A Night to Remember…Part One

‘Did you pack this bag yourself ma’am?’

I looked at the immigration officer. She was a woman, 6ft 2, black and fierce, slightly taller than the guard dogs sniffing my bag. My head was swimming.

I had arrived via KLM from Amsterdam to Washington DC that morning. It was a good flight, but the night before was even better. As the American immigration officer pounded my ears with the one question nobody liked to be asked, I realized ‘my night to remember’ could have turned into ‘my life to remember’.

I may have just exchanged my freedom with one night of insane, wild fun.

We touched down at Schiphol Airport right about 6.15am Dutch time. I was fatigued and couldn’t wait to get to my hotel for a much needed shower. Making the flight in Accra the previous night had been a nightmare. I had woken up with a severe headache that morning. I knew who had come to visit, my tooth.

If you are as normal a human being as I am then you will understand that going to the dentist is the most dreadful thing ever. So l did my best to stay out of that awful chair as much as I could. I brushed twice, sometimes three times a day; I did most of my heavy chewing on the left side of my mouth and I gaggled as much Listerine in between meals as mush as I could. But like a thief comes in the middle of the night, so does a toothache and mine had kicked in the front door around 2am and taken everything from me including dear sleep.

I was grumpy. My head of department won’t shut up about the pile of work I needed to submit before I proceeded on my one-month leave starting tomorrow. I was going to be the maid of honor at my cousin’s wedding that Saturday in Virginia, reason I had to leave immediately plus I needed to do my usual one night stop over in Amsterdam. It was my favorite city in the world. Why the hell not. You could engage in any amount of fun in that city and you would still not end up behind bars. I loved the Dutch. TheY were friendlier than the British and much more forgiving than the Americans.

My head was throbbing. My jaws felt like two macho men were pulling it apart. I hadn’t attempted to eat anything for fear of making my situation worse, my stomach was beginning to make noises and I think I could hear one of the guys laughing.

My dentist was upset with me and so was my head of department. Apparently I couldn’t do anything right today. After poking my mouth with the dental mirror for what seemed like a lifetime, my dentist recommended a temporary fill in since I had warned her I was travelling that evening and nothing or anybody was going to stop me. She pumped me with painkillers and proceeded to clean me out and fill me in. I knew the pain would kick in when we started taxing. It was my most stressful moment on a airplane. Somehow I always imagined the plane won’t lift in time and we would end up in the sea or the bushes or the swamp, I don’t know what the hell laid beyond the runway and I hoped to God never found out.

I wrapped my “chalewote” with yesterday’s newspaper and tucked it neatly into my suitcase. My packing was complete. I always kept a packed bag around just incase I had to up and leave. You could never be sure when the army decided they were tired of the barracks and wanted to take over the lavish lifestyle of our corrupt politicians. So I kept a packed bag of my passport, some t-shirts, two pairs of jeans, my loafers, some panties, one dinner dress, one party dress depending on which prince charming I met on the ship crossing over to Australia. Somehow I always imagined that if there were ever a coup the best get away plan would be on a ship heading to the end of the world, i.e. Australia. My headache gave me a slight jolt; I made a conscious note to down some good amount of alcohol once I was on board to see me through the night.

The usual lackadaisical attitude greeted me at Kotoka International Airport. ‘The gate way to Africa’ my ass! That SINGLE escalator hadn’t worked an entire year, the bathrooms were an eye sore and don’t start me on those fans that almost carried your wig away if you had the misfortune of standing in front of it.

Have you seen the duty free shops? My God, did we seriously gain independence at the same time as Malaysia? My headache was getting worse; I decided this wasn’t the time or place to ruin my holiday. I will think about Ghana my motherland some other day, perhaps when I am sipping Pina Colada on a Miami Beach.

I squeezed past the fat woman and hurried to my seat all the time hoping she wasn’t coming to sit next to me but as my luck will have it she slumped into it like a tornado. I decided I had every excuse to knock myself out for the entire trip. I had had a terrible day, my tooth hurt; my head hurt, my arm hurt… the fat woman had placed her King Kong hand on Azumah hand. That’s when I heard his voice, like that of an angel…

‘Excuse me I think you are in my seat’…

I opened my eyes and stared into the bluest of eyes I had ever seen. He was Dutch, tall, athletic build, long slightly crooked nose and sun burned hair. Between 32 and 40 years? Really who cared as long as the fat woman was gone, and go she did.

By the time we landed at Schiphol I knew he was called Aalt which meant noble wolf, he was a business man who traded various things around the world, he lived in Amsterdam, he was 26… my God these white folks always look much older than their age.

Basically I was much older than the dude but as an African Woman I had good genes on my side so I decided I was 24 years, my Ghanaian name was Mensima meaning the river goddess or some bullshit like that, and I was on my way to Virginia for a family reunion. We were sold on each other. Amsterdam was my all time fun city and Aalt had promised me ‘a night to remember’.

The noble wolf and the river goddess were going to paint the town RED!!

… To be continued.

“Thelma Louis” is a new GhanaCelebrities.Com weekly column with no borders on the speed and distance it will take your imagination, while tackling some of our everyday issues—in reality and in fantasy.

All Thelma Louis’ write up will be filed under her name column-Thelma Louis.