AFEHYIA PA! (20 DAYS OVER DUE)

There’s been a lot of thoughts scrolling through my brain randomly, but with such lightening speed that I have almost felt paralyzed the past 20 days of the new year. Today, as I was changing my sheets and tucking in the blanket, I realized that someone needed to take on the task of inventing a “thought-to-text” app for my new Android. I’d be willing to pay good money for this. In the meantime…
I must write.
Afehyia Pa! This practically translates to “good year”
Afe nko mbo to hyen This response translates to “may this year go and meet us again”
Hilarious when certain languages are translated into English. Anyway, what the response basically means is that we hope another year meets us (you and the greeter) alive again.

So I began this new year with some anger and irritation at myself and some family members. I felt strongly that I should have dealt with some of these emotions a month before the old year ended. Nevertheless, here I was sitting on my bed January 1st with some of the same feelings from the night before. I guess the magic doesn’t really happen at midnight. I took my time disentangling from the bedclothes after a couple hours of Skype conversations with folks in Ghana. It was quite late in the day when I finally was watered and ready to leave my house.

It was grey outside. Nothing new in the Bay; it’s been like this for almost two weeks now with a few nice hours here and there that tease us. So I disregarded the cold and foggy mist and started up the car that my friends had loaned to me while they were out of town. I was filled with a sense of adventure even as I battled my demons, as I’ve come to call my emotions. I had already looked up lots of museums and recreational activities, but for once, people did indeed all take the day off. Resigned to my fate of not finding a pre-packaged adventure, I decided to begin driving. I thought I’d head over to Sausalito and walk around a bit. Two exits from the toll station, it occurred to me that not only did I not have physical cash, I was also not willing to pay $5 to just cross the bridge to do some walking around. I pulled off the last exit before the toll booths and decided to turn around and explore Richmond instead.

My exit boasted about close to a 100 grazing goats. How crazy! Who would be herding goats out here in the middle of nowhere? I pulled over to get a closer look and realized that they were fenced in a sizable (still not nearly enough) area overlooking/overhanging the toll booths. The terrain was rough and uneven and I wondered if they had all adjusted or if they lost sibling goats every so often. I whipped out my “new” Android (thanks to the Black Friday gimmicks) and got ready to take some photos when a lady pulled up behind me. She was lost, could I help? The spirit of adventure abandoned the goats and did a Ue to lead her back to the freeway. I was not sure where I was heading but my confidence must have been contagious cos she did a Ue too and we headed down the dirt path away from my goat friends. A few minutes later, I looked over in time to see the lady wave and mouth thank you as she sped on ahead. I smiled at her and focused on my own lostness. Where was I going to spend the day?

I got off the next exit after and decided to just follow the winding road around. I passed by all the Richmond marina boats and waterfront homes. I ventured into a couple cul-de-sacs to take a better look at some of the homes. It was unbelievable. Every house sat partly in the water, and each one came with a yacht docked in what must have been the basement floor. I was just blown away. People live here? When I recovered, I made up funny scenarios to go with each of the houses I was passing. Luckily for me, there was hardly anyone around that day so I drove 2 miles per hour for most of my sightseeing trip. Being brown and being always worried I wondered if someone would call the police on me thinking I was casing the joint or something. I emerged from the final cul-de-sac and continued on the winding path. When I came to a dead-end, I chose the road that seemed to lead to the water.

That’s when I ended up in the old shipyards of Richmond.
TBC