Friends in Low Places

I am in Ghana on a tourist visa. I was granted 60 days upon arrival, renewed my visa in September for three months and was due for a second renewal on December 8th. If I had a work visa, which we are in the process of obtaining, I wouldn’t have to renew my visa at all. But that is neither here nor there.

So here’s the pickle: About every other week day, an immigration officer takes a bag of the visas-to-be-renewed to Ghana’s capital, Accra, which is a bulk of the reason it takes approximately two weeks to process the visa renewal for all mainstream requests. I am leaving Cape Coast on Friday, December 17 to visit Togo with a friend for a week. I need my visa/passport to get into Togo; therefore, I needed to have my visa returned to Cape Coast by the 17th. To get my visa back by then, I needed to get it renewed no later than December 3rd.

Toward the end of November I told my boss Kirsty about my December 3rd deadline. She said the Cape Coast immigration office has a rule stating that foreigners are prohibited from renewing their visa more than one time at the immigration office in Cape Coast if they have not left Ghana since their arrival. I have not left Ghana since I arrived in July, and I had already renewed my visa once in Cape Coast.

Traveling to a neighboring country to renew my visa was out of the question – I just needed a quick fix to tide me over until I go to Togo. I could’ve taken a three-hour tro-tro or Ford van ride to Accra, but I’ve read that the Accra office can take a couple days to sort out a visa renewal, and unfortunately I can’t afford to take time off from work right now. I considered what would happen if I would let my visa expire from December 8th until the 18th when I’d arrive to Togo, where I could get a new visa at the border. On second thought I decided I’d rather be on the good side of Togo’s border patrol – no need to ruffle any feathers by entering a country on an expired visa.

After telling Kirsty I could try going to Accra, she mentioned that our Ghanaian friend Eric has a friend in the immigration office in Cape Coast who would be able to take care of my situation in a matter of days. Days? What happened to the two-week process? On numerous occasions I’ve benefited from “knowing people” but never with this small amount of my own merit.

The weekend before my visa was due for a renewal, I started to doubt this alleged immigration connection. What if the guy can’t pull the strings Eric said he’d pull? If my visa isn’t returned by December 17th, I won’t be able to go to Togo – a vacation I’ve been looking forward to for months, down time I need desperately before the influx of volunteers coming January and an adventure I’m excited to share with my good friend who’s flying all the way from the U.S.

Okay, okay… surrender your throne, Drama Queen. Or is that more diva-like? Whatever, I would still be able to go to Togo, just not as long as I’d hoped. But still – the fact that I had anticipated this time crunch and could have taken the visa to Accra myself instead of relying on some random source… but why worry? All I can do now, I thought, is tell myself in my most Ghanaian voice, “It twill be fiiine.”

Two days before my visa expired, Kirsty got the phone number of the immigration guy from Eric. She had met the man, Jude (name has been changed for security purposes), a few weeks earlier when she was due for a renewal herself, so she called him to find out when I would be able to catch him at the immigration office. She returned to my office and relayed to me that Jude was in Accra Monday and Tuesday, so I should go to the Cape Coast immigration office on Wednesday. I’d been instructed not to leave visa renewals for the last minute, or “until the eleventh hour,” as a Ghanaian friend put it once. I hoped this guy knew my visa would expire that day but figured Kirsty or Eric had told him.

The day before my visa expired, my friend Joeva said she read that nine foreigners were deported recently for having expired visas. It was especially wonderful hearing this after I had already convinced myself the worst case scenario would be paying a 40-cedi fine for allowing the visa to expire, or not getting my visa returned before I wanted to leave for Togo. Thanks, Jo. Such a fountain of information, that girl.

Wednesday morning I went through the visa renewal checklist of required materials: a printout of my return flight itinerary, a letter written by a superior from my NGO requesting my visa renewal, a copy of my NGO’s certificate, 40 cedis for a one-month extension (I will request a 60-day visa upon my return to Ghana from Togo), and 5 cedis to get four passport-size pictures taken at the photo booth on my way to the immigration office. I walked from our office to the main junction and took a shared taxi to town. I alighted at Kingsway in front of the Melcom superstore and walked toward the Cape Coast slave castle to the photo booth just outside the immigration office.

I thought about joking with the photographer about why he didn’t ask to take my remaining two photos of the set of four (only two photos are required for visa purposes) like he did the last time he took my picture for my visa renewal in September, but decided against it. I didn’t think he’d remember me from the first time and reasoned he, like many Ghanaians, may not understand that sort of humor (“What, did I get uglier over three months?”).

I called Jude as I walked through the front entrance and waited at the door for him to meet me. The building contains more offices than just the immigration office, but to me the entire building is called the immigration office. It’s my favorite building in Ghana that I’ve been inside. It’s open-air; birds fly free and not silently and the blue sky is ceiling to maybe 8 to 10 floors, which are situated on the outside of the circular building and the central part of the ground floor is a circle of well-groomed grass.

A Ghanaian man in a jungle green immigration uniform sauntered toward me from the bottom of the staircase across the hall, one hand holding his cell phone to his ear and the other grasping a newspaper. His eyes were glued to me for about 10 paces - I was the only white person in the front entry way, so I figured he knew who I was. Respectively, I took him for Jude.

Now standing in front of me, he was still on the phone. I shook his hand and stood in front of him awkwardly as he finished his conversation.
“Hello, I am Michaela. Eric’s friend.”
“Yeah,” he said, smiling from my face to my hand, which was still in his. “Is that your car?” He motioned to the car parked on the street in front of the entrance. A Ghanaian man was in the driver seat.
“Um, no, it’s not.”
“Oh,” he replied, sounding disappointed. He let go of my hand. “Is Eric coming?” he asked, looking outside again.
“No, he isn’t,” I told him. “He is in Accra today. With Kirsty, my sister you talked to on the phone on Monday.”
“Ohh, I see, I see, I see. How did you get here?”
“By taxi. I took a shared taxi from my office to town.” I may be an obroni and I may be a female, if that’s what he’s getting at, but that doesn’t make me helpless!

We walked across the hall to the staircase. “You have all the documents?” he asked.
“Yes,” I nodded.
“And Eric has told you everything?”
I paused. Told me everything? That sounds so omnious, I thought. What else is there to know?
“Yes, he has.”
Jude smiled. “Good. It will be fine then.”
What will be fine?

As he led me into his office I wondered if he could tell I hadn't a clue what he was talking about. Three wooden desks were arranged in the shape of a digital U and three wooden chairs were in the middle of the open space. Jude pulled one of the chairs over to the side of his desk, which was parallel with the window. “Sit here,” he told me. He tossed the newspaper on his desk and squeezed between the middle desk and his. I wondered how many months or maybe even years it would take him and the others he shared the office with to realize they wouldn’t have to squeeze between the desks if they would simply move the desks farther apart.

I took out of my bag the folder containing all the necessary documents and handed them to Jude. He leafed through my passport. “An American, I see. That is my favorite country. So when are you taking me to the U.S.?”

When Ghanaians ask me that question, normally I answer, “When you’ve saved up enough money for your plane ticket!” But I couldn’t say things like that to this man, or anyone who works for Ghana’s immigration offices for that matter. I needed to convince him I will do whatever it takes to stay in Ghana.

“Well, I love Ghana. I want to stay here for long long time. But maybe after that you can come to the U.S.” Because I’m in Ghana on a tourist visa, I couldn’t carry on and express my love for Ghana by telling him I want to stay for two years – that would blow my cover. No one is a tourist for two years.

We really need to light a fire under our employer's bum to get us the documents we need for a work visa.

“July…” he muttered to himself, flipping through the pages of my passport again.
“Yes, July. I’ve been here long time.” Saying that probably didn't help my case, but he would’ve done the math anyway. He examined my passport for another minute, closed it and said, “Wow.”

Something was wrong.

Jude looked at me and shook the passport his hand. “You’ve already renewed your visa in Cape Coast once. You should have taken it to Accra this time.”
“Yes, and Eric said you could help me so I wouldn’t have to take my visa to Accra this time.”
He opened the passport again and flipped through the pages to my visa. “It expires on eighth of December,” he paused. “That is today.”
“Yes,” I said sheepishly. This was one of the rare occasions I was not a procrastinator by choice. “But I am going to Togo on the 18th of this month, so I can get it renewed when I am reentering Ghana – ” He looked up at me and I finished, “ – That is the reason I only want a one-month extension.”
Jude continued to examine the visa page of my passport. “Yes, you can only renew your visa in Cape Coast one time. I will have to talk to my boss about this.”
“Oh, okay. Also, this may not be an issue yet but I will need my visa back before December 17th because I am going to Togo.”
“How long you stay in Togo?”
“About a week.”
“You are going alone?”
“No, I’m going with a friend. He’s coming to visit me. And Ghana.”
“Ah, that is nice,” said Jude, sitting back in his chair as if to admire me. “Is he your darling boy?”
“What? No!” I started laughing nervously. I knew how to deal with Ghanaian men who are hitting on me, but not from this angle. “He used to be my – ” Despite all my might, I couldn’t make myself say ‘darling boy’ with a straight face. “ – Well, we started dating before I came here.” I paused and looked at him. “Wait, how did you guess?”
“A girl as beautiful as you? Of course you have a darling boy!”

Hearing myself laugh nervously makes me laugh even harder.

“So now you are single?” Jude asked.
I tried to regain composure. “Yes.”
“Whoever marries you will be a very lucky man.”
"You are making me blush!” And I’m making myself sick! I noticed he was pulling the familiar move of hiding his wedding ring by hanging him arms underneath his desk, but his secret was out. I had already seen it.

Jude laughed and leaned in. “Yes, I will go talk to my boss now. But it’s not easy,” he said, shaking his head. “I will need to tell him to make an exception for you. But in return you will need to dash my boss. I will make this happen for you because I like Eric, I like the white lady I talked to on the phone – you said, Kristy?”
“Kirsty.”
“Yes, Kirsty.” He smiled, “And I like you. You are very nice and very nice to look at. I like the whites.”
I smiled and said, “Thank you, I like you too.”

Jude smiled again. Then he gathered my passport, photos and other documents in a pile and moved it to a corner of his desk. He opened up the newspaper to the middle, picked up the pile of my things and placed it inside. He closed the newspaper, folded it once and then stood up from his seat. Wedging the newspaper under his right arm, he shuffled sideways through the six-inch gap between the two desks. “Get your money ready,” he said and left the room.

I couldn’t believe how dirty those last words made me feel. I know bribes are a big part of how Africans do business and I understand that some bribes are like trading favors, but this particular bribe reeked of injustice. Plus, if I’m going to break any law, I’d rather do it on the fly. Premeditated dirty deeds are so much dirtier. He might as well had said, “Get your gun ready. You’re going to shoot someone.”

Birth, Outdooring and a Naming Ceremony

The wife of one of our Ghanaian staff members, Lawrence, gave birth to a girl last Wednesday. Lawrence is now father to three daughters and is very happy, even though his heart was set on having a Lawrence Junior. He called Kirsty Wednesday night to inform her of the new addition to his family.

“ – So I may be late to work tomorrow…”

“Lawrence, do you want a day off?” Kirsty asked, laughing.

“Ohh, God bless you!”

The next day Kirsty shared Lawrence’s news with me. She said they named her Fiona Edelbetha. We mused over the uniqueness of the name – "Fiona" is neither a Christian name nor a local name we’ve come across yet in Ghana. Kirsty told me Lawrence's daughters chose her name; because Rhodalyn is the oldest, Lawrence and his wife honored her choice of name first. Apparently Clara chose Edelbetha because that is the name of her best friend from school.

I was four and my sister was two when our brother Jake was born. If we’d been older, would our parents have allowed us to name him? I don’t even think I knew any boy names when I was four. I wonder what growing up would be like for a boy named Dad, Prince Charming, Big Bird or Pooh Bear.

Kirsty told me Lawrence informed her of the Ghanaian tradition of keeping a baby indoors eight days following his or her birth, after which the family “outdoors” the child during an event called “The Naming Ceremony.” This Wednesday was Fiona’s Naming Ceremony. The next day Lawrence resumed his work at the office. He and I share an office - about mid-morning I heard Lawrence sigh and saw his focus had lifted from his laptop. I seized the opportunity to ask him about his daughter’s naming ceremony.

“In our culture,” he said, turning to face me in his chair, “we choose a name for our children and we also name them after an elder person in the community. It is a great honor. We chose my mother, Efua Elizabeth, so our daughter's name will be Efua Elizabeth Fiona Edelbetha Arhin.”

I thought it peculiar that she would take the name Efua as well as Elizabeth, considering “Efua” is the Fante name for females born on Friday – Fiona was born on a Wednesday, which would make her Fante name “Ekua.” Fiona’s Fante name is Ekua, her family name is Efua Elizabeth and her first and middle names are Fiona Edelbetha. That’s a lot of names to keep track of.

“Everybody wanted to come to the ceremony yesterday – everybody,” Lawrence continued, shaking his head and smiling. “I know a lot of people and they all wanted to come. They said, ‘Oh, Lawrence, oh, Lawrence, please can I come see your daughter?’ People like me because they know what I do for a profession and know it is good –” I knew by “like me” he meant “respect me.” Ghanaians don’t have many friendships because that would require trust, which most do not have for each other. They would rather have numerous connections in the you-scratch-my-back-and-I’ll-scratch-yours sort of way. In Ghana, as well as in most parts of the world, if you do enough scratching you will be well-respected by your peers. Being respected seems to be all that matters here, along with maintaining good health.

“ – and many people spend big money on these ceremonies.”

“As much as funerals and weddings?” I asked. I’ve heard several stories about families going into debt by throwing extravagant funerals. Think: Western-world weddings but three days long.

“Yes. If you are hosting a ceremony it is tradition that you must provide water to each person attending. I do not have that much money. I only had 150 cedis to spend, so I said to my wife, ‘Why not make it a small ceremony – maybe only 30 minutes long – and open a bank account for Fiona?’ She liked that, so that is what I did.”

“Lawrence, that is such a smart idea! I’m sure one day Fiona will appreciate it very much,” I said. I was relieved and impressed by Lawrence’s decision – I find it such a pity that families here go into debt when celebrating the different periods of someone’s life. Modest celebrations are just as effective and meaningful as superfluous ones.

“Yes, because each month I will put money in her account so she can go to secondary school and to university. That is what I’ve done with Rhodalyn and Clara too. Every month I put five cedis into each of their accounts. Now I will do that for Fiona too. Five in Rhodalyn’s, five in Clara’s and five in Fiona’s every month, and I don’t ever touch that money because it is theirs. They don’t even know that I’ve been doing this – I simply tell them they don’t have to worry about paying for SS or university. It is no problem.”

“You are a great father,” I told him. He beamed back at me. In most of the Western world, going to such lengths for one's children is pretty much expected. In Ghana if one has the ability and discipline to save money for their children, it is a mark of an honest educated responsible individual. It's one thing to bring people into the world; it's another to make sure they will always have everything they need.

Agape in Translation

Each month our organization's volunteers participate in a mini-project, or Impact Project, as we have been instructed to start calling them. Most often these Impact Projects involve community-building activities. When I was a volunteer at our site in Peru last fall for six weeks, the one mini-project I participated in was helping build a new museum of ancient Incan artifacts in a rural village. We spent a Saturday morning painting the museum walls, sweeping the floors and dusting the glass cases. Two weeks later the museum opened and we attended the inauguration, which was followed by a cultural dance performance and a feast.

Currently our NGO uses three Impact Projects on rotation: We host a community-wide beach clean-up in Cape Coast and help with the construction of a vocational training school for at-risk teens and a primary (elementary) school and library; both schools are in rural villages.

Our local staff members Lawrence and Kofi supervise and help volunteers complete the Impact Projects; Kirsty and I are not in attendance for such activities because we are delicate expat workers and need our weekends to be stress-free. Don’t get me wrong – back home in Nebraska I laid bricks and packed cement whenever possible, but hey I can’t take all the fun jobs around here. Hafta share the love. But the main reason it's okay for Kirsty and I to "bugger off" (I love living and working with a Scottish girl (lassie)!) while Lawrence and Kofi lead the Impact Projects is because it's part of their duties as Volunteer Coordinators to organize and lead the volunteer affairs during the weekends. One day, one day (common Ghanaian phrase/substitute for “eventually”) I will join a couple Impact Projects and get my hands dirty alongside the volunteers, but I’ve been saving myself for when things kick up in January when we have nearly 50 volunteers arriving and we’ll need all hands on deck.

Due to the curveballs Life sometimes throws, two people had rotated through the role of Country Director before Kirsty in the year and a half that our NGO has been in Ghana, and unfortunately a few relationships developed in the beginning have fallen through the cracks during those transitions. Neither Kirsty nor I have met the leaders of two of the three Impact Projects; we know the main contact of the beach clean-up mini-project because he is a project partner – the founder of a local health and sanitation NGO. Therefore, Kirsty thought it would be a good idea for me to meet with them to reintroduce them to our organization.

My first meeting was with Douglas, the headmaster of a nursery and primary school for about 185 students ages 1-11. I was aiming to reestablish our business relationship by explaining we’ve had a few changes in leadership since we first became involved with the development of his school, which is the unfortunate reason he and I had yet to meet until this magical moment. I also needed to get a better grasp on how his school runs, the extent of our volunteers’ monetary and physical contributions to the development of the school, the headmaster’s future goals for the mini-project and how we can help facilitate those goals. Above all I wanted to get an idea of the headmaster’s feelings toward our organization and volunteers.

I learned that Douglas uses a van to pick up and drop off students who live up to 7km from school grounds. He said the van serves as the main means of transportation for nearly two thirds of his school's students.

“Wow, that’s great you’re able to help so many students go to school,” I commented.

Douglas nodded proudly.

“How did you get the funding for the van?”

Douglas looked at me gravely and asked, “You know what happens when you get stabbed in the eye?”

I wanted to laugh because I knew this was going somewhere completely unrelated to my question - one of the many characteristics I adore about Ghanaians.

I stifled a smile and responded in my most solemn and encouraging voice, "No."

He continued, "When you get stabbed in the eye and your friend cups your eye socket for you like this - " he covered his right eye with his hand, " - to stop the bleeding. If your friend should run away, you must cup your eye socket yourself." 

Ah, nope - can't say that's ever happened to me before. I made the conscious effort to close my gaping mouth. “I..don’t understand,” I said slowly, hoping to sound apologetic and serious rather than thoroughly amused.

Douglas tried again, “Or you know when you break your jaw – ” his hand slid from his eye to his jaw, “ – and your friend has to hold your jaw in place to keep it from falling...”

Racked my brain forward and back but to no avail - oddly enough, I had no recollection of such an incident happening to me. Or anyone, for that matter. I figured he wasn't speaking from experience but couldn't believe he thought these analogies would help me understand how he had paid for the van. 

I was both ashamed and proud of my blank stare - better that than bursting out in laughter. I gave up trying to understand the relationship between payment for a vehicle and gouged eyes and broken jaws, and Douglas gave up trying to convince me they were one in the same - or he ran out of body parts to list and all the horrific things that could go wrong with them.

A small part of me was disappointed when Douglas succumbed to a practical answer (he took out a loan to pay for the van). Isn't it always a nice surprise when the means justifies the end?

Case of the Mondays

Besides a failed attempt to go to the medical lab last Saturday to get tested for malaria and typhoid (see previous post for details), the rest of the weekend was alright. Then Monday graced me, and everyone else in the world except a few continents, with her presence and gave me an entirely different perception of the glorious line from Office Space, "Uht-oh, sounds like somebody's got a case of the Mondays."

Monday morning before work I made my second attempt to go to the lab to get tested. I walked down the hill in my neighborhood and continued along the road past the drop-taxi-only station to the gated entrance of University of Cape Coast. I stood across from the gate, where I normally go to get picked up by shared taxis because of the high traffic from UCC. I pointed forward in the direction of Abura each time I saw "taxi" signs erected from the top of cars with mustard yellow side boards. Mondays are busy days for the roads in Cape Coast for whatever reason and most of the taxis driving by were full or heading toward town, as shown by the taxi drivers' left hand out the window pointing to their right, the opposite direction of Abura. A taxi driver pulling out of the UCC gate flipped his left hand out the window to expose his palm to the sky, indicating, "Where are you going?" I made my intention more visible by jabbing my index finger forward a couple times. His left hand changed into hand signal most Westerners understand as "stop" or "stay there." I noticed he had a passenger in his backseat, which proved he was a shared taxi. I got inside and said "good morning" to the driver and passenger, two men who looked to be in their 20s.

The man next to me paid his fare and indicated he wanted to get out. The driver pulled over to the shoulder of the road and slowed to a stop. It was a barren area about 50 meters from the gas station with no shops or people or side roads. The man moved to his side of the backseat to the door but the driver insisted he exited from the right door instead for safety. I was in the middle of fishing out 40 pesewas from my money purse for my fare when I realized I needed to get out of my side of the car for the man. The door handle was jammed, as many are here, so I reached outside the window and opened it. As I got out, the driver asked me where I was going. “Abura,” I said, confused why the driver hadn’t pick up on that earlier from my hand signal. The driver shook his head, “No, I’m going to town.” “Then why did you pick me when I was pointing to Abura?” The driver shook his head and looked forward again, indicating he was done with the conversation. The man in the backseat hadn’t gotten out on my side but was listening to our conversation. Then he shut the door and they drove away. That was strange, did he change his mind about getting out of the taxi there?

I was annoyed and confused why the driver misread my hand signal, the foolproof language used by taxi drivers in Cape Coast and the language I’d made a point to learn when I first arrived to Ghana. Misinterpretation of the hand signals has happened to me before too – taxi drivers pull off the road to where I’m standing and ask where I’m going. “Look at my hand,” I want to tell them, “I learned these hand signals for you!” I have a vague feeling some of the drivers pull over for me regardless because they think, "There's an obroni, she must be lost."

I flagged down another shared taxi and made sure the driver knew I wanted to go to Abura. When I got to the medical lab I told the front desk clerk I wanted to get tested for malaria and typhoid. She slid a torn piece of computer paper across the desk to me. “Write your name, age and where you’re from on this.” I did and slid it back to her. “Seven cedis,” she said. I couldn’t find my wallet in my bag – I had my ProWorld money purse, but not my own. I got out of line and sat down on the lobby sofa to search some more and concluded it was nowhere to be found.

The last time I had my wallet out was in the first taxi when I was getting 40 pesewas, which I kept in my hand during the taxi switch and used to pay the second driver. That's where it was! My wallet was in that damn taxi that shouldn’t have picked me up in the first place! I must have gotten distracted while opening the car door for the homeboy next to me and then forgot to replace my wallet in my bag, and even more distracted when the driver asked me where I was going.

I felt sick to my stomach – I had 55 cedis in that money purse, enough to get me through 2-3 weeks in Cape Coast. Unless I’m traveling I never carry that much money on me, but today was an exception because I didn’t know how much the two lab tests would cost and after the lab I was making a detour at the pharmacy for two packets of dewormer pills for Kirsty and me (we were due for a deworming), which I also didn’t know the cost of.

While I was reaching outside the window of the taxi for the door handle, it could’ve fallen off my lap or the guy next to me could have taken it. I knew it didn’t fall out of the car because I would have seen it and heard the coins jingle as it hit the ground. I bet that guy next to me was about to get out of the taxi, saw my unattended money purse and took it. Then when he realized I wasn’t getting back in the car, he didn’t want to get out with me in case I would realize I was missing my wallet and would suspect he had taken it. If he was on foot, I could track him down. But he was a smart thief; he stayed in the car. Or what if the driver and the passenger knew each other and the whole thing was a conspiracy, a trick they play on obronis? Or maybe they were both just bad people, strangers who read each other's minds and conspired to split the winnings of an obroni’s wallet.

Still sitting dumbfounded on the couch, I realized I hadn’t paid for my malaria and typhoid tests yet. Not wanting to waste my taxi rides from the morning by retreating to the office without testing at the lab, considering the trouble I went through more than the expense of the cab fare, I resorted to using my work money which I would pay back when I got home at the end of the day. I got up from the couch in a daze a handed a 10 cedi bill to the front desk clerk. Noticing she looked busy and figuring she would call me over when she found change for my bill, I returned to my seat to sulk. Only a few minutes later my name was being called from somewhere far away. After the third call, I discovered the voice was coming from the nook on the right through the lab doorway. I pushed aside a ceiling-to-floor curtain and found behind it a Ghanaian man in a white coat with needles. He greeted me. He was sitting at a table facing a white wall – the area of the compartment was about the size of a photo booth. I sank into my chair facing him and surrendered my left arm. As he stuck a needle into my vein I couldn’t think of a single worse thing to be doing after getting my wallet stolen. (Side note: Ghanaians don't use gloves when dealing with patients, but if you make a fuss about it they will find some and put them on. I can't remember if he was wearing gloves while drawing my blood - my mind was elsewhere. Another side note: They don’t give you Band-aids after injecting you, which is a bummer because the only thing that could've cheered me up at that point was a kids' Band-Aid.)

“All done,” he said. “It should take one hour to get the results.”
I examined my puncture wound. I've never had abnormal reactions to shots - nurses always tell me I have great veins - but this man bruised me and there was a dime-sized bump emerging around the puncture. I needed to get out of there.

Remembering one of our volunteers mentioning he had gotten his lab test results by phone the same day he was tested, I asked, “Can you call me with the results?”
The man smiled as he stored my blood tube in a kit. “What if I don’t have any phone credit?”
I was not in the mood to play games or flirt. “I can call you then,” I took out my phone. “What is your number?”
He recited it and I stored him as “Lab” as he told me his name.
“You should flash me,” he said. (Yes, “flashing” has a different connotation in Ghana than in America.) "Flashing" is when you dial a number and hang up, so it shows the person your number. Sometimes people flash each other as a way of saying, "If you have phone credit, call me, because I don't have any and I want to talk to you."
“So, this is your number," he said as I flashed him. "I can call it any time I want?”
“Actually I only use this phone number for work. So if you call me after today I won’t answer.”
“Oh, okay.”
Yeah right, I thought, like I have enough money or the organization skills to have two phones. From the look on his face it seemed he’s heard the same line from an obroni before. Whatever, this white lie has saved me more times than I can count.
“The results will come in one hour so you can call me in one hour.”

After not finding the brand of deworming pills recommended by an expat friend at a pharmacy down the way, I took a taxi to work. I was riding out my “high” from scoring a cheap taxi ride to the office (if a Ghanaian has left a bad taste in your mouth about Ghana and other Ghanaians hear about it or witness it, most will feel guilty or responsible for the bad deed and some will bend over backwards to make it up to you, so if you've been stolen from, tell your plight to those you know are trying to rip you off) when I was brought down to my third or fourth low of the day by discovering the electricity wasn’t working. No air conditioning in Africa is no problem when you’ve got windows/open doors and a working fan. No fan? Especially in the middle of the day? See ya later, good mood.

Things started looking up after chatting with our nextdoor neighbors and coworkers Abusua Foundation, talking on the phone with a good friend from home who has a knack for comforting me by saying the right things, and then the electricity was reborn an hour later. The work day was a joke though – my attention span was shot from the morning. At least I tested negative for both malaria and typhoid, as I found out from my phone call to "Lab."

Mid-afternoon I had a meeting in town. When it finished I walked to another pharmacy to check if they had Wormplex 400 in stock; they did. I bought one for Kirsty and one for me, apparently all we needed. Must be a powerful little pill. Gross. I couldn’t believe they were each 1 cedi 30 pesewas – turns out I didn’t need to be carrying all that extra money this morning after all.

Then I remembered I didn’t go back to the front desk of the lab to get my change from the 10 cedi bill. There went another 3 cedis – just put it on my tab. (Dan in Real Life, anyone?)

The worst part about being stolen from isn’t the void of the item taken, it’s the fact that someone took something from me. Thus far in Ghana I had been "untouchable" when it came to bad luck. Except for when I killed my MacBook Pro in a freak accident after month numero uno. Don't want to talk about that. Back to my stolen wallet. I am determined to not let myself play the role of the victim by thinking, What have I done to deserve this? That’s a dangerous thought. Instead I’m looking at the situation like it was bound to happen at some point – unfortunately, having something stolen from you is a risk that accompanies traveling, especially in the poorer pockets of the world. I will focus on the idea that it was not a personal attack, and hopefully whoever stole/found my money needed it more than me.

Already in town, I decided to go to the market to look for avocados. Volunteers have been telling me they’re everywhere - you can't miss them, but I've been on a sporadic five-month-hunt for avocados and have yet to find any. Ghanaians call them "pears," which is confusing because vendors also sell pears. Why "pears," anyway? The avocados here look more like papayas. After 15 minutes of wandering through the dark and narrow walkway/maze/market searching high and low for avocados called pears that look like papayas, I gave up and asked a woman to give me three papayas. I handed her 3 cedis and she grabbed a fourth papaya and said, "I am giving you one from me," and put it in my bag with the rest. I think I could have kissed her on the cheek right then and there! How sweet, how kind, how wonderful this woman is - the world is! There is hope for this day yet! I thanked her repeatedly and gushed that she had made my entire day because I lost my wallet – I wanted to carry on and tell her more (as my friends know I tend to do, even with strangers) but figured she probably wasn’t registering my babbling anyway and most likely didn’t care, but smiled nonetheless. This purity of heart, this kind deed made me more emotional than I could handle - I could've cried with gratitude on the spot. I thanked her again, exited the tented market and shifted my attention to finding a taxi back to the office.

After attempting some admin work for a couple hours, it was time to head home. Since we've moved our office location about a month ago, some mornings and evenings I’ve been using our relative proximity from the apartment to the office as a means of exercise and to avoid taxi expenses. The walk is pleasant and scenic until the mother of a hill leading up to our apartment and the grueling climb at the end. A house is being built at the top of the hill, and its recent progress has made the climb very dangerous. I don't know why I keep climbing it day after day, I think I keep hoping the construction crew will even out the land one day. It's not too dangerous, though - when climbing the loose red dirt at the top, I've learned to dig my fingers into the loose dirt and lean toward the ground to keep from falling backward to my death.

So, here I was with my laptop in my backpack and two groceries bags in hand...doing well, truckin' along...and suddenly I lost my footing and slipped into a three-foot deep depression in the red dirt hill. As I fell I noticed my bag of papayas broke. I looked down the hill in just enough time to see one of the papayas rolling away and into the brush. I soaked up the silence of the fall for a few seconds and then laughed. My right leg still submerged in the steep depression, I hoisted myself up. My ankle was bleeding. I laughed again and looked down the hill where the papaya had rolled away. With every fiber of my being I was certain it was the one the lady had given me for free! So much for the kind deed... ha! I couldn't be sad about my runaway papaya or frustrated about the fall or how shitty my Monday had been because the irony of this final catastrophe was just too perfect.

Thanks, Malaria Prophylaxis, Internet, for the Paranoia

I've been getting paranoid lately that I've been in Ghana for five months and haven't had any internal or external battle wounds to show for it besides a few blisters on my toes from playing football (soccer) barefoot on the beach in the scorching sun, a couple awful entire-body sunburns and a heat rash that has been flaring up since September sporadically on both forearms. In the past three months my roommate/boss Kirsty has had malaria and typhoid and a couple other not nice things. Talk about bad luck!

Toward the middle of October I got a dry cough for about a week but it didn't progress into anything. After I recovered though, I continued feeling weak and dizzy and more anxious and jumpy than my malaria prophylaxis normally makes me. I was waking up drenched in sweat every morning for a week. Kirsty was convinced I had either malaria or typhoid and thought I should get tested at the lab for both. Malaria and typhoid are detectable by flu-like symptoms. Besides muscle soreness and sweating, I don't have any of the other main flu-like symptoms - the chills, a fever or nausea. Based on my observations of Kirsty's and other volunteers' experiences with the two diseases, I was certain I didn't have either. I think I have something else going on, or maybe my body is in the process of adapting to the changing season.

Not wanting to wait five hours at a hospital to see a doctor as I've done before with a sick volunteer, and not wanting to go to a lab to get my veins probed for tests, I decided to turn to the internet for answers. I Googled my symptoms (dry cough, long-term heat rash, profuse sweating, muscle soreness, increased paranoia, nervousness and anxiety, sleep disturbances, teeth grinding) and learned I probably have a parasite. Sounds gross, but I read that experts believe 85% of North American adults have at least one form of parasite living in their body. Some doctors even argue this figure may be as high as 95 percent. I read that having a parasite can lead to all sorts of fatal diseases. In fact, the more I read the more I scared myself. Sometimes I think it's better to stay in the dark on some subjects.

The Saturday before Halloween, Kirsty went to Accra for a party at the British embassy as the guest of Susan, the Scottish owner of the Abandze Beach Resort we frequent whenever possible. I was alone in the apartment cooking lunch in the kitchen and sweating vigorously. Even stripping down to my bra and underwear didn't cool me down. I made the mistake of texting Kirsty about it and she called me sounding even more worried than normal and told me to go to the lab as soon as possible. "Go to the one in Abura because it's the only one open in Cape Coast on a Saturday. It closes around one though, so I would leave soon. And if it's closed give Lawrence a wee call to go with you to a hospital."

There was no way I was going to a hospital. I don't like taking precautions, especially when there isn't an alarming and tangible reason. Sure, that may be reckless, but some people - women in particular - know their bodies more than any doctor or test could. Going to the doctor before giving my body a chance to fight its own battle is like I'm stepping on my body's toes, so to speak.

But Kirsty tells me I can't tough things out in Africa. I thought I might as well go to the lab to get her to stop trying to diagnose me and to rule out the two "big ones" before figuring out what to do about the parasitic friend possibly visiting me. Plus, I didn't know if my condition was serious enough to skip the Halloween party I was supposed to go to later that night. After a 10-minute walk at the hottest time of the day down the mother of a hill we live on and taking a taxi to the lab in Abura, I found to my great displeasure the lab was closed. It was only 20 past noon, why was it closed already? Or maybe a better question: Why is there only one medical lab open in Cape Coast on Saturdays? Normally "because it's Africa" works for me but in this particular moment it wasn't a good enough answer. No labs here are open Sundays, so I would have to wait until Monday to figure out what was wrong with me. I sat defeated and depleted on the front entrance's stairs, chin cradled in both hands and elbows on my knees. After a solid 15 minutes of people-watching, I got a taxi and made him stop at the local gas station before taking me home. Feeling sorry for myself, I bought vanilla ice cream and a Snickers bar.

After a bowl of ice cream I felt a lot better. Maybe I was getting overheated because our kitchen has poor ventilation and I was cooking a hot dish, I thought to myself. Or maybe it was just a hotter day than normal. After all, we are phasing into the dry season right now. As a temporary solution I decided I would buy a dewormer pill next time I'm in town. Considering my symptoms, I don't think I have any inside me, but it's an advisable "for good measure" for expats. A couple months ago I was informed by an expat friend to take a dewormer pill once every three months while abroad. Also having heard you're supposed to de-worm every six months, I made a mental note to look it up online but didn't get around to it until I became convinced I have a parasite in me.

Convinced... sheesh.
Thanks, Lariam and Google, for keeping me up at night.

ASSumptions

When traveling abroad, being naive can get yourself robbed, sick, deported or even killed. On the bright side, believing the best in people can save you from being an "assuming ass."


For the past month our Ghanaian staff member Lawrence has been rummaging through Cape Coast for a new guesthouse for our volunteer groups to use during their program. As an organization we are growing rapidly at our Ghana site - we are hosting about half a dozen student groups in 2011 - therefore, we will need a bigger and hopefully cheaper guesthouse than what we’ve used previously.

Lawrence found “the one” a couple days ago and showed Kirsty, who was surprised to agree with Lawrence that it is “the one,” after visiting several “the one”s over the past month. Kirsty and I will be living in a separate wing of the guesthouse; as such, both of us need to approve of the place as a guesthouse as well as a new home. It was my turn to visit the guesthouse. I was to meet Lawrence in Abura at Tina Tavern and from there we would set out to the guesthouse.

It was a few minutes past three, the sun ablazing, and no Lawrence in sight. I walked up the cement stairs and stood under the red tent. Two Ghanaian women were sitting at a table, as hard at work as you could be mid-afternoon on a week day, staring at me like they’ve never before had a customer. I told them I was meeting a friend. They nodded so I sat in a plastic chair at a plastic table where the sun couldn’t reach me and waited. After a couple minutes I called Lawrence to see where he was, not out of frustration but out of courtesy of the two women staring at me wondering if I was going to use their shade and chair and not order anything. He said he is in town and I couldn’t hear the rest of what he said. Something about the guesthouse owner. “Ok, see you soon,” I said.

One the women got up from her seat and meandered to the bar. The other woman, plumper and younger, called out to me from her chair across the patio, “Is your friend close?” “No,” I replied airily. “He said he’s on his way coming.”

If the woman was a foreigner who had been in Ghana a while, she probably would have laughed at the tone of my voice. When working with Ghanaians, about 70 percent of the time they are either coming (20-45 minutes away) or on their way coming (haven’t left their house yet). Some foreigners find this cultural norm irritating, especially if they don’t bring a book to read while they wait, but I don’t mind. Too many things to notice, to observe, to question, to ponder - too many things to do instead of being bored or impatient or annoyed.

“Will you take a drink?” she pressed. A drink would refresh me in this heat, but I wondered whether I’d have enough time to down it before Lawrence arrived. A taxi from town to Abura should only take 5-7 minutes but knowing Ghana and Lawrence, it’d be more like 15-20 minutes. “Sure, I’ll have a Sprite.” She disappeared and returned with my drink, popped open the lid for me, and I paid her 2 cedis. She lingered at my table and asked for my name.

“Michaela.”

“Michaela,” she repeated slowly. “I like your name. It’s very beautiful. How do you spell it?”

“It's Michael with an ‘a.’ M-I-C-H-A-E-L-A.”

“Ah, okey okey okey, Michael with an ‘a,’” she stared out at the street and then back at me. "It's a very beautiful name!"

“Thank you, and what’s your name?”

“Essi.”

“Ah, Sunday born. I am Ekuwa.”

“You are Wednesday born.”

“Yes.” I noticed she didn’t want to be done talking. She was about my age and I figured she probably had children so for the sake of small talk, I asked.

She beamed, “I have one child.”

“That’s wonderful. Boy or girl?”

“Girl.”

“And what’s her name?”

She smiled shyly, “She doesn’t have a Christian name.” I shrugged and she continued, “Her name is Adwoa.”

“That’s my favorite Fante name,” I replied. “Which day is that again? I forgot.”

“Monday.”

“Ah, yes. Monday,” I took a swig from my glass bottle. “Well, if you have another child and it is a girl, maybe you can name her Michaela.”

“That is why I asked how you spell it!”

We laughed.

A man had parked his taxi on the side of the road in front of Tina Tavern and was walking up the stairs. He said something in Fante to Essi and sat down at the table behind me. Essi went to the bar.

My back was to the man and he was facing the wall to my left. “Are you waiting for someone?” he asked.

I turned to my right toward the street and sun, “Yes.”

“I am the one you are waiting for,” he said, smiling.

“Ha, I don’t think so,” I took a drink from my Sprite and stared out at the street.

“You will come to think so,” he said.

I looked at him and laughed and then looked out at the street again. “You are very forward.”

He laughed at me. I was grateful for the silence that followed. Lawrence should be here any minute, I thought.

The man spoke again, “I think you are meeting to see a guesthouse.”

I turned and looked at him suspiciously. “What? How did you know that?”

“I am the owner of the guesthouse."
"Ohhh!" I laughed, relieved to be humbly reminded that not all Ghanaian men are after the white ladies. That’s what I get for living in West Africa for five months and becoming jaded to getting hit on incessantly.

"Mr. Lawrence told me to meet him and you at Tina Tavern. He is coming.”
"You!" I said jokingly shaking my finger at him. "Nice one, thank you for the laugh."
He chuckled. "See? I told you I am the one you are waiting for! I am driving us to the guesthouse," he pointed at his taxi.

Just then, Lawrence sprinted up the steps and threw his right arm in the air and left arm at his side to capitalize his grand entrance. "I'm here!" he exclaimed. The guesthouse owner hoisted himself out of his chair, walked over to Lawrence who was taking a seat at my table and briefly replayed our meeting to Lawrence in Fante. Lawrence looked at me and threw his head back and laughed at the ceiling of the red tent. The guesthouse owner, Kofi as he later told me, giggled to himself and at me and went back to his chair. We continued laughing until I realized they were waiting for me to finish my drink so we could leave to see the guesthouse.


Lesson learned: Look before you leap. It's smart to have your guard up in a foreign country, but it should never be up too high.

Women Aren't Taxi Drivers Because They Can't Keep Secrets

Once a week our volunteers come to our office at 4 p.m. for either a Fante language lesson given by Lawrence, our Volunteer Coordinator, or for a Global Citizens Initiative (GCI) seminar given by me. GCI is a program my employer initiated this summer to give its volunteers and interns a more comprehensive understanding of their experiences working abroad. The program covers the following topics: cultural awareness, service-learning, international volunteerism, sustainable development, social enterprise and the role of non-profit organizations. The GCI topics are taught on a rolling basis. After the Fante or GCI lesson we go out to dinner in Cape Coast or one of the volunteers cooks for everyone. Our organization pays for 7 cedis (a little more than the average meal cost in Cape Coast) [EDIT: now 10 cedis, as prices have gone up] and a couple liters of bottled water for each volunteer and our staff. The volunteers rotate turns for cooking; it's predetermined on the calendar Kirsty distributes at the beginning of each month. The volunteer can cook the rest of us whatever she or he pleases. Our organization reimburses the volunteer cook for 5 cedis per volunteer and staff in attendance.

Last Tuesday was a Fante Tuesday. Lawrence never joins us at our weekly dinner, even though we invite him each time. He says he doesn’t come because he loves his wife’s cooking and doesn’t want to offend her by having someone else prepare his dinner. I’ve shared meals with Lawrence only a few occasions since I arrived in July: two lunches and one dinner. The two lunches were both at Castle Restaurant at the beginnings of August and September. Our NGO's marketing department asks that accepted volunteers book their flights at the beginning of a month to make it easier for on-site staff members to do airport pickups and so we don’t have to give several orientations throughout a month for each new volunteer we receive. It’s best to make sure everyone is on the same page, a phrase my dad used on family road trips whenever we stopped at a gas station – each of us had to use the restroom even if we didn’t have to go.

Our NGO's orientation program occurs on the first Sunday of each month we receive new volunteers. The new volunteers meet Kirsty and me at our office on the Sunday morning and we begin the orientation. First Kirsty explains our organization's mission, the volunteers’ expectations as volunteers in Ghana, their homestay living arrangements, our program schedule of events, and what to expect from the Ghanaian culture – the food, the transportation system, the people, precautions, health and safety issues, etc. Then I inform them of their expectations as professional volunteers and interns, the purpose of their project funds (to enable sustainable development), ways to spend their project money budget during their program that would facilitate sustainable development. The discussion lasts about two hours.

Then Lawrence and Kofi, our full-time and part-time Ghanaian staff members respectively, give the volunteers a tour of the town of Cape Coast and conclude the program with a refreshing seaside lunch at the Castle Restaurant, the restaurant next to the Cape Coast slave castle with an extensive menu and the most “enlightened” restaurant staff I’ve come across in Ghana, a label used by my Ghanaian-Russian neighbor Susan to identify (and date) Ghanaians who are intelligent and well-traveled.

I don’t accompany Lawrence and Kofi and the new volunteers on the town tour, but I joined them for lunch during the August and September orientations because I had to bring the NGO's money to pay the bills. Both August and September Kirsty had forgotten to give Lawrence the money to pay the lunch bill and Lawrence had forgotten to ask Kirsty for it before the weekend, so I brought the money because Kirsty and I have access to the safe during the weekends because we lived in our office until mid-October. (The recent move has made me so excited for these new levels of professionalism and sanity!) Oh, and the one occasion I had dinner with Lawrence was when Kirsty’s parents were in town staying at a resort owned by a Scottish woman – Kirsty made Lawrence promise her he would try a common Scottish dish if she asked the Scottish owner to prepare it. Part of the fun in this challenge is that whenever Lawrence eats in a restaurant, he orders the same meal every time: chicken and fried rice. When I asked him why he doesn’t branch out and try something new, he told me he orders the same thing at restaurants because his wife can make chicken and fried rice. (Wait for it…) He doesn’t want to try something new and really like it and then have his wife not know how to prepare it as well. I love Ghanaians’ sense of logic. So simple and pure.

But back to the story... it wouldn't be a story told by me if I didn't go off on a few tangents before getting to the main point.

Last Tuesday we tried this new place for dinner called Zizibi’s, the sort of restaurant I’m betting Ghanaian men frequent with their mistresses. It has a sort of displaced feeling, as if it belongs to a secluded road rather than a village. The structure of Zizibi’s is as grand as a two-story home from America: the seating is where the front porch would be but extended back about 20 more yards. There were no cars or people there besides the beyond-bored looking waitresses sitting against the wall.

I ordered the vegetable jollof and it was the spiciest I've had yet. As long as I have enough water, I'm okay with ample spice. When we had exhausted the subjects of what we’d done that day and how the volunteers’ projects are going and how the food tasted and what we thought of the restaurant and our server, we finally talked about something unrelated to Ghana. It feels like it's been ages since my conversations haven't been based on Ghana or my work. I had asked one of our volunteers to explain why she doesn’t believe in the idea that everything happens for a reason. I can’t decide if I was more interested in her response because she and I view that topic so differently, or if I was just relieved to be talking about something besides being in Ghana. I know the purpose of those weekly dinners is to give our volunteers an outlet to talk about their experiences, but I prefer to exist within a culture rather than observing it verbally.

One of our volunteers Danielle caught a taxi roadside and went home as we were calling for a drop taxi because she was going in a different direction than the rest of us. Kirsty called Kwame, her favorite driver she calls for drops. He is notorious for being a lively and informative conversationalist and acts more as a friend than a driver – one time he split his lunch with me when he took me to Accra to pick up a new volunteer from the airport. But he also tends to overcharge for his drop rides and is usually either really early or really late to pick us up. He was an hour late getting us from Zizibi’s, which for some reason I cared more about tonight than usual.

I was the first one down the stairs. “Kwame! If I find out I have malaria tomorrow I’m blaming you for keeping us waiting outside so long.” I said, only half-joking.

He met me at the bottom of the stairs with a big hug and a smile, no rebuttal. He held the embrace and swayed me left to right a few times.

“I’m telling you.” I continued, mimicking the inflection of the common Ghanaian phrase by emphasizing “telling” and dropping an octave on “you.” Still smiling, he moved with open arms to Liz, then McKell and finally Kirsty. Maybe “hugging it out” really can solve all the world's problems.

“Do you know how late you are, Kwame?” Kirsty asked, breaking his embrace.

“I am really very sorry,” he took both her hands in his. “I am late.”

“One hour,” she said. “You will only take 5 cedis to take all of us home because you were so late, understand?”

“Okay,” he nodded. He ended up calling Kirsty later asking if 5 cedis was all he was getting – if she had forgotten to give the volunteers more money to give to him. (If Ghanaians don’t understand something obronis say, they just nod and say “yes” and “no problem” to keep peace.)

“And you’re taking us to the Goil to get ice cream before taking us home. Still only for 5 cedis.”

McKell and Kirsty wanted to get FanIce from the local gas station because when they tried ordering ice cream at Zizibi’s the waitress said they didn’t have any. I bet about half the items on any menu in Ghana is false advertisement because “we don’t have that.” You’re lucky when the servers even say that much – usually it goes like this:

“Can I have orange juice?”

“No.”

“Oh. Can I have pineapple juice?”

“No.”

“Hmm.. what about mango juice?

“No.”

“Apple juice?”

“No.”

“Right, what do you have?”

“We only have banana juice.”

When ordering food in Ghana you will save a lot of time by asking your server what they have that day – especially when it comes to beverages and desserts.

The four of us piled into Kwame’s car and drove toward some village I don’t know the name of. Earlier that day my friend had told me he moved into a new house in the village past Kakumdo and I didn’t catch the name of it but knew it starts with S. I asked Kwame the name of it as we drove through but I’ve forgotten it already. Then we reached Kakumdo, passed through Abura, and then we arrived at the Goil. We went inside while Kwame wiped his car with a torn bed sheet. He always does that when he’s waiting for people. Dusts the interior, shines the exterior. In fact, most taxi drivers clean their cars while they wait - it seems a bit compulsive to me but it's part of their status-conscious culture. I didn’t get anything because I wanted a cone or dish with real live ice cream and didn’t want to settle for a popsicle like the other girls had. I don’t like sloppy seconds especially when I know they are sloppy seconds.
 

I saw a obroni woman driver pull into the Goil as we left, a very rare sighting indeed. I pointed out my finding to the rest of the car and asked Kwame if it is difficult for females to become taxi drivers. He didn’t understand how I worded it at first so I took a different approach.

“If a woman wants to become a taxi driver what does she have to do?”

“They go to the office in town and take a test and pay a fee and den dey a driva!”

“And men who are taxi drivers are okay with women working as taxi drivers? It’s not bad?”

“Oh no! No problem, no problem. But you see it’s very difficult for women to be taxi drivers because they are very timid. Very shy at driving. And den one day, one day they drive like me!”

I laughed. “So is it difficult for women taxi drivers to make much money?”

“Yes because taxi drivers see many things, they hear many things, and they must keep secrets.”

I saw a disconnect from my question to his answer and hoped he would clarify naturally.

“Like affairs?” I offered.

“Very good. Yes,” Kwame said. He turned left off the junction and started up the winding red dirt road up to my and Kirsty’s apartment. “Because they see many things and must keep many secrets to protect the clients. And then you get many many clients. I think two years ago I had something like 35 clients I picked regularly. Even helped with their errands. They give a list of things they need in town and I get them all.”

I had stopped listening. My mind was off wondering what the juiciest thing the average taxi driver has seen or heard. And then I thought about whether I had shared any “secrets” with taxi drivers unknowingly, what they had seen and heard and had pretended not to.

Back to the disconnect. Was Kwame saying women don’t become taxi drivers and have a hard time getting paid as taxi drivers because people don’t trust women with their secrets? Is he saying people’s secrets are safer kept with men than women? Kwame!

De-tailed a Gecko Today

It's about a 20-minute walk to our new office but this morning Kirsty called a drop taxi to take us because she was on a deadline for an assignment for the headquarters in the U.S. and was feeling sick and didn't want to endure the walk. A dangerous downward hike with abundant vicious stray dogs, it's more comparable to a scene from a SuperMario game, upon reflection. I accepted her offer to share the taxi.

As we waited for the taxi, Kirsty was sitting on the tile floor of our bare-since-the-office-move living room and attempting to bring our internet back to life. I went out to the balcony to survey the weather. A bit dreary today, but I love it when the color of the sky blends into the ocean. We have such an amazing view.

While letting myself back into our apartment I saw a dark object on the ground out of the corner of my eye. To my surprise it wasn't the side effects of my malaria prophylaxis playing tricks on me this time - it was a gecko.. and it's tail. I had stepped on it accidentally and de-tailed it! The tail was squirming feverishly as if it had a mind of its own and could feel the pain of being severed from its host, which had scampered up the wall into the corner. I shrieked at the sight of the living tail and jumped and reacted in a variety of girly ways to such a sight and ran down the hallway away from the thrashing dismembered tail and then back up the hallway to see if it had stopped moving (it hadn't) and ran down the hallway and back up again until I realized someone was going to have to deal with the tailless gecko on the wall.

Kirsty, still sitting on the ground with our internet modem and wires galore with her back to the action but neck cranked around, was silently watching the whole scene.

My eyes remained on the thrashing tail as I begged her to take care of the gecko because I was too traumatized from de-tailing it. She got up from the ground and walked over to the corner he was hiding in. I ran into the kitchen to get a plastic container for her to capture him in. As she made several attempts to cup him against the wall, I searched our bare living room for a lid she could slide over the top. (Capturing geckos in our apartment is no rare feat for either of us.)

"Aha! Got cha," Kirsty said triumphantly. I brought over a few papers from our recycling box as the lid.
"That won't be enough," she said looking from the papers to the gecko, who was throwing his body into the walls of the container. "We need a big stack of papers."

I grabbed a few more dusty papers from the cardboard box and handed them to her. She slid the stack against the wall slowly underneath the container and then brought the container right-side-up away from the wall. I opened the balcony door for Kirsty to set him free. Free and tailless. Sorry, buddy.

She let herself back into the apartment. "Our driver is here," she said and handed me the plastic container. I was staring at the tail, which had slowed down but still had a bit of life left in it. I put the container over the tail, grabbed my bag and left with Kirsty for work.

Two days later, my gecko returned. Kirsty spotted him at our kitchen window and pointed him out to me. "He's come back for his tail!" I said, laughing.

Not So Smooth

Nothing Ghana-related today, I was just reflecting on some of the odd things I’ve been told by college flings whose smoothness came off rather roughly because they had had too much to drink. It’s funny to imagine the sober versions of these guys saying these things.

It’s taken my friend and me a whole bottle of wine to think of the most foul lines we've been told by former flings. Here's my winner:

“It’s been my goal all summer to hook up with you.” (After kissing me)

You go-getter, you. What an insult. An insult to himself, too. At least there’s something to be said of his determination – that was only three years ago and he’s married now. Seems he’s pretty good at going after what he wants in life.

But I haven’t necessarily been a straight-A student in the School of Staying Calm, Cool and Collected While Intoxicated either. Here is my favorite personal blunder that I don’t want to ponder how much influence it had on ending the fling:

“My sister told me that I am a lot like your sister.”

Like... why? I cringe when I think about actually having said that aloud. But it’s okay because friends we started, friends we remain. It seems I've been remembering and laughing at my embarrassing blunders from the past more often since I’ve been in Ghana away from the places I make silly decisions.


I hope I haven't cursed my luck now that I've put out into the universe that I consider Ghana the place I don't make silly decisions. (There I go getting into trouble saying things out loud again.) Maybe I should keep more things to myself.

Spitting, Urinating and Laughing "Soo Much"

Last week while in a tro-tro, Lauren and I were reminiscing with her friend McKell about McKell's first few days in Ghana. McKell is a Mormon from Utah who opted to delay graduation from college at age 20 by spending four months volunteering independently at an orphanage in Cape Coast, Ghana. Lauren had met McKell at church and invited her to the local minor league football game that afternoon with us. We sat on the bleachers about five rows up behind one of the goals; Lauren and McKell were on my left and on my right were eight kids all about 10 years old.

When the game ended the three of us stayed seated to let the bulk of the crowd leave the stadium first. The kids next to me decided to wait out the crowd too. Conversation lulled and we were watching the fans shuffle slowly to the exits. One of the kids hacked some phlegm in his throat and spit at the ground. As my eyes lingered on the pool of spit, I said, "That.. was some pretty good leverage!" The statement seemed to crescendo with admiration; I turned to Lauren, who had been in Ghana for the same amount of time as I had. "I was thinking the SAME THING!" We laughed at ourselves for being unphased by their eradication of body waste in public, a commonality of Ghana’s culture that had caught us off-guard the first few occasions we had witnessed such acts. We found most of the humor in the fact that we were not only unphased but were admiring the level of skill with which this boy could spit. We didn't even have to look at McKell to know how she would respond to the scene - we had been there, jaws ajar, two months earlier.

From that memory we branched into McKell's realization, after a month of being in Ghana, she had grown to appreciate when the men who urinated in the street would aim away from people’s view. How courteous of them! she would think to herself. Then McKell told me her and Lauren's most recent experience urinating outside.

Lauren and McKell organized a two-day series of competitions between the two villages in which they had been performing their public health outreach. While watching the two villages play each other in football, they realized they both had to pee. They asked a young man Lauren knew named Sammy to show them where they could use the washroom. He first showed them to an enclosure that, from their description, sounded nothing like an enclosed area. They stared from him to the enclosure and back at him as if he was joking, then laughed at how anyone thought this scenario was any different from urinating into the sewers, as so many Ghanaians are keen on doing. They asked Sammy to show them another place; he guided them into a grove and waited at the entrance while Lauren and McKell walked farther into the grove for more privacy. When they finished they returned to Sammy. They were laughing about the situation and all of a sudden Sammy interjected and told McKell, who believes he singled her out because her laugh is louder than Lauren's, that she laughs too much.

"What’s wrong with that?" McKell asked, not knowing whether to continue laughing.
"You laugh so much," Sammy repeated. Whenever any Ghanaian says “so much,” they draw out the “so” for emphasis. "If you marry a Ghanaian you will have to stop laughing."
McKell shot Lauren a glance. "Why?" she challenged.
"Because he wouldn't like it. And you must do what your husband tells you to do. If he says you need to stop laughing, you must stop laughing, or else he will take you to court."
"To court?" McKell repeated, bewildered.
"Yes, he will take you to court."
"Well, I like laughing and I don't plan on marrying someone who doesn't like that I laugh a lot." She paused, "Sammy, do you not like that I laugh all the time?"
"No! No, no no!" He assured her. "I like very much when you laugh. You are very good at laughing!"

Story time ended when our tro-tro arrived at Gynkabo. Lauren, McKell and I served as the judges of the talent show and drama competition between the two villages Gynkabo and Frami. Highlife music was the conclusion to the performances - everyone young and old from the two villages was dancing happily in the town square. Lauren, McKell and I were waiting passively for a tro-tro to pass through town so we could head back to Cape Coast. Sammy, who did not strike me as a condemner of laughing, was engaging me in small talk while we watched Lauren and McKell were dancing/jumping and taking pictures with about 20 children.

"McKell cannot dance!" Sammy exclaimed.
I laughed. "She looks like she's having fun, though."

We watched them dance some more and then I told him the story McKell told me and asked him to explain why it's considered a bad thing for people to laugh too often.

"People sometimes choose to not laugh so much because they want to be taken seriously. And sometimes you could laugh at something you think is funny and someone else thinks you laughing at them."
"Oh, I see." I looked back across the street at the dancing. My eyes fell on a toddler gyrating to the beat by herself. I've decided that no matter how long I live in Ghana I will always be impressed by the way Ghanaians seem to be born with the ability to move to any rhythm.

Still watching the toddler, I showed Sammy I understood by repeating his views in my own way, (although heavily adapted - I have to adapt my speech constantly): "Too much confusion can happen with too much laughing." I hoped he understood what I meant by that more than I did.

The teenagers who performed Frami's skit paraded in front of Sammy and I in a dance line down the middle of the street, the leader of the line with the prize Lauren and McKell had bought and I had presented to their town leader for earning second place in the village competition. He held it over his head, still in its wrapping paper. They had so much pride in their second place prize, it made me wonder what they thought was inside the wrapping paper. I was curious what their response would be when they opened the gift and saw it was only a plastic container of candy.

Lauren and McKell had crossed the street and were dancing over to Sammy and me. I joined them and began dancing down the middle of the street as if we were all part of a musical and the show would end with Lauren, McKell and I dancing back to Cape Coast, disappearing around the road's curve and into the dusk.

Baby on the Tro

Part of my job is to visit the different projects to see our volunteers and NGO partners in action. Yesterday I went with two of our volunteers to a talent show and drama competition in Gynkabo, the community in which one of our volunteers had been performing health outreach for the past three months.

I will describe the experience in a later entry, but I want to first address what happened after the Gynkabo community events.

Lauren, our 3-month volunteer from Utah and one of my most favorite people I've met in Ghana, is leaving next weekend. She wanted to go to Kakum National Park to spend the night at the canopy walk as her last-weekend-festivity. I opted out because I wasn't in the camping outside mood and had already enjoyed spending the day with Lauren. After the talent show, drama competition and presentation of prizes to the communities of Gynkabo and Frami, which put us at about 6:30 p.m., Lauren, McKell and I waved down a tro-tro and headed back to Cape Coast.

Lauren and McKell told the mate they wanted out at Kakum National Park. We joked about how embarrassing it was that they were getting off at Kakum, considering most Ghanaians assume that because we're white (and therefore we are tourists, not volunteers or expats working in Ghana) we want to go to Kakum. Lauren and McKell were telling me that every time they walk to a taxi/tro-tro station to go to Gynkabo for their outreach, which is past Kakum, people shout at them, "Kakum?" They think to themselves, Um, no we're doing outreach in a rural village and they all call us by our names instead of "obroni" and say we're their Ghanaian sisters. It's difficult to describe the pride you begin to feel as a long-term volunteer - most of the volunteers and expats I've worked with and met have considered it borderline offensive to be called a tourist.

When the mate told the driver to stop at Kakum's entrance, I had to get out of the tro-tro first to let Lauren and McKell out. As I was hugging Lauren goodbye and wishing them a fun night, the tro-tro began to leave. I ran after it and yelled, "Hey! WAIT!" and banged on the side of the tro-tro. I stayed with the tro for a few seconds but then it accelerated. It was almost dark out and the mate didn't seem to see or hear me but I think the other passengers noticed I was chasing the van and told the driver to stop. I don't know why the mate told the driver to leave. I know it wasn't because I was taking too much time saying goodbye to Lauren and McKell because the tro took off literally as soon as we all got out. I hadn't paid the mate for the ride yet either so I don't know why he thought I was going with Lauren and McKell, besides the fact that we were sitting and talking together.

The tro-tro finally stopped about 25 meters ahead and reversed back to me. I hopped in, with Lauren and McKell still at the Kakum entrance probably laughing at our collective misfortunes as foreigners, and heard the driver talking rapidly in Fante or Twi to the mate and a couple other passengers muttering to each other and I figured it was because of what had just happened, seeing that the ride was silent before, besides Lauren, McKell and me. I couldn't tell if everyone was angry at me or the mate or the driver, but then the woman next to me told me, "Sorry." I like that about the Ghanaian culture; when a local tries to blatantly rip you off, sometimes another Ghanaian comes to the rescue, as if to salvage our perception of Ghana and its people. Each time this has happened to me I've noticed it is a woman who apologizes or corrects on her people's behalf.

The ride from Cape Coast to Gynkabo only took 45 minutes, but our ride back to Cape Coast took an hour and a half because of all the people we picked up along the way. Shortly after I got back into the tro, a woman with a baby and man got inside. The woman sat next to me and kept her baby on her lap, which I thought was strange considering most mothers use beautiful fabric to wrap their babies and toddlers onto the small of their backs. They don't take the babies out of the back wrap even when they're sitting in taxis or tros; they simply sit on the edge of their seats.

I assumed the reason the baby was on its mother's lap was because the mother was nursing. It was dark and the baby was wrapped generously with fabric so I couldn't get a sideways glance to confirm my assumption. Several times throughout the ride I heard the woman's baby making noises resembling a snorting sound and assumed his or her nasal passage was clogged up or that the baby had sucked the mother's milk too quickly. After each snorting session the mother would say something in Fante or Twi to her child. I noticed that the woman sitting on my left, the one who apologized for the driver almost leaving me at Kakum, would always cock a sideways glance at the woman and child when the mother would say something. I wondered what the mother was saying that drew such blatant attention from other passengers.

About half an hour later we got to Abura, a suburb of Cape Coast. The mother and child and the man they entered with got out. As soon as the mate gave the sliding door a good slam, the woman on my left told me, "Her baby is about to die. She is on her way to the hospital." Everything I said ("Really? Dying? I just thought her baby was having a hard time sleeping. That's awful." followed by a dumbfounded stare and ajar mouth) and everything I could have said would have made me sound like an idiot. We had been bumper-to-bumper in traffic for the past 20 minutes before the mother and child and I'm assuming the father got out - I couldn't imagine having to bring my deathly sick child to the hospital via public transportation. I thought of the time I got a phone call at home six years ago from a man who was with my father when he had had a sudden cardiac death at a local soccer complex and how I drove like a maniac to the hospital 45 minutes away and I was lucky I didn't cause an accident or get pulled over.

I hope the baby is alright. I hope no one with a sick child has to use public transportation to get to a hospital.

I'm sad that my hopes may be too much.