Goodbye Africa

I spent my last day in Ghana at an orphanage about 20 minutes away from Kokrobite Beach, where I stayed the last four nights. There are a ton of volunteers in Ghana, and a good portion of them were at the beach resort this weekend for the live music they have on Fridays and Saturdays.
This girl Alex, yet another Australian, is actually living and volunteering at the orphanage, and I was pleased with the invite.
I realize more and more that I know nothing - for instance, when I was in the orphanage in Yaroslavl, Russia, I remember thinking to myself that it was crumbling and third-world.
As it turns out, not even Ghana is considered truly third-world, and this despite the fact that the toilets were big holes where the waste goes god knows where, and flies, jesus, the flies swarming and the smell so awful I felt I would vomit.
I visited Naomi, the owner of the orphanage, who sleeps on a mattress on a floor and somehow manages to feed, clothe and educate 75 children with help from volunteers and private donors.
And I told her that perhaps I would come back to volunteer - she said it is $400 a month, part room and board, part donation to the kids ...
But I knew that I could never live there. I could never do something like that.
I am naive, yes. In Russia, the kids had clothes and running water and flushing toilets.
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But all in all I am sad to be leaving, not just because I dread the daily grind I am about to find myself in once again, but also because I know I could have spent more time with the locals ... I spent a lot of time on my own, writing and reading ... I wonder what other things I could have learned from the people that the hotel owners seem so interested in keeping away.
In Accra, there are actually hotels and "spots" where locals are not allowed.
Supposedly this is not exactly legal, but no one cares too much one way or another.
There was, I think, a bit too much tension between the beach hotel and the local villagers ... who know they are not welcome in the courtyard unless they have money to waste at the bar, and few of them do. And so there it was, again - the bottom line guilt.
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Spent the afternoon swimming in the beach, talking to Barbara and playing with the kids. Shopped for souveniers for my family - beads and handmade purses for my sister in law and grandmother. A small drum for my nephew.
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I wonder, when I get back to L.A., if I will remember that I hate my job now. I wonder if I will remember to save money and postpone a $1000 a month apartment so I can just get the hell out of there. I have met so many people on this trip who did just that ... saved money and dropped out of the rat race to travel around Africa for pennies.
I wonder if I will remember that my job is simply not important. And never was.
I wonder if I will remember Casey, the Peace Corps volunteer, Alex from Australia.
My chest is badly sunburned and I smell not that great, and I wonder if I really will come back like I said so many times this past week.