Story: Yam Boat on Lake Volta, Ghana

...it's two-thirty A.M. when I am woken by the deafening sound of a ship's horn. I am laying on the deck of a cargo ship on Lake Volta, Ghana's largest reservoir. The boat will bring me from Yeji, which lays in the middle of Ghana to Akosombo in the south. The vessel jolts and starts to move. I snuggle down a little deeper into my sleeping bag and try to snatch a few more hours' sleep. I get up at about six, see a magnificent sunrise and explore the boat. The open lower deck is full of hundreds of wooden crates, all of them empty. We'll be stopping at various villages on the way to fill the crates with yams, a kind of sweet potato that is considered as a main dish in Ghana. My western mind automatically expects the empty crates to be changed for full ones. The fork lift truck standing in the corner of the deck seems to confirm this. It later appears that I had the wrong idea altogether. When we arrive at the first village I see dozens of women waiting on the riverbank. Besides them large quantities of goods are stacked under a layer of straw. I assume that the straw is covering crates full of yams. The straw is removed, revealing mountains of yams, but there is not a crate in sight. The women walk towards the boat in procession, balancing overflowing trays of yams on their heads. Hour after hour and tray after tray, they carry the yams to the boat. Excruciatingly slowly but extremely harmoniously, the wooden crates are filled. After five hours of loading the captain decides he's had enough, blows his horn and leaves. Wading through the water, several women throw a final load on board. I gaze at the fully loaden boat in utter amazement; the fork lift truck is still idle in the corner.

Every encounter with the unknown broadens your horizon. Every meeting brings you in contact with alternatives for your own way of life.