Getting to Ghana

November 12

The last flight of my three flights was from New York to Accra, Ghana. I was sitting beside a Ghanaian-American of "traditional build". "Neku" was friendly and chatty and about my age. Things were going along well for the first couple of hours of the ten-hour flight when things suddenly erupted. It turns out that the woman behind her could not recline her chair and she got upset when Neku reclined her chair. But she showed her displeasure by thumping on the offending chair, rather than having a conversation with Neku or talking to the flight attendant. Neku was very upset about this and was yelling at the woman behind her and then the flight attendant. I was trapped in between two large women.  Fortunately it did not come to blows. The man in front of us, also Ghanian, helped find some humour in the situation and diffused tensions somewhat. Neku raised her seat back a smidgeon and peace was restored. 

Neku had an interesting story to share. She and her husband had been buying a few properties in Ghana and then taking turns going back to look after them. After several years of this, Neku discovered that he had another wife and a couple of children in Ghana. She divorced him, but had to hand over a couple of properties to him in the divorce settlement.