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!