Chapter 5
JB takes off.
We agree to tee up again before Nigeria - neither of us want to be solo for that shit - and he's gone.
Probably for the best.
He's been bloody good to me, which is more than I deserve; he's left me one of his cameras (I've been camera-less since the Dakar robbery), a water bladder, and some very handy waterproof bags.
I wonder if I've been nothing but a drag... A companion, and that's it. Where he has brought me so much, I feel I've given nothing in return.
I go and pick up my passport from the Liberian embassy with no dramas.
Tick.
I head straight from there to the Ghana Consulate and talk the talk. Using nothing but wit and charm I manage to get a meeting with the lady who is one rung below the top brass. I apply for the visa through her.
This is gonna work.
You little beauty...
I wander.
The markets are crazy. The food is fantastic; delicious green goo, some mystery meat and a bowl of rice. I’m loving being amongst it all.
I laugh my arse off at a random lady carrying a pineapple on her head. I swear, give an African woman a backpack to carry and she'll stick it on her head...
I go to buy some water to wash it all down, and the lady I'm buying it off smiles at my money and says “no no, this is free for my Muslim brother”.
Oh dear...
I insist that I pay for it, she insists back... I don't have the heart to tell her that, despite the beard, I'm not her Muslim brother.
I take the free water.
What's left of the day is dedicated to pushing shit uphill; blackmarkets, computer screens.
I look everywhere, all over town. No dice.
I'm sick of it, but, really, there's not much else for me to do...
I keep looking.
In a tiny computer store selling crappy old printers I ask, for the n'th time, about laptop screens. The guy opens a drawer, thumbs his way through a bunch of folders, and pulls out a brand new, legitimate screen that is made for my exact model of laptop.
Un-be-friggin-leevable!
I nearly jump on him.
What’s better is that he’s going to charge me 370,000 Leones for it, which at somewhere less than 100 bucks. It’s a steal.
Five minutes later we’re locked and loaded and it works, perfectly.
Hallelujah.