a boxing encounter, and a few words from qaddafi

I am back in the U.S. now, and am finally settled in enough (and rehydrated enough) to log in with the happy news that I did indeed manage to score two more fabulous Afriqiyah Air teacups during the flights from Accra to Tripoli and Tripoli to London. I almost scored a fifth, actually, but turns out the guy across the aisle whose tray I was going to swipe it from only looked like he was napping. Oops.

A few other interesting transit notes: At the Accra airport, while waiting for my plane to board, I spotted a guy that I recognized from the boxing match: a promoter who'd been invited into the ring before the fight, the only white guy among a dozen or so folks welcomed through the ropes for brief acknowledgment. I figured he was with Clint MacNeil, the American fighter, but turns out he's Bazooka's U.S. promoter, the guy who'll strum up fights for him in the States. Thick Brooklyn accent, shaved head, heavy eyelids, flying Alitalia: this guy was straight out of Rocky. He was also highly guarded, which I guess is not surprising given that I had just strolled over and asked him point blank whether the fight had been a setup, still thinking that he was an ally of MacNeil, not Quartey. He stared at me, lids drooping, and said, "Yeah well they're the same weight." Eventually he softened up, and admitted that Bazooka was technically considered an 'A' fighter, while MacNeil was more a 'D' fighter. But he and Bazooka's other handlers had been surprised at how tough MacNeil had turned out to be; they thought he'd be knocked out much earlier. And apparently I'd just missed seeing a very bruised MacNeil at the airport. Promoter guy said that he had visited MacNeil just after the fight; he had a broken nose and black eyes, with a few deep cuts under one of them, and he'd been crying. He'd really thought he could win, which either says great things about his will or something troubling about what happens to a brain when it is knocked against the skull a few too many times.

Also interesting, as always, was the Tripoli airport. I noticed a sign this time that I hadn't spotted before: an anti-drug message posted on an illuminated signboard in the transit lounge. I almost took a picture, then remembered I was in Libya and reconsidered. So I wrote the whole thing down instead:

General Administration for Drugs and Mental Effects Fighting

Wines and drugs are total destruction weapons, Hashish is like the bacteriological and chemical weapons and the atomic bomb. Person who deal there with he seems like he takes a weapon from the enemy and do explode it inside his country. - The Revolution Leader

Dear passenger
Take yourself away from drugs route, it is destructor and killer, it murders any one comes near to or deals with it.

Dear passenger
The people's Congresses in Great Jamahiriya have issued strict laws against all who deals with this lesion to destroy our happy jamahiriyan society considering that a political case.

Dear passenger
Be aware in dealing with strangers who you don't know, and don't volunteer to carry their luggage or any other luggage except yours, and remember always that law do not protect stupidest.

Dear passenger
This call for you to cooperate with us to pluck out the destroying lesion and to protect our chaste society form [sic] its destroying risks, so don't hesitate to contact us to give any information that may help the security agents in tracking the trace of who may his soul entices him to violate the values of our happy jamahiriyan society.

Positioned right next to this sign was a glass display case filled with Marlboros and tidy boxes of cigarillos. While reading the sign, you can see beyond it, on the far wall, a giant 5'x7' or so painting of Qaddafi, just his head. He's wearing the trademark sunglasses and his face is tilted back, as if he's about to sneeze.

All in all, all flights went well, although I'm not sure I would recommend watching the movie 'Wimbledon' three times in one day, no matter how dreamy Paul Bettany might be ... or packing your plentiful pile of gifts and souvenirs in a cheap 99-cent pseudo-reinforced plastic tote that might rip in half when it's been tossed onto the baggage claim carousel in London ... or thinking that the automated voice warning you to hold on to something during the tram ride that shuttles you from terminal to terminal in the Newark airport is just saying that for kicks, because it turns out to be true that you can suddenly find yourself facedown, backpack still attached, in a pile of somebody else's luggage.

I am glad to be home, though primed as always for another adventure.

Comments

[Jenny]

Shucks.

This is my first taste of blogging, but it made for great fun (and catharsis) to type out our adventures to friends and fam pretty much as they were happening. Dunno. Made it seem more like we were on the frontlines of a collective experience than out there traveling just the two of us. I read every new comment aloud to Laura, and I think we drew a little energy from each of them. "They're thinking of us. OK, we can do this! We can eat more dust. Hell, we can even eat bush rat." The comments reminded us that there was a world beyond Ghana, which was sometimes hard to remember.

I'm hoping to keep the blog going, but also to figure out how to do that without tipping over into self-indulgence. The moment I start writing about what I had for breakfast, someone please pull the plug.

(Actually, I'm really into cereal, and for awhile now have been tracking the emergence of 'cereal bars' like the one that Post set up in the Mall of America. Excellent concept, and a nice acknowledgment that cereal is not just for breakfast. Hmm. This self-indulgence dilemma is tricky....)

[Elizabeth]

Welcome home! As sad as I am not to have a sampling of epic adventure from Ghana, you have the ability to make the most prosaic event into a whirlwind...so, gonna continue the blog for your fans?

[Jon]

I'm a friend of Laura's from the Bay Area. I just wanted to congratulate you on what appears to have been a wildly successful, entertaining, and "Hey, it was an experience"-type journey. You are quite the storyteller. Thanks for brightening my mornings when I dragged myself into work and read the latest goings-on for you and Laura in Ghana. However, I suspect that "reading" about some of the events was more fun for me than it was for you and Laura to experience them at the time (i.e., the day you two went to the funeral and spent all day in a car on an unpaved road in the heat while wearing dark clothing with little sleep in traffic with a dead body next to the Coke in the refrigerator. . . could it have gotten worse? Idontthinkso.) Anyway, thanks for the enjoyable reading and welcome back to the States (hope that's a good thing, not a bad thing for you. As much as we miss home when we're travelling, there are things you find you gained on your travels and lost by coming back. Proof that I'm not a poet. That wasn't the best wording there; I was trying for something a little profound, but I hope you get my point.) Cheers. Jon