It's HOT and I'm White

  As part of my work, I frequently travel to the Upper East Region of Ghana. It’s the northernmost part of the country, just on the Burkina Faso border. It's also the poorest region and the furthest away from Accra. I like going up to the North - it's what I think of as the "real" Africa. Accra is Africa "light" - decent restaurants, generators around when electricity fails, supermarkets where Cheerios are $12 a box. But, the North is mud huts, extreme poverty, baobab trees with wise old men hanging out underneath, skinny cows, pregnant goats and donkeys straying into the road. And, extreme heat.

We are just at the beginning of the hot season. On my trip up to the North this week, it was about 110 degrees and the electricity was out much of the time. As I sat in a small, overcrowded office at 2:00 in the afternoon without electricity (no A/C, no fans), I watched as the Ghanaians in the room rigorously debated antenatal and post natal care procedures while I sat slumped in my chair, drinking a liter of water with electrolyte mix and STILL feeling like I was about to pass out from heat exhaustion, my delirium momentarily parted and something became really, really clear: I am white. Not only that, my forefathers (and mothers) were mostly from Sweden and Germany. Places where bodies have not been fine tuned by nature to easily adapt to extreme heat for long periods of time. While my Ghanaian colleagues sip a bit of water here and there, look all fresh in their beautiful head-to-toe custom tailored outfits and gracefully dab the sweat on their brows with a cloth, I am drinking as much water as I can take and am practically panting like a dog with sweat seeping through my clothes and running down my legs - from simply sitting there!

So, I've had to come to terms with the fact that for the next several months - at least until the weather drops to under 100 degrees - I will just have to get used to being the sweaty, delicate “obruni” (white person) who's just not from ‘round here.

Photo below of one of the village clinics I visited.  Yes, the man is wearing a ski cap.  Yes, it was over 100 degrees when I took this photo.