Page 19 of The Best Man: Unfinished Business

It was only eight kilometers to the beach, but the traffic and aggression of the Accra drivers rivaled those of New York City.

There were so many vehicles—mopeds, motorcycles, bicycles, trotros (their version of dollar vans), Sprinter vans, and SUVs transporting workers from their villages to their city jobs—alongside Robyn’s RAV4 and jockeying for space on the road.

Seeing Black people everywhere and Blackness being the default was an adjustment.

One that Robyn embraced the hell out of.

She marveled at the grace and determination with which the Ghanaians walked and moved through life.

Children heading to school; street vendors opening their shops; the women and the men who could balance massive, wide baskets of supplies, produce, and fabrics on their heads.

They moved like the statue of the great former president Kwame Nkrumah at Memorial Park come to life: erect and pointing forward with purpose.

She drove past the large digital billboards hawking everything from soft drinks to makeup and haircare products to politicians looking for their vote.

Accra was a city in transition: brand-new hotels, restaurants, fashion boutiques, and art galleries neighbored buildings that were in various stages of deconstruction and reconstruction.

Accra was also adjusting, blossoming, and the energy of the people reflected that.

Closer to the beach, the buildings were spaced farther apart, giving way to larger individual homes and beachside hotels.

At Labadi, Robyn quickly reached the small clearing where she liked to park.

Despite the beach’s many hustlers trying to get the obruni to buy artwork, horse rides, sightseeing tours, jewelry, or souvenir T-shirts, they mainly left Robyn alone.

When she first arrived, she too was obruni but now they greeted her with a smile and wave of recognition and familiarity.

When she’d arrived in Accra, Robyn promised herself that being this close to the ocean she would make an effort to meet its shores often and commune with the ancestors.

Come here to Labadi, to think and reflect, especially in the early times of their move, when the sting of the divorce from Harper was still especially fresh.

Twenty-one years of marriage, ended. Twenty-one.

That’s a child in college, a whole lifetime of experience with a person, and as the person she used to be.

Married to a great American novelist. The consummate supportive wife and partner.

Sure, Harper was an inspiration. His creativity and drive were fuel for their family in many ways, and particularly financially.

His hard work made it possible for them to have wonderful experiences and a lifestyle many would envy.

But that hadn’t ever been what Robyn wanted, not really.

True, Harper had supported the exploration of her different interests, paid for culinary school even.

They’d had good sex; he was an attentive lover and, damn, could he wear the hell out of a nice suit.

Robyn had to smirk a bit at the thought.

Especially remembering how she felt in the good times, before the passion had evaporated.

Before the sex became perfunctory at best and then sporadic and then virtually nonexistent.

Every marriage goes through its phases, but theirs just seemed to take a turn they couldn’t come back from.

Not even with Robyn’s gestures, suggestions—that they find new experiences together, have more date nights, hell, she’d even suggested they buy property in San Pierre.

But what do you do and how do you fix it when someone else is simply happy to take what you’re giving?

And giving, and giving, and giving. That was Harper—he took everything Robyn gave and still seemed to want more.

Now I want more, Robyn thought as she looked out at the white sand, clear ocean, and cumulus clouds.

The shores that had once been a backdrop of terror for her ancestors gave Robyn fortifying energy.

The rich breeze filled her with a sense of wonder, of power.

Harper was on the other side of that ocean, five thousand miles and a world away, and it was up to Robyn to keep sight of that and chart her own path.

She would follow her heart now, like she did then, when she made the difficult decision to move.

It was in moments like this one, when she stood at the edge of the ocean, almost like she could fly, when her spirit was ready to soar, that she knew she’d made the right decision.

Robyn pulled her shoes off to let her feet sink into the sand.

She walked toward the water’s edge, deciding on a whim to let the whitewash lap up to her ankles as she strolled along the shoreline.

She began to quietly repeat her affirmations, spoken daily, sometimes here, sometimes in the mirror.

They were what she needed to remember. What she needed to be true.

“I deserve happiness,” she said. “I deserve healing…I deserve wholeness…I deserve peace…I deserve rest…” And then thinking of Kwesi for the first time, she added, “I deserve…to be… desired. I deserve passion. I want to be wanted.” And in reply, the sea roared back and the breeze blew its way under her clothes.

Later, just a few miles from the beach, Robyn wove her way through the bustling central Makola Market.

Robyn had many vendors there she was loyal to for her restaurant’s vital ingredients, but she was always down to explore, to feel the crackling energy of the crowded streets and browse the open-air stalls.

The noises and smells were loud, commanding her attention.

All around her were offerings of artfully arranged peppers in the reds, greens, and yellows of the Ghanaian flag, and metal bowls filled to the brim with orange and brown spices.

Robyn quickly found Adjua, her shopper/helper in the market.

“Maakye, Robyn!” The tall industrious teen balanced a huge metal bowl full of produce on her head and greeted her with a bright impish grin.

“Maakye, Adjua.” Robyn returned her good morning in native Twi with a smile.

Adjua pulled the massive bowl from her head to reveal ripe red tomatoes, bright green cucumbers, pale yellow garden eggs (Ghanaian eggplant), firm green plantain, magenta petals of dried hibiscus flowers, lush green taro leaves, and silver and yellow salted eel.

Robyn smiled and sifted through the items nodding and adding, “Yesss, okay. You found the velvet tamarind! Nice job, Adjua…” Adjua was pleased to know she had done well by her boss.

“Did you find the palm wine?” Robyn asked as she inhaled the spicy aroma of a scotch bonnet pepper she held to her nostrils.

“No, miss, not yet,” Adjua answered bashfully. “I couldn’t find, but…” She dug farther in the bowl to show Robyn a healthy bunch of bright red palm nuts and some freshly pressed palm nut oil. “The vendor said these mixed with the oil could maybe be strained to make the wine..?”

Robyn shook her head no. “We need the wine. Come…” Robyn offered to help Adjua lift the bowl back over her shoulders and to the top of her head so she and Adjua could complete the mission. “Can I help?”

Adjua turned away from Robyn’s reach respectfully. “No, miss. I have,” she responded and waited for Robyn to lead the way.

Robyn didn’t love the idea of the hierarchy that existed in Ghana.

In Robyn’s eyes, Adjua was part of her team, not a servant, but traditionally, like any other society, there were the haves and the have-nots, no matter how much kinship Robyn may have felt.

It took getting used to. Again, she adjusted.

“Akwaaba, miss!” the vendors called out to Robyn with smiles on their weathered obsidian faces.

“Bra, bra.” They summoned her to approach their stalls hawking cassava flour and mackerel.

Robyn returned a smile and wave with a “Maakye, maakye,” and strode through the market with a confidence that she hadn’t previously possessed.

Her early experiences with Makola Market had been intimidating to say the least—she had little familiarity with the language and as much as she had wanted to feel at home right away in the culture, there was still so much for her to learn.

Eighteen months ago, she’d decided on having her own restaurant to showcase her culinary approach and honor the beauty of her new home.

That meant fresh ingredients and produce, the flavors of the land—starting in the market.

There, no-nonsense female vendors took their produce—and their worth—very seriously.

Their mixture of Twi, Ga, and English was overwhelming.

“Bo-ko, mepawokyew” Robyn would plead, attempting “Slowly, please” as politely as she could.

These women wanted her business, but they didn’t appreciate her unfamiliarity with their modes of communication.

They had little patience for the obruni, the foreigner.

Colloquially, the word meant “white person.” What?

Me? White? From the time she’d first arrived, Robyn was so hurt to have that term applied to her.

Not only was Robyn obruni but a single, American, female obruni.

These women were native to the land and had seen plenty of interlopers coming in to see the culture but not be the culture.