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of greeters, family, friends, drivers, children, hucksters and sundry others. I looked for a card with my name amongst the churning sea of people and luggage. After a moment of searching, I spotted a man with a broad face below a high forehead and hair graying at the temples, wearing a colorful shirt and holding a card proclaiming “Dr. Elmore”.
    I pushed the heavy luggage cart, which held my life for the next six months, toward him through the crowd.
    “I’m Dr. Elmore,” I explained when I reached him.
    A huge smile greeted me. “ Akwaaba ! I’m Kofi, your driver.” His enthusiastic handshake matched the wattage of his smile.
    “Coffee?” I puzzled out loud.
    “ Maa jo . I am Kofi, like the former UN Director Kofi Anan,” he proudly said the name of Ghana’s most recognized citizen.
    Gerhard had taught me several phrases over dinner last night. Maa jo meant good evening.
    “ Maa jo ,” I repeated.
    After another smile and a brief discussion over who should push the cart, Kofi politely took over and led me into the thick heat of evening in Accra.
    “ Eti sen ?” he asked how I was as he drove through thick traffic.
    “ Eh ya .” I hoped it meant I’m fine. I trusted Gerhard to have told me the correct response. For all I knew, I could be saying “monkey sex.”
    In perfect English, Kofi complimented me. “You speak well.”
    This made me laugh. “That’s about the extent of my language skills.”
    “It’s more than many Obruni speak when they arrive. You’ll do fine in Ghana, Dr. Elmore.”
    I beamed over his compliment. “Selah. Please, call me Selah,” I corrected him. I could tell I’d become friends with this kind man.
    On the short drive to my hotel, modern banks, Western-looking hotels, and gated mansions alternated with cramped adobe and tin roofed buildings. We passed wide tree lined boulevards and dark, narrow dirt streets, which were essentially pathways. Trucks, buses, and passenger vans crammed with people, their roofs piled high with luggage and goods, crawled rather than sped toward the center. At times we merely inched forward through the crowded streets.
    “What do you call those?” I gestured out the window, counting no fewer than eight people inside the van stopped next to us.
    “Those are tro-tros , the most common way to travel for Ghanaians. Not so good for single Obruni women.” Kofi’s smile left his face.
    I heeded his warning. He didn’t mean I was spoiled, but my place of privilege as a white Westerner couldn’t be ignored. I rolled down my window. Diesel fumes and dust carrying the acrid smell of smoke assaulted my nose, and I coughed.
    “You will get used to it, Dr.—Selah. I promise. And when it gets to be too much in Accra, you will visit Cape Coast or Volta for fresh air.” He named two of Ghana’s most popular tourist destinations.
    “I’m here to work, to study at the museum.” I needed to qualify my presence, another white face, in this place with a long history of colonial rule, a point of the Atlantic slave triangle.
    “And you will do good work, Dr. Selah. I know.” His smiling eyes met mine in the rearview mirror. “We are here.”
    My gaze broke from his to look out the window. At the end of an unpaved road sat a low coffee-colored building surrounded by lush plants.
    “Ama’s Hotel,” he answered my unspoken question.

    KOFI HAD BEEN warm and kind, but he was nothing compared to Ama. Everything about her exuded warmth, comfort, love, and home. Upon greeting, she hugged me. Not one of those awkward, stiff hugs between strangers, but a side shoulder hug meant to express her joy at my arrival. Why she would be joyful at the arrival of a tired, slightly smelly—pouting over a man—grown American woman, I didn’t question.
    The patterned green skirt she wore highlighted the wide expanse of her hips and bottom. With her generous bust and curves, she was Venus in the flesh, adorned by gold bracelets and a rainbow of a scarf wrapped around