After a 10 1/2 hour flight from Atlanta to Accra, Ghana and another 90 minutes clearing immigration, retrieving my baggage and getting to the Guest House, I was dry as a bone.

So I went to the Guest House self-serve cooler. On the cooler was posted a price list in cedis (the local currency): small water 0.60 cedis, large water 1.20 cedis, minerals 0.70 cedis. I saw the water, but no rocks or other minerals. There was Coca-Cola and other soft drinks.  It turns out that soft drinks are called “minerals” here.

I could not keep that in my head. So every time I was offered minerals I returned a blank stare which qualifies me as a “dumb foreigner” – a category I have been in before more often than I would like to admit.  Maybe I need more minerals.