Crossing the Border

I could have had a better start. The night before my trip ached painfully on as I tossed and turned between clouds of anxiety and pitiless mosquitos; all the whilst clogged in a layer of treacle-like humidity.

 The previous week’s waves of furious organisation and total paralysis finally reached their crescendo at half past four, with the ringing of my alarm. Shouldering my rucksack, I crept out the house with the first fingers of dawn sneaking over the rooftops. I hailed a bleary-eyed motorbike driver, and off we sped towards the border, the city stirring in our wake.

At the border, I found myself tossed like a fish between the jaws of predatory taxi drivers; each one plying their trade with terrifying insistency. Once I had finally succeeded in shaking myself free, and dodging swiftly between the currents of hand carts, market stalls and overladen trucks disgorging their produce onto the pavements, I plunged through a wall of air-conditioning, and into the Ghanaian border office.

As I had expected, they were far from pleased with my slab of cash posing as a Visa. I had been informed that what I was doing was technically legal: I was buying an “Emergency Visa”.

 Even so, I remembered to breathe only after my passport had been stamped. I was even handed a receipt.

Stepping over the border, feeling as secure as the wafer-thin scrap of paper that “legalised” my entry, I made my way to the nearest Accra-bound bus. Speaking English felt incredibly foreign. There was something equally bizarre about fixed prices and actual tickets, not to mention an entire seat to myself. I had grown accustomed to the Francophone chaos.

Waiting for the journey to start, and fighting the urge to dash back over the border, I reminded myself of why I was doing this. There was a tangible desire to fill my mind with new horizons, not to mention the empowerment that I felt as a young white woman exploring Africa alone.

However, my main motivation for visiting Ghana, and stepping further still out of my comfort zone was three letters: IJM.

I first heard of this charity four months ago.  I had been reading a book on prayer: completely unrelated to Human Rights or charity work, yet it contained an interview with a lawyer who worked for the “International Justice Mission”.

 Intrigued, I found their website. I discovered that they work with governments all over the world in order to help them transform their justice systems. Over the course of several decades, the poor suddenly receive inquests following a burglary of their land or property: rapists are condemned; child-traffickers are criminalised.

With IJM’s help, justice stops being a luxury.

The day after this discovery, during a car journey, my friend suddenly started talking about charity work; a topic that we had never previously breached. She informed me of an amazing charity called IJM that she was fundraising for, and raved about their success in drastically reducing child sex slavery in the Philippines.

Slightly disconcerted by hearing about this unknown charity two days in a row, I decided to put it to the back of my mind. Later that day, I picking up the topmost magazine lying on the coffee table and aimlessly flicked through it. A page fell open. It was an article written by the head of IJM.

I definitely prefer accepting things as coincidences; life is so much simpler without God sticking His nose in and making things exciting. Even so, there was something divinely fishy about the fact that three days ago I had never heard of IJM, yet it was brought to my attention from three consecutive events from three unexpected sources.

 When I discovered that IJM’s only West African office was located in Accra; a four-hour drive from where I would be staying in Togo, I knew that this was not something that I could ignore.

Telling God that He better be a good reason for all of this, I wrote IJM a letter to ask if I could pay them a visit.

Returning my mind back to the minibus, and the cacophony of sounds at the Togolese border, I suddenly felt very small and very overwhelmed.

 Although I knew that there were some incredible sights to visit, I had been dreading travelling to Ghana. This felt way too far out the safety net. The border crossing from Togo to Ghana was almost impenetrable (the Emergency Visa was the only way that I could cross). No Togolese person would be able to find US$150 to come over and bail me out of an emergency. Besides, I did not have a Ghanaian phone to call them with.  I did have the number of a friend’s Ghanaian business acquaintance, but other than that, I was very much on my own.

I had also been forewarned that travelling to an English colony could not differ more from travelling through a French one: visiting Ghana would be starting again from scratch.

My eyes returned to the window, and I realised that we were on the move. Backing out was no longer an option. Hugging my rucksack against my chest, I told God that He better know what He was doing, as I certainly did not.