” then bent over and began heaving. Yellowish vomit splattered across the cement floor. Droplets of puke hit my ankles.

            Dakota spent the next three days and nights sleeping. He woke only when I forced him to eat a few bites with his medicine.

Meanwhile, Scott and I were determined to show our mothers a pleasurable trip in Ghana. That night back in Cape Coast, we took them to Oasis where the drumming group, Korye, wanted to dedicate a welcome performance to our moms. Plus, it was Ghana’s Independence Day so we wanted to be out for the celebration. The drummers wore red pants and bare black chests. They’d painted white stripes across their faces and chests like war paint. They introduced our mothers and put on their usual impressive show. The dancers joined them for at least four songs before my dance teacher beckoned me up. The drums began the music for Apatempa, and I joined two other dancers on stage to perform the traditional Fanti welcome dance especially for our moms. My mom snapped away with her camera. The ocean waves and the cool night air filled all of our lungs and revitalized us. The palpable energy of the night felt like we were on top of the world.

“I can’t wait to take a dance lesson!” my mom excitedly announced to me.

I told her I’d planned a lesson for us in the morning. “Elle has school in the morning. So we can go to the dance lesson at 10 a.m. then walk around the market afterwards. Scott can pick up Elle at noon, and we don’t go to Paapa and Josephine’s house until 2 so we’ll have plenty of time just to wander around.”

Paapa and Josephine, along with their four children had become a second family for us over the last 2 months. They loved having us to their home for Ghanaian meals. We joined them at Paapa’s “charismatic” church, and we would all pile into Paapa’s rickety red Mercedes to go swimming at Coconut Grove Beach Resort or to stalk crocodiles at Hans Cottage Botel (that’s not a typo…it’s Botel, not hotel…but no one can tell us why).

Our plans changed quickly in the morning when my mom woke up sick. I cancelled our dance lesson, and we had only walked through the market for 30 minutes before my usual active-to-the-point-of-hyper mom confessed that she had to go lay down to rest. She was clammy and pale and began slurring her words as she layed down in exhaustion. She didn’t feel hot when I felt her head but I was startled when she began echoing Dakota’s words from a few days before. “My head hurts so bad,” “The light hurts my eyes,” “I’m just so tired,” “I feel like I ate something bad.”

“Mom, I think you should go to the hospital. You sound just like Dakota did. What if you have Malaria?”

She refused, “It’s ok. I just need to lay down for a while and I’ll feel better.”

Before she fell asleep, she mumbled an exhausted deal that if she didn’t feel better by the time we returned from Paapa and Josephine’s house, she’d go to the hospital. I had planned on taking Dakota that evening as well because his medicine would be gone in the morning and he wasn’t showing any signs of improvement. His return flight to the United States was in two days and he couldn’t fly in his present semi-conscious state. I left my mom in her darkened room with my cell phone beside her. It was a shame she wouldn’t see Paapa and Josephine’s house and children, or taste Josephine’s fantastic Ghanaian foods. But I hoped she was right and she only needed rest. I had an ominous feeling that it was more serious.

With Dakota and my mom sick in bed, Scott, his mom Barbara, Elle and I went to a late lunch at Paapa and Josephine’s house. Their home sits atop a rocky hill off a busy road leaving Cape Coast. It’s a long, flat structure with a flat roof. Chickens and kittens wander the yard in and out of a squat chicken coop. The house looks like a roadside motel because the door to each room opens to the outside. A cement walk under an awning serves as the hallway between each room, so to get from the square living room to the dark kitchen with only a double hot plate on the floor, you had to push through the flap-flap door, and walk outside to the other end of the house.

As usual, Josephine had prepared way too much food for us. She and a hired woman had cooked fufu and groundnut soup with beef, chicken and fried rice, and what she called “your potato chips,” or French fries. She never forgot to add “our potato chips” to her menu whenever we visited.

Another part of our visits to Paapa and Josephine’s house that had become tradition was singing. She and her three oldest children offered to sing gospel songs to us on our very first visit. What had started as kind of an uncomfortable, awkward situation soon became my favorite part of our meals with our second family. After lunch, I asked Josephine if she and the kids would sing “Hold me Close,” for Scott’s mom. It was my favorite of their repertoire and I knew Barbara would share my appreciation for their harmonious rendition.

Mercy (10), Junior(8) and Juliette(6) stood in a graduating line beside their mother, tallest to tiniest. They shuffled back and forth as Josephine began the melody. Then their high-pitched, sweet voices overtook the song while Josephine’s lower, raspy voice harmonized and complimented their melody. They clapped and swayed to the beat as the song filled the room. With each verse, their little voices became fuller and louder. Josephine prefaced her children’s melody with her own lyrical runs. She closed her eyes and clapped and smiled in the peace and joy of her lovely family. I fell into the moment and allowed their angelic, little voices to carry me with them.

Hold me close.

Wrap your arms around me.

And I will soar with you.

Your spirit lifts me up.

The power of your love.

While they sang, I imagined our quickly approaching final days in Cape Coast. Since our decision to allow Dakota’s early departure, I’d begun imagining our own. And acutely realized that I wasn’t ready to leave. We only had 3 months left in Ghana, and in that moment, listening to Josephine’s babies sing with her, I translated that into only 3 more months to hear these high, innocent voices sing this beautiful song to me.

Clarity washed over me at that moment. I liked living in Ghana. I loved Ghana. Despite the hardships and homesickness. Despite the undependable water and electricity. Despite the unforgiving heat and endless sweat, I really did love it. I loved the tropical nights, the deserted stretches of sandy coastlines, the fishing harbors crowded with wooden canoes and colorful flags, the white foamy waves crashing, the full, faithful voices praising in church, the happy people, genuinely celebrating even the smallest joys each day brings. I loved the hundreds of carefree children, singing and grinning and playing in the streets every day, the praising voices raised in the night, the forever campfire smell hanging in the thick air. I loved the ceaseless energy and movement in the markets, the echoes of “Obruni Obruni Obruni” following me through the streets. I loved the sing song, up and down cadence of Ghanaians speaking English, the dignified gait of the African woman, a baby slung in the curve of her back, a tray of tomatoes balanced on her head and a cell phone to her ear. And I loved the circle of friends we’d come to count on.

In that moment, I thought of Big John, and De Valera, Little Joseph and Auntie Tenay. I thought of Mamesi and Mary, Stephanie, Agnes and Nanayaw, Big Joseph and my dance teacher Mary. I thought of little Kojo with a tray of oranges propped on his head, and Samuel at our back door awaiting an assignment. I thought of Martin and Kingsley, teachers at the school where I volunteered, and my littlest student, Loratia tugging at my leg. I even thought of the school’s fat cook who yells at me in Fanti during break time. They had become friends and family over the last few months. And the thought of saying good-bye to them in 3 short months clarified the fact that I wasn’t ready to leave. I was happy here, and I really did love it here.

            That evening I took both my mom and Dakota to the hospital for malaria tests. Dakota’s medicine hadn’t worked and my mom’s headache and dizziness had worsened. Big John drove us and I asked him to accompany me so neither my mom nor Cody would ever be left alone. Big John and my mom sat in the waiting room while Dakota and I were directed to the Emergency Room Waiting Area.

            Three flustered tourists, white, sat huddled together near the door. I watched them, trying to predict their scenario. One man sat dazed. Another man and a woman draped their arms over his shoulder and lap. The men and woman all wore wet bikini swimsuits, and puddles of water had formed beneath their chairs. I tried to figure out who was the patient here. One man had bloody, scraped-up knees. A nurse leaned over cleaning them. But the minor wound didn’t match their weary faces or urgent whispers. I think they spoke German. The woman, probably in her 50’s threw her head back in a heated sigh. She squeezed a water sachet in her fist, squirting a thin stream of water across her face, neck and chest. The dazed man in the middle stood without a word and stared forward. The woman immediately jumped up to his side. She held a beach towel around her waist and called to him as he shuffled toward the emergency room like a sleepwalker. She fumbled to grab his slippery arm and begged him, “No, Mr…(?), No, Mr….(?)!” A Rastafarian man, who I hadn’t noticed sitting in the corner until just then, stood. He pulled the woman back to her seat then followed the sleepwalker calmly. His body language said, “Let him go. You sit, and I’ll be sure he’s o.k..”

            The two, wet tourists scooted their chairs together so their knees touched and they faced each other, eyes wide. The woman began deliberating first. I had no clue what she was saying but I thought I understood her animated gestures. While the man, who I guessed to be her husband, nodded and patted her legs, she mimed a huge wave approaching then crashing over her head. So, I’d guessed the vacationers’ scenario. The men must have gotten hit by a rogue wave. The bloody-kneed man fell on the rocks and the dazed man must’ve sustained some sort of head injury. The woman must’ve helplessly witnessed it all.

            By the time a young intern took Dakota’s blood pressure and ushered him into the emergency room, the three German tourists were gone. I sat in a chair directly behind Dakota and peered around the room curiously. The emergency room was much more professional looking than the one we’d visited a few days before. The lights were brighter and the walls and cement floor were cleaner. Six narrow hospital beds protruded from opposite walls, three on each side. Three were occupied while three remained crisply made up in matching white sheets and red blankets. I noticed that one patient was white. His – or her…I couldn’t tell – red blanket was pulled all the way to his/her neck. Wet, brown curls fell across a tan neck brace wrapped under the patient’s chin, and some type of blue mouthpiece held her (the hair made me decide she was a woman) lips in the shape of an “O.”

            I turned to check on Dakota, whose miserable head rested in his hands propped against the missing doctor’s desk.

            When I turned back, the white patient had covered her head with the red blanket. My brain justified its new input. The ER lights were too bright. My brain scurried to deny the involuntary hypotheses flooding it. I leaned forward to squint at the patient’s form outlined under the blanket.

In a millisecond, the “her” became an “it.” I focused and refocused, struggling to find proof of an inhale and exhale. The body remained still. I stared and stared, unbelieving. I was not seeing this corpse lying in front of me, under this red blanket, in this room, right now. Perhaps to allow a moment of calm, my brain tricked my eyes into seeing a slight rhythmic movement under the red blanket. It was shallow, but it was there, right? Right? RIGHT?

I leaned forward and whispered in Dakota’s ear, “Cody. There is a body laying in the bed behind us. There’s a blanket over it and I don’t see its chest moving. Look. I think it’s dead. Look.” I couldn’t accept what I was seeing without some undeniable reason to believe it. Maybe if Dakota saw it too, I could know it was for real. Honestly, at this point, it was all still a shocking adventure. It was still unreal enough to feel a little exciting.

“NO! I’m not looking! I don’t want to see that.” He spit back.

We waited at the desk while darkness seeped from the earth and filled the African sky. I turned when I heard the rattle of a metal cart. A black man in a brown jumpsuit zipped up the front pushed the cart. He wore opaque, black sunglasses; sunglasses I call “Mac Tonight” glasses because McDonald’s used to sell the style along with a value meal in the late 80’s. He approached the blanketed body. As he perused his charge, I knew I should now look away, but I didn’t. I watched.

He tucked one arm beneath her knees and one under the crook of her neck. He heaved the body to his chest, holding her close, his arms wrapped around her. As he lifted her up, the red blanket slipped off. I could deny it no longer. Her wet bikini bottom was wrapped around her thighs. My eyes registered her pubic hair, her thigh flesh hanging loosely from her leg bones, her bright red sunburn lines. Mac Tonight dropped her on the metal cart. Her right leg fell lifelessly off the side. He reached down and balanced it back on the cart. He pulled the red blanket back across her body. She became an “it” again. Before pushing the cart out the door and into the night, I saw him gage the body’s position on the cart. He wasn’t satisfied. He poised himself behind the head and steadied the cart with one foot. Then he placed his hands on either side of her head, hooking his fingertips beneath her jaw bone and yanked. The body begrudgingly slid where he wanted it. With a final perusal of the body’s position, Mac Tonight pushed his cart out of the room.

So fast. So humiliating. So undignified. So horrifying, So casual, So fragile, So unexpected, So fleeting, So temporal, So permanent, So raw, So real.

I think I was in shock until I heard the doctor speaking to me. He’d slid into his desk and spoken to Dakota about his persistent malarial  symptoms even after three days of treatment.

The doctor said, “The malaria medicine is making him exhausted. That’s why he’s sleeping all the time. When he finishes the drugs, the malaria will be gone and he’ll be more alert. I will detain him here tonight and observe him until morning.”

The words jolted me awake, “NO! He isn’t staying here overnight. He’s coming home with me!”

The doctor smirked as if my fear was humorous to him, “But we have nice beds here,” he gestured behind me to the four empty red beds, “and we have food he can eat.”

“No. He’s going home. He has a bed at home. There’s food at home. He will not stay here overnight.”

The doctor submitted to my declaration. “I will order a lab on his blood to check for malaria. You can return tomorrow afternoon for the results.”

“I need the results now. He has to fly to the United States tomorrow night. We leave for Accra airport at 3 p.m. tomorrow.”

The doctor shook his head, “He shouldn’t fly tomorrow. He’s too ill.”

I stubbornly pronounced his plans again. The doctor ordered the blood test and results immediately.

Back in the waiting room, my mom, Dakota, Big John and I awaited two malaria blood test results. Scott called my cell phone.

“Molly,” he said, “I just called the airline to double check Dakota’s flight tomorrow. They said his ticket still reads May 31.” I knew for a fact that I’d changed Dakota’s ticket. I’d spent at least an hour on the phone with a United Airlines agent changing his departure date a week before. I ended the call.

It occurred to me then that Dakota could NOT fly the next day. I was 100% convinced that the signs were in my face. He couldn’t get on that plane. If he did, something bad was going to happen. He wasn’t meant to board that plane. I walked out of the hospital. I called Dakota’s stepmother.

“Tracy, I have a bad feeling about this flight. The signs are in my face that Cody shouldn’t fly tomorrow. The doctor said he shouldn’t fly, his plane ticket wasn’t changed and I just watched a dead woman hauled out of the Emergency Room in front of me! She was on vacation! She was on the beach! She was sunburnt!”

I made a deal with myself. If Dakota’s blood came back positive for malaria, I would change his flight. I knew he shouldn’t get on that plane. Something in my guts just pulled nauseously. I didn’t care about the price of another change. I didn’t want him on United flight 991 (which we all mistook and repeatedly called 911). I dreaded Scott’s anger at another change fee, so I relied on the malaria test to make the decision for me.

Would you believe relief was my only emotion when the lab for Dakota came back positive for malaria? The doctor promised a typed order disallowing him to fly. My mom’s blood test came back negative for malaria. The doctor predicted she had eaten something that didn’t agree with her and promised she’d feel better in the morning.

Both my mother and Dakota felt better in the morning. Dakota stayed in bed just to be sure the stronger, Quinine prescription could do its job. Meanwhile, my mom, Elle, Scott, Big John and I spent the day at Kakum National Park. We inched across a 200 foot-high canopy bridge dangling in the treetops of the African Jungle. Wooden boards barely 12 inches wide suspended end-to-end by netting and ropes led us above the jungle, so thick with foliage we couldn’t see the forest floor. We zig-zagged from one bridge to the next, stopping to catch our  breath on small round landing decks wrapped around the thickest tree trunks. The beauty of our wild, green, green view, spread out for miles around us filled our souls. The light, billowing clouds seemed within reach and the barking, grunts of monkeys echoed from the trees. In a single file line we creaked and swayed and balanced amidst this paradise. Our spirits lifted. We were soaring. Again, we were on the peak of thrilling adventure and unprecedented beauty; on the peak of a rollercoaster. But not the cheap imitation amusement park ride. We were on Big John’s rollercoaster. The rollercoaster called LIFE. And for the moment, we were up!

Over the unpredictable days we also held our breath for news of Scott’s dad. Each day small bits of fear and hope came to us from Texas. “The mass on Carl’s kidney is large.” “It’s wrapped around one kidney.” “Statistically speaking, it’s cancerous.” “This type of cancer usually spreads to the liver.” “His liver is clear, but there’s a spot on his lung.” “The spot on his lung is just liquid.” “The kidney can be removed.” “He’ll have surgery in 5 days.” “He should do well.” Scott and his mother felt powerless and scared.

Scott and I felt guilt-ridden because our mothers’ short visit to Ghana was riddled with so much trauma. We even wished they hadn’t come at all. They’d spent so much money and time to get here and for what? To feel panic and stress and fear and desperation and hopelessness?

Then it occurred to me one morning when the cool air of night still flowed through our bedroom windows. Our mothers were here for a reason. They were not here for vacation. They were here for us. They were here to help us through these toughest days of our trip, of our lives maybe. I don’t believe I could’ve handled the fear of Dakota’s runaway without my mom’s ever-present comfort through it all. I pictured Scott crumbling under the anxiety of his father’s illness without his mother’s calm, supportive faith beside him. If we were riding this rollercoaster of life, our moms were our safety harnesses, our stability bars. The guilt of their visit quickly changed to relief and undying thankfulness.

Before I left for Africa, my father told me not to expect every day to be a good one in Africa. Not because we were in Africa, but because we were living life. He reminded me that if we were in our own home, five months could not pass without some bad days, some tears or heartaches. He reminded me that in real life, there are good days and bad days, thrilling days and miserable days. No matter where I am, he told me, I would be joyful and depressed. In the course of five months, I was bound to have ups and downs, no matter where I was. He advised me to remember that when I had a bad day in Africa. I surely would have had bad days in my home over the same five months. I held on to those words during this few weeks of ups and downs. I consoled myself with the reality of his advice. Somehow, though, I felt that here in Africa, the drops I was experiencing were steeper, more terrifying, more gut-wrenching. But I also knew that those peaks, that moment of suspension when I could see the beauty clearly for miles and miles, when I was poised in the upper-most position of the ride so the drop below was hidden from view…those were higher, more sensual, more awe-inspiring and more exhilarating than I’d ever felt before!

Consequences - Escape from Cape Coast (cont)

Dakota’s next text message read, “Please tell Scott not to yell at me.”

I texted back, “I promise I won’t yell. Please call me.” And my vow was true. I wasn’t angry with Dakota. I was so terrified that anger was unfathomable. I just wanted my little boy safe, this son of mine who was so desperate and hopeless that he would face a Third World country alone rather than confide in me.

My phone rang. “Mom?” His voice was steady, but the effort to make it so was clear.

I kept my voice low and calm and steady. “Dakota, where are you?”

“I’m at the embassy. I’m in security.”

“Cody, who drove you to the embassy? How did you get to Accra?”

“I don’t know. Some taxi driver named Paul.”

Now my demeanor cracked. I couldn’t hold back my panick, “What are you doing? What are gonna do at the embassy?”

Now his voice was the one that became comforting, “Mom, I just want to talk to Sarpei. That’s all. I just want to talk to him.”

“Well what are your plans? Are you going home?”

“Mom, I need to talk to Sarpei. I have to go.” He paused to emphasize his next statement, “Mom, please promise me you’ll still go to the beach resort.”

“O.k. We’ll go,” I humored him. “But I need to know what you’re gonna do. I need to know if you’re leaving the country!”

“Mom, I have to go! I’m in security!”

“Does your father know anything about this, Cody?”

His impatience travelled through the signal. He raised his voice and forcefully declared, “ NO! I HAVE to GO! I spent 80 cedis to get here and I’m GOING TO talk to Sarpei. I don’t want to interrupt you but I have to go NOW! I’ll call you in one hour.” Click.

The thought of waiting an hour was excruciating. I needed to know what was going on, what he planned to do next. Who had helped him with his scheme.

Scott was the rational voice, “Molly, you have to call Leif. He needs to know what’s going on.”

I scanned the phone’s time display and subtracted 5 hours. It would only be 4:30 a.m. in Spring Lake. I punched in Leif’s cell number. There was no answer. I punched in his step-mother’s. Same.

I spent the next hour pushing send on my cell phone and cursing myself.

Dakota had tried to tell me he wanted to leave over and over. He’d said he didn’t like it here. I’d always responded by telling him he had to stick it out. Things would get better. He’d adjust. Why didn’t I listen to him? Why didn’t I take him seriously? Why did I force my son to put himself in danger rather than just believe him when he said he wanted to go home? If I’d only listened. If I’d only been a better mom, someone he could trust and depend on, he wouldn’t have felt compelled to take matters into his own hands.

Scott was speaking to Sarpei on the phone now. I heard his side of the conversation, “So you’ve got him now? Is he OK? Is he with you? O.K. O.K. O.K.”

He hung up the phone with a heaving sigh, “Sarpei has him. He said that Dakota is upset. He’s afraid to call us. He needs time to calm down. Sarpei will call us back.”

This is when Scott and my united front of worry and panic diverged. Scott was livid and betrayed. I was sick to my stomach imagining the desperation and hopelessness that had driven my boy to run. I felt his gut-twisting anxiety. I felt his lonely need to find some way to escape on his own. His own mother wouldn’t listen. She wouldn’t help him relieve the trauma he’d been feeling. She couldn’t be depended on. I felt his shaky knees as he stepped out the flap flap door to face this foreign world alone.

We paced back and forth on the magic porch, sucking on Rothmans cigarettes. The cool morning air had melted to suffocating, still heat. Scott seethed, “He is the most self-absorbed…he doesn’t think of anyone but himself…well, he got his free trip to Norway out of me…I’m done. He’s not my son anymore.”

I sat down to ease my tense stomach, cramped in empathy, “Of course he wasn’t thinking of anyone else, Scott. He was miserable. He only needed to get out of here. He was desperate. He needed to escape. He needed to find a way out. We weren’t listening. We weren’t helping him. It was his only way out.”

“He’s just totally self-centered. He’s been comlaining since we got here. He’s spoiled and is going to get what he wants. He knows how to get what he wants. He doesn’t care about how this affects anyone else!!”

“He’s not thinking of anyone else right now because he’s in self-preservation mode. He’s desperate, like a trapped animal. No one would save him so he had to save himself the only way he knew how.”

I didn’t know how to express my gnawing guts to Scott. I didn’t know how to relate to him that Dakota felt the same uncontrollable eating away at his insides. I was sure Dakota was out of his mind with desperation.

“He could’ve been killed, Molly! He didn’t even think of how much danger he was putting himself in. What if there’d been a car accident and he died. What if this driver was some sicko?”

“Scott,” I attempted, “Do you remember on 9-11, when those people on the top floor realized the floors beneath them were blocked by fire. Remember how they just started jumping? They didn’t think, they just knew they had to get out! Their only need was to escape somehow.” I was convinced that Dakota must’ve felt that terrifying trapped feeling in order to leave like he did. And the thought of my boy experiencing such bleakness made me feel nauseous, guilt-ridden. This was my fault. If I’d listened and helped, he wouldn’t have run.

“He needs to go home. We need to send him home. If he’s this desperate to get out of here, we have to let him go back.”

Scott threw up his hands, “He’s weak! You’re giving into him again. This is why he’s so spoiled and self-centered! If this were Elle pulling this, there’s no way I’d let her leave. I won’t raise my child to be a quitter!”

My cell phone rang. Big John, Scott, and our moms held their breath to listen as I answered the phone.

The voice on the line was a slow southern drawl. The woman reminded me I had met her on our last visit to the embassy. Her name was Mary. She was calm and patient. She advised me that I was on speaker phone. She said she’d spoken to Dakota. She could see he was wrought with anxiety but wasn’t clear exactly what was going on. She only knew that Dakota had left the house with 35 cedis believing that if he could get to the embassy, they would cover his cab fare and fly him out of Ghana.

I told her all I knew.

She told me she wore two hats. One of those hats entailed a responsibility to refer minors to the government child protective services. A minor couldn’t just stay at the embassy without a guardian. She promised me she didn’t plan on turning Dakota over at this point because she wanted us to figure it out together. “I just need to know, Molly, what you’re thinking right now. What do you want to happen now?”

By this time, Scott’s anger had evolved to disgust. He hissed in the background, “Send him home. I don’t want him here. I’m done. Send him home tonight. There’s a flight from Accra tonight at 11:15.”

I told Mary, “I know for sure Dakota needs to go home. Running away is his cry for help. He needs to leave. There’s a flight tonight. He could go on that. That’s one option. Or he could get a taxi back here and in a week fly home with his grandma. I would prefer that.”

Scott pssshhhhhed. “Send him home now. I don’t even want to see him.”

I was sure my boy was hurting and to hear Scott’s heartless denial of him stung. I pushed my hand out, signaling him to shut his mouth. He stomped off repeating, “I’m done. I’m done. You deal with this.”

Mary’s reply made the decision. She knew that Dakota had Leif’s written and notarized permission to leave the United States. But she also knew that document didn’t allow any departure from Africa until June. She told me the only way Dakota could be on a plane without his father’s permission was to become a ward of the government. “And as a divorced mother myself, Molly,” she warned, “you do not want to get them involved in this.” The she declared that the American Embassy advises that Dakota return to us in Cape Coast until an arranged departure could be organized dependent on Dakota’s father’s permission.

That was the plan then. The embassy cannot release a minor without a legal guardian present. I would be riding to Accra to pick him up. My mom insisted on riding with me. She didn’t want me going to Accra alone. Meanwhile Scott and his mom would take Elle to the Bushua Beach resort as planned. It took some convincing for Scott to agree to go. He was ready to give up the much-needed weekend of pampered beach resort living. “The vacation’s ruined. Cody ruined it. We might as well not go.”

My mom convinced Scott that only a few hours of our vacation was ruined. He should still take his mom and Elle to the resort and we’d meet them later.

I called Nanayaw to drive us to Accra. Big John’s trembling car wouldn’t have made the trip. This is the point at which Dakota’s father called. I gave him the bare facts and told him to answer his phone so we could make our decision together about how to handle the situation.

Most of the three hour plus drive I spent talking to or texting Leif. We agreed that Dakota wouldn’t ever have pulled such a stunt unless he was completely overwhelmed with desperation. “By the way,” Leif added, “Tracy and I are in a huge fight about this! She thinks I’m being too easy on Dakota.” I justified Scott and Tracy’s opinion by convincing myself that only Dakota’s real parents can understand how he must be feeling.

This is what I said to Leif, “Dakota will learn a life lesson today, Leif. We are the ones who need to decide what that lesson will be. We have to think of what kind of man we want to raise here. One lesson is that in life we make decisions. Sometimes we realize that we’ve made the wrong decision or we change our minds. And that’s ok. We can change our minds without feeling shameful or weak. That’s a fine lesson. It’s a good lesson. But the other lesson is about commitment. If we make a commitment, we need to follow through. We need to stick it out no matter how hard it may be to honor our commitment and stay true to our word. We’ll reap a natural reward once we’ve fulfilled that commitment. That’s also a fine lesson and a good lesson. Now we need to figure out which lesson we should try to teach our son today.”

Leif weighed in on the first lesson, “Dakota needs to come home. Molly, I’m afraid that he did something this stupid and dangerous to get out of there, if we make him stay, he’ll try something even crazier next time. What if he tried to hurt himself so he’d have to be sent home? He has to know that he’s not weak. He has to know that it’s ok to change your mind even if it means breaking a commitment. But he also needs to learn that when you break a commitment, there are consequences. He needs to come home but he needs to honorably accept the consequences of breaking his commitment.”

Through phone calls and texts we continued our counsel. Back and forth we made our wishes known. One or the other of us wavered here and there but we soundly listened to each other’s logic. I’ve always been proud of Leif and me for being this way. Despite our own differences, we’ve always been able to come together rationally for our son’s upbringing. Sure, here and there our opinions and strategies differ on the small stuff. But on the big stuff, I know we can count on each other to love Cody the best we know how. We decided on four consequences if Dakota returns home early from Ghana.

1.     Dakota will get an after-school job to earn money to pay Scott back for any extra expenses accrued for changing his return flight home, including the transportation expenses resulting from his escape attempt and any expenses already paid that won’t be used, like school tuition and unused malaria medication.

2.     Dakota will start weekly counseling to learn how to express and handle his emotions in a constructive, rational way.

3.     Dakota will not participate in the Spring LaCrosse season which he’d foregone when agreeing to go to Africa until June.

4.     Dakota will not take driver’s training until he demonstrates an ability to make sound, safe decisions not before his 16^th birthday.

I was conflicted about the harshness of the consequences. I sincerely felt that Dakota acted irrationally because he was in crisis. I reasoned to myself. If Dakota had had a serious physical illness and was in pain on this trip, we would send him home without question. I thought his actions were a symptom of serious pain. Maybe not visible, physical illness, but a sickness in his heart and in his mind. He clearly felt pain within to have attempted this desperate act. Maybe he should be handled the same way as if he were physically ill. Maybe we should be sending him home because he needs relief from a sickness of his soul.

My inner turmoil abruptly halted when Sarpei escorted my mother and me into the American Embassy. Dakota sat in a chair in Mary’s office. He rose when I entered, wearing a self-congratulating smirk. He opened his arms and walked toward me in an empty showy embrace. He peppered Sarpei, Mary and my concerned discussion with snarky comments. He played up his charm, Eddie Haskel style and strutted out of the building like pompous nobility.

In the car ride home, he displayed no remorse or embarrassment for his actions; actions that had inconvenienced countless people, down to the school children Nanayaw couldn’t pick up because he had to drive to Accra, and his classmates at UPSS whose teacher was absent because he had to run to a frantic mother’s call, and his family whose vacation was cut short and overshadowed by his selfish drama. He was oblivious to anyone but himself.

He didn’t say a word of apology. I even heard him on the phone telling his dad, “Oh the driver should be happy; he’s making like three times as much money today than usual,” and, “that embassy has tons of money and they can’t even cover 55 cedis for my taxi fair.”

He asked over and over, “Did you tell … what I did?” “What did they say?” “What did they think about what I did?”

He told me he didn’t want to leave because he hated it. He wanted to leave because he was bored. He could do and see the same things at home. These people were no different than poor people in America. The market here was just another outdoor bizarre at a festival. He couldn’t learn anything here than he could learn in America. Finally I told him I didn’t want to talk about it right now. We could talk about it in private later.

I saw my son through Scott and Tracy’s eyes then. He was a spoiled brat. He was self-absorbed and self-centered. He couldn’t see beyond his own reflection, and even then he only saw how big his pecs were getting. He didn’t care how his actions affected anyone else’s lives. He couldn’t even see other people’s lives. Only he mattered.

I was stunned in my disillusionment. I was betrayed by the unconditional faith I had placed in my boy. Worse still I was horrified at this person I had made. I stared out the window of our unmoving car, stopped by frozen traffic and hawking vendors. I cried silently.

My phone buzzed. I pushed send. Scott’s voice choked, “My dad went to the doctor. He thought he had a kidney stone…” A sob interrupted his sentence.

“WHAT? WHAT”S WRONG? WHAT HAPPENED SCOTT!?”

He tried again, nearly whispering, “My dad thought he had a kidney stone. They found a growth on his kidney…”

Dakota and my mom had pieced together what was wrong by the time I hung up with Scott. My mom immediately sputtered a barrage of questions and optimistic predictions. Dakota turned his back and curled into the corner. My mom reached out to rub the back of his arm, “Are you o.k., Cody?”

He jerked his arm away and pulled further into his ball, “DON”T TOUCH ME!”

Then he cried.

We have a power strip crowded with plugs and adapters. At the end of the thin plastic electrical center is a surge protector. When too many volts travel to the plugs, it automatically shuts down any currents flowing through the outlets. I think our hearts have a natural surge protector too.

This morning I woke up numb.