Rita Martinson spent the whole day before her trip to Africa sleeping to help her deal with Jet lag. She knew very well that a trip from Vevey via Montreux to Geneva and thence to London before jetting down in Accra will involve waking up very early to make an early departure and reaching her destination or restful lodging very late. She did not want to stress herself so much that it would take a longer time to heal. She was on a mission to Africa and so nothing should disrupt her plans. News had gotten to her a week ago that her son had gotten himself in trouble. She must therefore act swiftly to avoid any disaster. Her son’s case was a matter of life and death: a loving mother in distressed, her only son had been condemned to death in faraway land.
On the day of her departure, she woke up as early as three o’clock in the morning, did her toiletries, parked her few belongings in a suitcase, placed it on the passenger seat of her BMW Estate car and drove off to Montreux Central Train Station. She found a ticket booth and bought two months parking ticket for her car at the Montreux ‘Bahnhoff.’ She quickly removed her belongings, locked the car and sat in a speed train from Montreux through Lausanne going direct to Geneva Cointrin International Airport. Whilst in the train, she refused to eat anything; not because she is grieving, but she was concerned about the different time zones she will be flown into. She read somewhere in a Medical Magazine that a new scientific research suggests that fasting or not eating anything twenty-four hours prior to arriving at ones destination can help one to overcome Jet lag. This was true, especially when one rested the body’s circadian rhythm or biological clock before the flight so that on arrival one felt less tired. Whether this was true or not was a matter of time and more scientific trials. She was ready to put anything into practice to make sure that she was fit to withstand the warping African climate and do what she was supposed to do for her beloved son. Throughout the forty-five minutes journey from Montreux to Geneva, she sat down quietly reading a novel without uttering a word to anyone.
The train stopped at the Cointrin International Air-port ‘Bahnhoff’. There was a long walk through to join an escalator, which eventually took them upstairs, where Rita went through the boarding process to embark the plane to Heathrow. Cointrin International Airport was a very busy port with both international flights and domestic legs. Prior to her arrival, Rita has checked online go book and print her boarding pass for EasyJet and British Airways. She knew that EasyJet leaves Geneva at 6:00 AM for London Heathrow Airport, where she would make a stopover and connect to British Airways at Midday on flight to Kotoka International Airport in Accra. She could have taken direct flight from Geneva through Swissair, but with that she would have to connect at North or East Africa before going to Accra. This was a decision she dis-carded earlier with the simple reason that as a first time traveller to Africa, she could not afford gallivanting. How-ever one looked at the scenario, she was on a mission and must hurry up to complete the assignment soon.
The crew had finished all the pre-flight preparations. They made sure that all the passengers were on their seats before closing the cabin door. At exactly six o’clock EasyJet taxied on Cointrin International Airport tarmac, speeding off to beat gravity and finding its way through the white clouds before airborne on its journey to London. Rita Martinson anticipated the adventurous flight ahead. But the journey began with a gentle push before assuming a feeling similar to the sensation experienced, when a speeding vehicle descended an abrupt valley. It was an unending sensation of the intestines pulling out of the stomach. Rita closed her eyes to force a sleep: an action that helped her to avoid any disruptions until she arrived at London Heathrow Airport.
The journey actually involved an onward flight to Ac-cra, but Rita has to change flight from EasyJet to British Airways at Heathrow. They were told to go to a different terminal to board the British Airways plane. The United Kingdom at that time was a member of the European Union, but Switzerland was a non-European Union member, so Rita and the other passengers on the same route were asked to get off for inspection by the Immigration Officers. None the less, they did not collect their luggage, rather they were told to collect them at their final destination: in this case, Kotoka International Airport. Thereafter, Rita took a leisurely stroll at Heathrow transit terminal, while at the same time making sure not to stray off too far away from the gate in order not to lose track of her time of departure. Thirty minutes before midday, she was airborne to Kotoka International Airport.
The British Airways plane landed at Kotoka International Airport at exactly 18:00 G.M.T. The passengers including Rita disembarked from the middle to front path of the plane that led to a movable tunnel called Jet-bridge, which got them quickly into the terminal for immigration checks. Rita got in line with everyone else at the immigration counter for passport check and visa validation. She was asked questions about her purpose and nature of visit. The Immigration officer satisfied with her documents, stamped her passport with entry stamp; thus marking her legal entry into Ghana. After that step, she collected her luggage and went through customs control to make sure she was not carrying any contraband items before she finally got swarmed by Accra touts.
Her first stop was at the Ghana Commercial Bank ATM kiosks, where she used her Visa card to withdraw some few Ghanaian cedis, which will be handy for taxi fare, hotel rates, food and other unforeseen incidentals to keep her floating till tomorrow when she will start her mission. She knew no one in Ghana. The only person she could contact was in the condemned cell in Akuse Prison on the huge Volta Lake, where escape was near impossible. However, she could take solace of the information she had on Gregory Donkor, who worked with Event Channel Advertising Company. She quickly checked in at a nearby hotel at Airport City named Ebony Royal.