A few months ago I read an article in The Ghanaian Times about a young Ghanaian woman, Obaa Yaa, who vowed to commit suicide if Black Stars and Sunderland striker Asamoah Gyan didn’t marry her by Christmas. This woman from Accra claimed she fell in love with Gyan “because of his footballing prowess, his rapping ability and his dancing skill.” Yaa used a local radio station as a platform for her plea: “Brother Asamoah, please I want to tell you that I want to marry you by this December. If you don’t marry me I will kill myself.” She stated, “I like his hair style, the colour of his skin make me fall in love with him. I am having sleepless nights over this so I want him to rescue me by this December.”
If only love was that simple.
But no! How horrible that would be! What a mess we’d be in if people fell in love for superficial reasons such as one’s hair or skin color or physical abilities! What if we had billions of romantically deranged people like this Accra woman running around searching for husbands and wives?
The skin color thing bothers me most. Ghanaians have told me on numerous occasions that I am beautiful. As a foreign female, I am used to it, but it literally staggers me when they say my skin color is the reason. My skin color makes me beautiful? I've heard the same thing being told to other white foreigners, so I know it's not my particular skin tone - it truly is my color that they are referring to. On top of that, a few women have told me wearing earrings makes a woman beautiful! What is going on, here?! Forget the push for self-worth/identity workshops and campaigns in America – bring them to Ghana, bring them to Africa!
To no surprise of visitors of developing nations, most Ghanaians (usually men) are appalled to learn that I am unmarried at age 24. “No husband? Why!” To which I respond, “Marriage is not on my mind right now.” When they ask why, I remind them (or possibly teach them?) that you have to be in love with someone in order to marry, and I am not in love with anyone.
“Then I will marry you!”
“But you don’t even know my name!”
When I tell them I have no children, well, it’s the most outrageous thing they’ve ever heard. When I make small talk, I usually ask if the person has a family (most tend to light up at this question). A majority of the people I've asked has children but no spouse. I’ve learned it is very important to Ghanaians to have a child to carry on their personal legacies. If a Ghanaian dies and has no children to speak of, it is viewed as an especially unfortunate death.
“I can give you child!”
“I don’t want one right now and…I don’t know who you are, but thanks?”
Not too long ago a kid less than 10 years old barefoot in torn clothes sitting on top of an abandoned bus across the street yelled at me, “HEY! WHITE LADY! I LIKE YOUR HAIR COLOR! WILL YOU MARRY ME?”
Hair color.. hm. I'll take that over skin color any day.
Monday, February 28, 2011
Saturday, February 19, 2011
Assumptions About Smokers
It’s rare to see a Ghanaian smoking, as most locals regard the habit disrespectful and hazardous. I find it ironic the majority of the Ghanaian population is intolerant of smokers because they are concerned with the unhealthy side effects but either don’t know or don’t care about the environmental hazards of burning trash, littering and not recycling. How are they not also concerned with the lack of sanitation caused by those who defecate on the beaches and urinate in town gutters and do not wash their hands? Are these habits not hazardous to inhabitants’ health as well?
When a Ghanaian smokes, he is pegged as a troublemaker. Many Ghanaians cast a blind eye when foreigners jive with cultural norms; I can’t explain why I feel this is quite unfortunate. Yet, foreigners are not above this unspoken societal standard and should refrain from smoking in public.
On several occasions I’ve been “taught” by forward-thinking Ghanaians that foreigners who smoke do so to keep warm in their home countries, and the habit just sticks when they come to Ghana. A fellow expat once told me Ghanaians look down on Ghanaians who smoke because it’s understood that smoking is an expensive habit, and if Ghanaian smokers have the means to continually carry out that habit, it is assumed by their peers they must be acquiring the money inauthentically.
This particular expatriate acquaintance has a track record of assuming things about Ghanaians and their culture. Besides disagreeing with this ridiculous generalization, I disagree with the theory altogether. First, the dirt-poor citizens of any village or city in Ghana do not smoke. They are either walking along the streets or between cars at stoplights, selling anything from plantain chips to soccer balls, or they are wandering the streets barefooted and aimless, usually half-dressed in dusty dirty rags. They are far from consumed by the desire to score a cigarette off someone. Yes, the ones who smoke and can afford to smoke are in the middle and upper classes, which of course does not automatically guarantee they are buying smokes legally, but also does not mean they are stealing cigarettes or acquiring money for them in a questionable manner.
Using Cape Coast as an example, it seems there is equal representation in each social class. Let’s examine the prevailing appearance of the middle and upper class: The men’s clothes are ironed, pressed, tucked-in shirts, collars, belts, no stains and no dirt. Many have not just one but two cell phones. If you go to town or the University of Cape Coast campus or the lively suburb Abura, you will find most men clean-shaven with little head hair, some men in their 20s and 30s with ear buds or a USB stick on a lanyard hanging around their neck, leather sandals, Chuck Taylors or Keds, briefcase over shoulder, walking briskly. Some men grow out one or more nails. I've been told they do this because it's considered stylish; my guess is it also shows they don’t have to work with their hands, which signifies they have an “intelligent prestigious job.” As for the upper class women in these areas of Cape Coast? Monthly new wigs, sometimes makeup, sometimes painted nails, gold jewelry, heels, driving their own car or walking independently without their husbands escorting them.
My point is, if middle or upper class Ghanaians want to buy a pack of smokes, they can. They can do it legally. Ghana is not your commonly projected "children are starving and HIV/AIDS is everywhere" African country, especially the cities of Cape Coast, Kumasi, Takoradi and Accra. Sure, there are villages with children wearing nothing but dirty underwear and flies buzzing around their open cuts, but as a whole, Ghana is far more progressive than some foreigners give it credit for, regardless of whether they've ever set foot on its soil. Visitors and expatriates need to work on talking less loosely about cultures they do not try to understand.
When a Ghanaian smokes, he is pegged as a troublemaker. Many Ghanaians cast a blind eye when foreigners jive with cultural norms; I can’t explain why I feel this is quite unfortunate. Yet, foreigners are not above this unspoken societal standard and should refrain from smoking in public.
On several occasions I’ve been “taught” by forward-thinking Ghanaians that foreigners who smoke do so to keep warm in their home countries, and the habit just sticks when they come to Ghana. A fellow expat once told me Ghanaians look down on Ghanaians who smoke because it’s understood that smoking is an expensive habit, and if Ghanaian smokers have the means to continually carry out that habit, it is assumed by their peers they must be acquiring the money inauthentically.
This particular expatriate acquaintance has a track record of assuming things about Ghanaians and their culture. Besides disagreeing with this ridiculous generalization, I disagree with the theory altogether. First, the dirt-poor citizens of any village or city in Ghana do not smoke. They are either walking along the streets or between cars at stoplights, selling anything from plantain chips to soccer balls, or they are wandering the streets barefooted and aimless, usually half-dressed in dusty dirty rags. They are far from consumed by the desire to score a cigarette off someone. Yes, the ones who smoke and can afford to smoke are in the middle and upper classes, which of course does not automatically guarantee they are buying smokes legally, but also does not mean they are stealing cigarettes or acquiring money for them in a questionable manner.
Using Cape Coast as an example, it seems there is equal representation in each social class. Let’s examine the prevailing appearance of the middle and upper class: The men’s clothes are ironed, pressed, tucked-in shirts, collars, belts, no stains and no dirt. Many have not just one but two cell phones. If you go to town or the University of Cape Coast campus or the lively suburb Abura, you will find most men clean-shaven with little head hair, some men in their 20s and 30s with ear buds or a USB stick on a lanyard hanging around their neck, leather sandals, Chuck Taylors or Keds, briefcase over shoulder, walking briskly. Some men grow out one or more nails. I've been told they do this because it's considered stylish; my guess is it also shows they don’t have to work with their hands, which signifies they have an “intelligent prestigious job.” As for the upper class women in these areas of Cape Coast? Monthly new wigs, sometimes makeup, sometimes painted nails, gold jewelry, heels, driving their own car or walking independently without their husbands escorting them.
My point is, if middle or upper class Ghanaians want to buy a pack of smokes, they can. They can do it legally. Ghana is not your commonly projected "children are starving and HIV/AIDS is everywhere" African country, especially the cities of Cape Coast, Kumasi, Takoradi and Accra. Sure, there are villages with children wearing nothing but dirty underwear and flies buzzing around their open cuts, but as a whole, Ghana is far more progressive than some foreigners give it credit for, regardless of whether they've ever set foot on its soil. Visitors and expatriates need to work on talking less loosely about cultures they do not try to understand.
Monday, February 14, 2011
Valentine's Day in Ghana: Ghanaians are Geysers
A couple weeks ago one of my best friends asked in an e-mail, “Do they celebrate Valentine’s Day in Africa? It seems like they should be above a holiday like that.”
At first I didn’t know what she meant. Even today, Valentine’s Day, I’m still pondering. I understood the “above a holiday like that” part. We all know Hallmark Day – excuse me, Valentine’s Day – is a marketing ploy for emotional saps. Shouldn’t we celebrate the magic of being in love every day? Shouldn’t we all be “above” this holiday?
But I couldn’t wrap my mind around why “they” (Africans?) should be above Valentine’s Day. To be fair, I don’t think she gave much thought to this idea. Yet it made me wonder what the American society really thinks of Africa.
That was another part of her question that threw me off. Many of my friends and family and most our volunteers make the mistake of grouping Ghana with the other 52 countries that make up Africa. Each country has a different culture, climate, religion, government, economy, languages, and social and health problems. Africa is a continent.
The NGO I work for provides community development projects for international volunteers. During the pre-program contact with the volunteers, sometimes a worried mother takes over their child’s e-mails. One of those mothers wasn’t able to reach Kirsty because she had been on holiday, so she e-mailed our marketing department asking for another way to reach her. Someone from the marketing department forwarded the mother’s e-mail to both me and Kirsty. I believe the third paragraph started with: “My daughter arrives in Africa in four weeks and I have not yet heard from…” In Africa, you say? Where exactly, may we ask, in Africa? Jesus, woman, it’s like grouping the states with Canada and Mexico.
Maybe I’m overreacting. I’ve noticed especially in recent months that I feel strongly compelled to defend Ghana’s culture to the ignorant and to the ethnocentric. Perhaps the most unnerving thing is when foreigners think they are helping the economy by giving out money. There is a time and place for charity. That’s all I’m going to say about that. Unfortunately, I butted heads with my dad on this subject frequently while he visited in November.
I’ve bit my tongue too often in the presence of expatriates who have been in Ghana for 5, 10, 15+ years yet have unthinkably foul attitudes toward Ghanaians. I feel more comfortable defending Ghana to Ghanaians - it's lighthearted and I eventually get them to agree with me. It’s not so much that these native individuals don’t like Ghana, but rather they would like to try living somewhere else. The corruption, the education system and the lateness are the three elements of Ghanaian culture that unnerve the educated locals whose beliefs reflect the “grass is greener on the other side” theory. The less educated “grass is greener on the other side” party have fittingly less reasonable acumen for wanting to live elsewhere: “Because Obama lives there!” and “I want to marry a white woman!” are my personal favorites.
Sans doubt, I’ve grown more and more intolerant of culturally insensitive people since I’ve been in Ghana.
But back to hearts and and cupids and smooching and L-O-V-E love. (Any "Friends" fans out there? Best episode there ever was.)
Valentine's Day was more apparent in Accra than in Cape Coast. I was in Accra last weekend to pick up a volunteer from the airport and had some free time so I ran some errands at the Accra shopping mall, a true step outside of Ghana no matter the occasion. However, last weekend I felt like my body had been transported back to the states. Roses, exotic plants and balloons for sale in the hallway, fiery red and devious black lingerie hanging in shop windows and baskets of candies and small teddy bears at the bookstore cashier. A little slice of home, it was.
I wasn't surprised to learn that Ghanaians do, in fact, celebrate Valentine's Day. After all, Valentine's Day is simply an excuse for everyone to devote one day of undivided attention to our love lives, which works out perfectly with a culture of men who regularly post Facebook statuses like: "my future wife should get ready !! course i want four strong kids.....lol...... where are you !! still looking to find you!!!!" (Sorry, Facebook friend, if you're reading this. To each his own.)
Ghanaians are latently and overtly sexual at the same time. What I find most beautiful, most attractive about Ghanaians is the grace with which they hold themselves; the confidence, the poise, the alluring movements. Ghanaian sexuality is perhaps most comparable to a geyser. Yes! That's it. They're all geysers - hot springs periodically erupting, emitting a forceful burst of water into the sky.
Geyers are very rare, though. I've read that three components must be present for geysers to exist: an abundant supply of water, an intense source of heat and unique plumbing. Returning to the metaphor, I'd say the three mandatory components that must be present for Ghanaians' sexuality to be conjured include: traditional music, highlife music and something that might sound like music.
Happy Valentine's Day from Ghana!
At first I didn’t know what she meant. Even today, Valentine’s Day, I’m still pondering. I understood the “above a holiday like that” part. We all know Hallmark Day – excuse me, Valentine’s Day – is a marketing ploy for emotional saps. Shouldn’t we celebrate the magic of being in love every day? Shouldn’t we all be “above” this holiday?
But I couldn’t wrap my mind around why “they” (Africans?) should be above Valentine’s Day. To be fair, I don’t think she gave much thought to this idea. Yet it made me wonder what the American society really thinks of Africa.
That was another part of her question that threw me off. Many of my friends and family and most our volunteers make the mistake of grouping Ghana with the other 52 countries that make up Africa. Each country has a different culture, climate, religion, government, economy, languages, and social and health problems. Africa is a continent.
The NGO I work for provides community development projects for international volunteers. During the pre-program contact with the volunteers, sometimes a worried mother takes over their child’s e-mails. One of those mothers wasn’t able to reach Kirsty because she had been on holiday, so she e-mailed our marketing department asking for another way to reach her. Someone from the marketing department forwarded the mother’s e-mail to both me and Kirsty. I believe the third paragraph started with: “My daughter arrives in Africa in four weeks and I have not yet heard from…” In Africa, you say? Where exactly, may we ask, in Africa? Jesus, woman, it’s like grouping the states with Canada and Mexico.
Maybe I’m overreacting. I’ve noticed especially in recent months that I feel strongly compelled to defend Ghana’s culture to the ignorant and to the ethnocentric. Perhaps the most unnerving thing is when foreigners think they are helping the economy by giving out money. There is a time and place for charity. That’s all I’m going to say about that. Unfortunately, I butted heads with my dad on this subject frequently while he visited in November.
I’ve bit my tongue too often in the presence of expatriates who have been in Ghana for 5, 10, 15+ years yet have unthinkably foul attitudes toward Ghanaians. I feel more comfortable defending Ghana to Ghanaians - it's lighthearted and I eventually get them to agree with me. It’s not so much that these native individuals don’t like Ghana, but rather they would like to try living somewhere else. The corruption, the education system and the lateness are the three elements of Ghanaian culture that unnerve the educated locals whose beliefs reflect the “grass is greener on the other side” theory. The less educated “grass is greener on the other side” party have fittingly less reasonable acumen for wanting to live elsewhere: “Because Obama lives there!” and “I want to marry a white woman!” are my personal favorites.
Sans doubt, I’ve grown more and more intolerant of culturally insensitive people since I’ve been in Ghana.
But back to hearts and and cupids and smooching and L-O-V-E love. (Any "Friends" fans out there? Best episode there ever was.)
Valentine's Day was more apparent in Accra than in Cape Coast. I was in Accra last weekend to pick up a volunteer from the airport and had some free time so I ran some errands at the Accra shopping mall, a true step outside of Ghana no matter the occasion. However, last weekend I felt like my body had been transported back to the states. Roses, exotic plants and balloons for sale in the hallway, fiery red and devious black lingerie hanging in shop windows and baskets of candies and small teddy bears at the bookstore cashier. A little slice of home, it was.
I wasn't surprised to learn that Ghanaians do, in fact, celebrate Valentine's Day. After all, Valentine's Day is simply an excuse for everyone to devote one day of undivided attention to our love lives, which works out perfectly with a culture of men who regularly post Facebook statuses like: "my future wife should get ready !! course i want four strong kids.....lol...... where are you !! still looking to find you!!!!" (Sorry, Facebook friend, if you're reading this. To each his own.)
Ghanaians are latently and overtly sexual at the same time. What I find most beautiful, most attractive about Ghanaians is the grace with which they hold themselves; the confidence, the poise, the alluring movements. Ghanaian sexuality is perhaps most comparable to a geyser. Yes! That's it. They're all geysers - hot springs periodically erupting, emitting a forceful burst of water into the sky.
Geyers are very rare, though. I've read that three components must be present for geysers to exist: an abundant supply of water, an intense source of heat and unique plumbing. Returning to the metaphor, I'd say the three mandatory components that must be present for Ghanaians' sexuality to be conjured include: traditional music, highlife music and something that might sound like music.
Happy Valentine's Day from Ghana!
Sunday, February 13, 2011
Can't Be Bothered (Morning and Afternoon Episode)
Waking in my hotel room in Accra was probably one of the few mornings in Ghana I haven’t risen to brooms sweeping, roosters crowing, dogs barking, goats “merrhhing,” drummers drumming, the sun blinding, heat invading, neighbors quarreling, colleagues knocking, radios blaring or mosques “AHHUUUUMMMMNNNNAAAA” -ing. This morning, my only waking force was my measly cell phone alarm.
A group from New York University, comprised of 13 graduate and undergraduate students and one professor, had been volunteering with a HIV/AIDS outreach project in Cape Coast through our NGO for two weeks. They were ending their trip with a tour of Accra, the capital. Tettey, a guide from a tour agency to which we outsourced, was in charge of them and I was along for the ride to make sure their transition from Accra to home went smoothly. All went well until the group’s last night in Accra. Upon return from our day tour, one of the volunteers discovered $80 had been taken from her room. (For a dramatic buildup, read my previous post.)
The volunteer group was scheduled to leave the hotel the next day at 5 a.m. for the airport, and the stolen money mystery hadn’t been resolved yet. Therefore, I offered to continue trying to get to the bottom of the case on Yvonne’s behalf. Not my mandate, but I would want someone to do the same for me. Tettey and I rode with the group in the bus to the airport. After saying goodbye to the group, I collected Yvonne’s contact information in case it was needed for the police report. I told her we would wire the money to her account if we recovered it.
The bus driver dropped Tettey and I off at Lake Botsumtwi Hotel. We had a few hours until the owner said he would come to the hotel to sort out the stolen money issue, so I went back to my room and Tettey went into a volunteer’s room and we slept. We had agreed to meet at 8:30 a.m. at the outdoor patio for breakfast. Tettey wasn't there yet so I found a table under the shade and watched the football game across the street.
"I am leaving," a voice said from behind me.
It was Gracie, the receptionist Yvonne and I had talked to for hours the previous night. She had given me a strange vibe for being immoderately loose-lipped about why she thought it was Naomi, the cleaning lady, who stole the money.
"You are finished for the day?" I asked.
"No, I work again tonight." She was standing on the other side of the patio fence.
"Ah, the morning and night shifts, I see."
"You will call me when you figure out everything? I want to know how things turn out for your friend," she said.
"Sure, I can do that." No reason not to. "What's your number?"
She gave me her number and wished me luck, then crossed the street to the nearest fruit vendor. I watched her for a few minutes, pondering the possibility of her being the one who stole Yvonne's money and how heavy her conscious would be after making friends with both Yvonne and me. Tettey interrupted my thoughts when he brushed by my shoulder and sat in the opposite chair.
When we finished eating, Tettey called his boss, an African-American woman based in Accra, to explain the situation. He hung up and shook his head and chuckled in a low tone.
“She said I should have called her last night and she would have come to the hotel with half the money and you could have gotten the other half and we both could have given it to the volunteer. That way the volunteer wouldn’t have left for the U.S. without her money.”
“But we can’t guarantee we’re getting back her money. What if we can’t get it back and we had done what your boss said? We both would’ve been giving money away when we shouldn’t have,” I said. “Not to mention that our NGO is not liable for any theft that happens to our volunteers. I’m not sure if your company would be.. or should be liable either.”
Tettey didn’t say anything. That was pretty presumptuous, I thought, of Tettey’s boss to think I would pay half of Yvonne’s stolen money, let alone to assume I even had 56 extra cedis on me. (80 USD = 112 GHC)
Finally, the owner arrived. Tettey said, “You see? He drives a nice car. He has extra money to give to us.” We can’t just ask for 112 cedis...but I think Yvonne and Tettey expect me to, I thought. I was advised by my boss and Gracie, the hotel front desk receptionist, that I should threaten to file a police report. They both believed the owner wouldn’t want to go through the humiliation of a public complaint of a police report, which would make him more willing to cough up the money. I just needed to act like I was going to ruffle his hair.
When I met Mr. Charles, the owner, I quickly learned there was no hair to ruffle. One, he is bald. And two, he was completely fine with filing a police report. More than fine, in fact.
“We will find out who did this and make them pay the consequences. Believe me, whoever did this will be locked away. They will not see the light of day again.”
Damn, really? I didn’t want anyone going to jail over this. I didn't think Yvonne wanted that either. All I was hoping for was to get the money back and whoever stole the money to never work at a hotel again.
“Mr. Charles, is there any way your hotel staff can be held responsible for this instead of the police?” I was getting frustrated with the prospect of the matter changing hands yet again. “Maybe a portion of the 112 cedis can be subtracted from the salaries of the three staff members who had access to the rooms? You could do this over a couple months until one of them confides?” I asked.
“Oh, are you now sure it was one of my staff who stole the money?” his voice boomed in the narrow and long, heavily-air-conditioned room. I looked at Tettey, sitting on the couch opposite my sofa chair, next to the manager who was working the night before. He looked vastly uncomfortable. By the manager’s furtive glances from the floor to me whenever I spoke, I gathered he didn’t want to be in the room either, although his arm draped over the back of the couch indicated differently. “Let me tell you something,” the owner continued.
It seemed he had sniffed out my indirect request for money. Several minutes dragged on as he ambushed our eardrums about how he would be out of business if he compensated each guest who complained of theft. Tettey was hunched over with his elbows on his knees and his fingers interlaced on the back of his neck. I guess he isn’t a fan of getting yelled at by a massive and violently passionate Ghanaian man either. The owner did not seem like the same man I spoke to on the phone the night before, fumbling and bumbling, "Madam, please, I apologize for the inconvience of this situation."
Tettey and I had to ask the owner to calm down several times throughout his rant. Not able to hide my surging anger about his rudeness any longer, I shouted over him, “WHY ARE YOU YELLING?” I hoped my blunt "challenge" made him realize how unprofessional it was to yell at a guest - an upset one, at that.
“You. You are American, hmm?” the owner asked me in a slightly lowered voice.
Not normally being pegged as an American upon first glance, I assumed the manager had briefed the owner, having remembered that detail about me when we first met.
“Yes,” I replied evenly.
He slammed his fist on his desk; sending Tettey and I out of our skins. “Then you know! You know a hotel is not liable to cover the stolen items of its guests! Any hotel in America is like that. You must know that. You should be ashamed of yourself for even suggesting that we would give you money just because it went missing.”
“Look,” I said plainly, putting both my hands up in defense. “I'm sorry for suggesting that your hotel give me 112 cedis. I understand you are handling this situation to the best of your ability, and I appreciate you taking time to help us out. I have worked in the hotel industry before, which gives me even more reason to have known better. You're right, in the U.S. hotels do not hand out money whenever something goes missing. However - " pausing briefly, " - many hotels do give some other form of compensation for the inconvenience. Now, I don't know what we could come up with as compensation in this case, since all the room arrangements were prepaid. But, my point is that I was simply trying. I was trying to get something back for our volunteer. Because she has already left for America, I was given the task to fight for her. So that is what I am doing." The owner's face had softened and he nodded while muttering "okay" repeatedly when I had finished.
"Yes, I know you are just doing your job," he said in a normal voice.
I decided to push my luck with his calmed state. "Also, my volunteer said she did not appreciate how the issue was handled last night."
"Last night? That means she was not happy with him," the owner said, smiling and pointing to the manager on the couch.
"That's right," I said. The owner laughed. I looked at the manager, "She said it didn't seem like you were very concerned at all."
There was nothing we could do about that now, though. I knew the manager didn't care about this complaint, I knew he wouldn't take it into consideration the next time he had to handle a guest's problem, and I knew the owner didn't care about this complaint either. To be honest, I didn't agree with Yvonne's complaint anyway. The manager did what he was supposed to - he called in the cleaning lady to testify. (In retrospect, he should have also asked the female receptionist Gracie to testify as well as the daytime boy receptionist.) The manager was required to take action; he was not required to act like he cared. Ha! Maybe I've been in Ghana too long. Regardless, this is the first and major learning component of Ghanaian management.
"Okay, you will go to the police now?" the owner asked me. "I've called in Naomi, the cleaning lady, she is in the lobby waiting to go to the police station with you."
"Just Naomi?" I asked.
"Yes. Is there someone else who could have done it?"
"Well, Gracie, your receptionist was working yesterday. I thought it was very strange that she was so willing to tell me and Yvonne such secretive things about Naomi, as if she was trying to get her into trouble."
"What things?" asked the owner, his brows furrowed.
Gracie had asked me not to mention to the owner or manager that she had spoken about Naomi. "She asked me not to say anything..." I drifted off, smiling at the owner and then Tettey out of discomfort.
"Maame," Tettey said softly.
I decided I didn't owe anything to Gracie, especially considering the possibility that she was the guilty one.
"Okay, she said Naomi has stolen from guests before and the manager, you, Kwame," I looked at his habitually bored face, "you knew about it but never did anything about it because you and Naomi are friends."
The owner and manager smirked. I paused, waiting for an actual response. I didn't hear any.
"Then she said she and the boy receptionist couldn't have possibly taken the money because as a front desk clerk, you must never leave the front desk, so how could she or he have had time to go into each room and look through everyone's bags for money?"
All three men burst out in various exclamations and readjusted their sitting positions. I looked at Tettey, who I had noticed the previous night was scanning Gracie and shaking his head whenever she made an interjection. It seemed he thought what I had said confirmed his suspicions.
"My dear, the receptionists go into every room!" said the owner, leaning forward in his chair. "It is part of their job to personally check each room that has been cleaned."
I was stunned. How did I not think of this? I knew I should have trusted my gut instinct when she gave me that bullshit excuse for why it couldn't have been the receptionist! I was annoyed at myself for not realizing the check-and-balance system ensuring clean hotel rooms could have been different at a smaller hotel.
"Kwame, tell Joseph to get Gracie on the line. Tell her to come to the hotel immediately," the owner said to the manager.
Turns out Gracie's phone was off. Had she been suspecting that her bosses would eventually realize she was equally as guilty as Naomi? The owner told the boy receptionist to keep calling Gracie until she answered. Meanwhile, Kwame, his brother who is also a manager and has an unfortunate stuttering problem in both English and Ga, scowl-faced Naomi, Tettey and I all squeezed into Kwame's car and drove a few minutes down the road to the Osu Police Station. I don't know why we didn't think to take the boy receptionist with us, but it all shook out in the end.
The entire ride I was tickled with amusement that the accuser (Yvonne via me) was wedged arm-to-arm with the accused (Naomi). Reminded me of the time when about 20 minutes into a tro-tro ride I looked to my left and noticed the guy next to me was a police officer and the guy next to him was in handcuffs. It's funny to think of all the things I see on a daily basis in Ghana that would never fly in the U.S.
We parked outside the station and walked inside the lobby. The male and female jail cells were about 15 feet behind the front desk! Both cells were small, maybe about a five by six yard box. The floors were cement and the bars provided a two by seven yard window to the station's lobby. The male cell was on the left, packed with seven hooting and hollering 20- to 30-somethings, the loudest only wearing white boxers adorned with red and green Christmas trees. They were all barefoot and wearing what appeared to be their own clothes. The female cell seemed to be empty. I moved to the right for a (hopefully inconspicuous) better look inside. A body was curled on the floor in the front left corner, her feet bare. Above the male cell a white sheet of regular printing paper stuck to the pale yellow wall, bearing "MALE CELL" bubble letters colored in crayon. Not a single letter was the same color. I squinted my eyes - no, that can't be - op, yep, that is definitely a pencil-traced line underneath the bubble letters. Gotta keep the letters straight.
"Yes?" asked the man in a police uniform stationed at the front desk.
"Hello, we want to file a police report and turn in a suspect."
The man whipped a paper from his desk onto the countertop. Noticing someone had written on the top already, he drew a line through it and instructed me to write the date, my name, nationality, phone number and purpose of my visit. When I finished, Tettey, who had been watching me, reminded me to indicate that it was not to me the crime had happened. I nodded and made a note, then smiled at him, appreciating he was there with me.
"Just another Monday on the job, isn't it, Tettey?"
He laughed.
"Bet you've never thought your job would take you to the police station, did you?"
"Oh ho, please, no!" he replied, still laughing and shaking his head.
"Oye! Charlie! You-who! Charlie! Over here!"
I turned from Tettey to the male cell. In Ghana, "Charlie" (pronounced Chah-lay) means "friend."
The man who had been shouting was looking at me.
"You give me five cedi for when I get out, okay? Okay, Charlie?"
I smiled. "Sorry, I don't have that much myself." It was true. I had spent all but three cedis of my personal money - I just had my organization's money to use to get home.
"Oh, Charlie!"
The man at the front desk took the paper and then asked Naomi to step behind the counter and sit on the bench against the wall, where two other accused suspects were sitting. She hadn't looked at me since the previous night; I didn't dare look at her while she could have seen me either. The guy who asked me for five cedis asked Naomi in Ga what she had done. I couldn't understand her but watched her face. She had lost her angry "this isn't fair" face and now looked sad. And scared. I kept telling myself, it wasn't you who insisted on the police report. It was the hotel owner. It wasn't you who accused her. It was Yvonne. Sort of. Ugh. I felt awful. Whatever, I am just here for Yvonne, I had nothing to do with this. So why, then, do I feel responsible for something that feels wrong? I wished Gracie, the other suspect, was there with Naomi.
Twenty minutes later, the five of us were summoned into the chief's office across from the lobby. We filed a police report with the chief, who was very old and I don't think felt comfortable speaking in English. Kwame explained the chief had instructed us to go to a woman outside, around the corner and down the hall to file some other report, but she was on her lunch break. We waited for over half an hour outside when suddenly a woman who looks like Loretta Devine approached me with a slim and modest-looking man probably in his late-20s but looked no more than 20 years old (typical of Ghanaians).
"I am here for my sister, Naomi," the woman told me flatly. Naomi must have texted her sister - she still had her phone. I envisioned her sister asking Naomi, "How will I know which lady it is?" I was, after all, the only white person at the station. Tettey, Kwame and his brother, their arms folded across each of their chests, walked over to me. It seemed that the off-duty officers roaming the outdoor hall also noticed the pot was about to be stirred. They crowded around us.
"Oh, hello. What can we do for you?" (Ugh, sorry about your sister... what else was I supposed to say?)
"How much money was stolen?" she asked.
"It was 80 U.S. dollars, which is 112 Ghana cedis," I told her. "Why?"
"One thousand twelve Ghana cedis?"
"No, 112 Ghana cedis."
"Oh!" she laughed. "I wish to pay it," she said, fishing through her purse. I stood in front of her, stunned for the second time that day.
"You...want to pay it," I sounded it out to her. To myself. "Why?"
The man spoke up softly and calmly. "Because that is our sister in there. She should not be in jail, we can't let her be in jail. It would be embarrassing to our family." His older sister nodded, pulling her wallet out of her purse.
I imagined her summoning her brother to accompany her to the bank, not knowing how much money was at stake, therefore withdrawing as much money as possible from her account, and driving to the Osu Police Station to save their younger sister. It made me miss my younger brother and sister in a deeper way than before. If I ever needed to save either of them like that, I couldn't.
My gaze drifted from the sister, in her expensive-looking outfit and pearls, nose held high and wallet clutched tight, to the brother, with his puppy dog eyes and sweet disposition. My voice came out softer than it had in what felt like months, "But why would you do this if you don't know if your sister took the money?"
She made the common sucking noise with the sides of her mouth and she and her brother started walking toward the lobby. "Oh! In Ghana, sometimes you must do things even if you don't think..." I stopped listening. I couldn't pretend to not mind being patronized. This was too beautiful a moment - an "I believe in the good of humanity" moment that has revisited me countless times while living in Ghana. Maybe I am immune to noticing these moments back in the states, or maybe they don't happen as often as they do here. The thing is, people in Ghana see each other. Truly see each other. There's hardly ever a missed "Good morning, how are you?" or a genuine smile or energizing eye contact. Complete strangers feel more familiar than neighbors back home. They push each other to improve. They take care of each other. Ghana is a pulsating family, expanding and contracting with vigorous rhythm.
A group from New York University, comprised of 13 graduate and undergraduate students and one professor, had been volunteering with a HIV/AIDS outreach project in Cape Coast through our NGO for two weeks. They were ending their trip with a tour of Accra, the capital. Tettey, a guide from a tour agency to which we outsourced, was in charge of them and I was along for the ride to make sure their transition from Accra to home went smoothly. All went well until the group’s last night in Accra. Upon return from our day tour, one of the volunteers discovered $80 had been taken from her room. (For a dramatic buildup, read my previous post.)
The volunteer group was scheduled to leave the hotel the next day at 5 a.m. for the airport, and the stolen money mystery hadn’t been resolved yet. Therefore, I offered to continue trying to get to the bottom of the case on Yvonne’s behalf. Not my mandate, but I would want someone to do the same for me. Tettey and I rode with the group in the bus to the airport. After saying goodbye to the group, I collected Yvonne’s contact information in case it was needed for the police report. I told her we would wire the money to her account if we recovered it.
The bus driver dropped Tettey and I off at Lake Botsumtwi Hotel. We had a few hours until the owner said he would come to the hotel to sort out the stolen money issue, so I went back to my room and Tettey went into a volunteer’s room and we slept. We had agreed to meet at 8:30 a.m. at the outdoor patio for breakfast. Tettey wasn't there yet so I found a table under the shade and watched the football game across the street.
"I am leaving," a voice said from behind me.
It was Gracie, the receptionist Yvonne and I had talked to for hours the previous night. She had given me a strange vibe for being immoderately loose-lipped about why she thought it was Naomi, the cleaning lady, who stole the money.
"You are finished for the day?" I asked.
"No, I work again tonight." She was standing on the other side of the patio fence.
"Ah, the morning and night shifts, I see."
"You will call me when you figure out everything? I want to know how things turn out for your friend," she said.
"Sure, I can do that." No reason not to. "What's your number?"
She gave me her number and wished me luck, then crossed the street to the nearest fruit vendor. I watched her for a few minutes, pondering the possibility of her being the one who stole Yvonne's money and how heavy her conscious would be after making friends with both Yvonne and me. Tettey interrupted my thoughts when he brushed by my shoulder and sat in the opposite chair.
When we finished eating, Tettey called his boss, an African-American woman based in Accra, to explain the situation. He hung up and shook his head and chuckled in a low tone.
“She said I should have called her last night and she would have come to the hotel with half the money and you could have gotten the other half and we both could have given it to the volunteer. That way the volunteer wouldn’t have left for the U.S. without her money.”
“But we can’t guarantee we’re getting back her money. What if we can’t get it back and we had done what your boss said? We both would’ve been giving money away when we shouldn’t have,” I said. “Not to mention that our NGO is not liable for any theft that happens to our volunteers. I’m not sure if your company would be.. or should be liable either.”
Tettey didn’t say anything. That was pretty presumptuous, I thought, of Tettey’s boss to think I would pay half of Yvonne’s stolen money, let alone to assume I even had 56 extra cedis on me. (80 USD = 112 GHC)
Finally, the owner arrived. Tettey said, “You see? He drives a nice car. He has extra money to give to us.” We can’t just ask for 112 cedis...but I think Yvonne and Tettey expect me to, I thought. I was advised by my boss and Gracie, the hotel front desk receptionist, that I should threaten to file a police report. They both believed the owner wouldn’t want to go through the humiliation of a public complaint of a police report, which would make him more willing to cough up the money. I just needed to act like I was going to ruffle his hair.
When I met Mr. Charles, the owner, I quickly learned there was no hair to ruffle. One, he is bald. And two, he was completely fine with filing a police report. More than fine, in fact.
“We will find out who did this and make them pay the consequences. Believe me, whoever did this will be locked away. They will not see the light of day again.”
Damn, really? I didn’t want anyone going to jail over this. I didn't think Yvonne wanted that either. All I was hoping for was to get the money back and whoever stole the money to never work at a hotel again.
“Mr. Charles, is there any way your hotel staff can be held responsible for this instead of the police?” I was getting frustrated with the prospect of the matter changing hands yet again. “Maybe a portion of the 112 cedis can be subtracted from the salaries of the three staff members who had access to the rooms? You could do this over a couple months until one of them confides?” I asked.
“Oh, are you now sure it was one of my staff who stole the money?” his voice boomed in the narrow and long, heavily-air-conditioned room. I looked at Tettey, sitting on the couch opposite my sofa chair, next to the manager who was working the night before. He looked vastly uncomfortable. By the manager’s furtive glances from the floor to me whenever I spoke, I gathered he didn’t want to be in the room either, although his arm draped over the back of the couch indicated differently. “Let me tell you something,” the owner continued.
It seemed he had sniffed out my indirect request for money. Several minutes dragged on as he ambushed our eardrums about how he would be out of business if he compensated each guest who complained of theft. Tettey was hunched over with his elbows on his knees and his fingers interlaced on the back of his neck. I guess he isn’t a fan of getting yelled at by a massive and violently passionate Ghanaian man either. The owner did not seem like the same man I spoke to on the phone the night before, fumbling and bumbling, "Madam, please, I apologize for the inconvience of this situation."
Tettey and I had to ask the owner to calm down several times throughout his rant. Not able to hide my surging anger about his rudeness any longer, I shouted over him, “WHY ARE YOU YELLING?” I hoped my blunt "challenge" made him realize how unprofessional it was to yell at a guest - an upset one, at that.
“You. You are American, hmm?” the owner asked me in a slightly lowered voice.
Not normally being pegged as an American upon first glance, I assumed the manager had briefed the owner, having remembered that detail about me when we first met.
“Yes,” I replied evenly.
He slammed his fist on his desk; sending Tettey and I out of our skins. “Then you know! You know a hotel is not liable to cover the stolen items of its guests! Any hotel in America is like that. You must know that. You should be ashamed of yourself for even suggesting that we would give you money just because it went missing.”
“Look,” I said plainly, putting both my hands up in defense. “I'm sorry for suggesting that your hotel give me 112 cedis. I understand you are handling this situation to the best of your ability, and I appreciate you taking time to help us out. I have worked in the hotel industry before, which gives me even more reason to have known better. You're right, in the U.S. hotels do not hand out money whenever something goes missing. However - " pausing briefly, " - many hotels do give some other form of compensation for the inconvenience. Now, I don't know what we could come up with as compensation in this case, since all the room arrangements were prepaid. But, my point is that I was simply trying. I was trying to get something back for our volunteer. Because she has already left for America, I was given the task to fight for her. So that is what I am doing." The owner's face had softened and he nodded while muttering "okay" repeatedly when I had finished.
"Yes, I know you are just doing your job," he said in a normal voice.
I decided to push my luck with his calmed state. "Also, my volunteer said she did not appreciate how the issue was handled last night."
"Last night? That means she was not happy with him," the owner said, smiling and pointing to the manager on the couch.
"That's right," I said. The owner laughed. I looked at the manager, "She said it didn't seem like you were very concerned at all."
There was nothing we could do about that now, though. I knew the manager didn't care about this complaint, I knew he wouldn't take it into consideration the next time he had to handle a guest's problem, and I knew the owner didn't care about this complaint either. To be honest, I didn't agree with Yvonne's complaint anyway. The manager did what he was supposed to - he called in the cleaning lady to testify. (In retrospect, he should have also asked the female receptionist Gracie to testify as well as the daytime boy receptionist.) The manager was required to take action; he was not required to act like he cared. Ha! Maybe I've been in Ghana too long. Regardless, this is the first and major learning component of Ghanaian management.
"Okay, you will go to the police now?" the owner asked me. "I've called in Naomi, the cleaning lady, she is in the lobby waiting to go to the police station with you."
"Just Naomi?" I asked.
"Yes. Is there someone else who could have done it?"
"Well, Gracie, your receptionist was working yesterday. I thought it was very strange that she was so willing to tell me and Yvonne such secretive things about Naomi, as if she was trying to get her into trouble."
"What things?" asked the owner, his brows furrowed.
Gracie had asked me not to mention to the owner or manager that she had spoken about Naomi. "She asked me not to say anything..." I drifted off, smiling at the owner and then Tettey out of discomfort.
"Maame," Tettey said softly.
I decided I didn't owe anything to Gracie, especially considering the possibility that she was the guilty one.
"Okay, she said Naomi has stolen from guests before and the manager, you, Kwame," I looked at his habitually bored face, "you knew about it but never did anything about it because you and Naomi are friends."
The owner and manager smirked. I paused, waiting for an actual response. I didn't hear any.
"Then she said she and the boy receptionist couldn't have possibly taken the money because as a front desk clerk, you must never leave the front desk, so how could she or he have had time to go into each room and look through everyone's bags for money?"
All three men burst out in various exclamations and readjusted their sitting positions. I looked at Tettey, who I had noticed the previous night was scanning Gracie and shaking his head whenever she made an interjection. It seemed he thought what I had said confirmed his suspicions.
"My dear, the receptionists go into every room!" said the owner, leaning forward in his chair. "It is part of their job to personally check each room that has been cleaned."
I was stunned. How did I not think of this? I knew I should have trusted my gut instinct when she gave me that bullshit excuse for why it couldn't have been the receptionist! I was annoyed at myself for not realizing the check-and-balance system ensuring clean hotel rooms could have been different at a smaller hotel.
"Kwame, tell Joseph to get Gracie on the line. Tell her to come to the hotel immediately," the owner said to the manager.
Turns out Gracie's phone was off. Had she been suspecting that her bosses would eventually realize she was equally as guilty as Naomi? The owner told the boy receptionist to keep calling Gracie until she answered. Meanwhile, Kwame, his brother who is also a manager and has an unfortunate stuttering problem in both English and Ga, scowl-faced Naomi, Tettey and I all squeezed into Kwame's car and drove a few minutes down the road to the Osu Police Station. I don't know why we didn't think to take the boy receptionist with us, but it all shook out in the end.
The entire ride I was tickled with amusement that the accuser (Yvonne via me) was wedged arm-to-arm with the accused (Naomi). Reminded me of the time when about 20 minutes into a tro-tro ride I looked to my left and noticed the guy next to me was a police officer and the guy next to him was in handcuffs. It's funny to think of all the things I see on a daily basis in Ghana that would never fly in the U.S.
We parked outside the station and walked inside the lobby. The male and female jail cells were about 15 feet behind the front desk! Both cells were small, maybe about a five by six yard box. The floors were cement and the bars provided a two by seven yard window to the station's lobby. The male cell was on the left, packed with seven hooting and hollering 20- to 30-somethings, the loudest only wearing white boxers adorned with red and green Christmas trees. They were all barefoot and wearing what appeared to be their own clothes. The female cell seemed to be empty. I moved to the right for a (hopefully inconspicuous) better look inside. A body was curled on the floor in the front left corner, her feet bare. Above the male cell a white sheet of regular printing paper stuck to the pale yellow wall, bearing "MALE CELL" bubble letters colored in crayon. Not a single letter was the same color. I squinted my eyes - no, that can't be - op, yep, that is definitely a pencil-traced line underneath the bubble letters. Gotta keep the letters straight.
"Yes?" asked the man in a police uniform stationed at the front desk.
"Hello, we want to file a police report and turn in a suspect."
The man whipped a paper from his desk onto the countertop. Noticing someone had written on the top already, he drew a line through it and instructed me to write the date, my name, nationality, phone number and purpose of my visit. When I finished, Tettey, who had been watching me, reminded me to indicate that it was not to me the crime had happened. I nodded and made a note, then smiled at him, appreciating he was there with me.
"Just another Monday on the job, isn't it, Tettey?"
He laughed.
"Bet you've never thought your job would take you to the police station, did you?"
"Oh ho, please, no!" he replied, still laughing and shaking his head.
"Oye! Charlie! You-who! Charlie! Over here!"
I turned from Tettey to the male cell. In Ghana, "Charlie" (pronounced Chah-lay) means "friend."
The man who had been shouting was looking at me.
"You give me five cedi for when I get out, okay? Okay, Charlie?"
I smiled. "Sorry, I don't have that much myself." It was true. I had spent all but three cedis of my personal money - I just had my organization's money to use to get home.
"Oh, Charlie!"
The man at the front desk took the paper and then asked Naomi to step behind the counter and sit on the bench against the wall, where two other accused suspects were sitting. She hadn't looked at me since the previous night; I didn't dare look at her while she could have seen me either. The guy who asked me for five cedis asked Naomi in Ga what she had done. I couldn't understand her but watched her face. She had lost her angry "this isn't fair" face and now looked sad. And scared. I kept telling myself, it wasn't you who insisted on the police report. It was the hotel owner. It wasn't you who accused her. It was Yvonne. Sort of. Ugh. I felt awful. Whatever, I am just here for Yvonne, I had nothing to do with this. So why, then, do I feel responsible for something that feels wrong? I wished Gracie, the other suspect, was there with Naomi.
Twenty minutes later, the five of us were summoned into the chief's office across from the lobby. We filed a police report with the chief, who was very old and I don't think felt comfortable speaking in English. Kwame explained the chief had instructed us to go to a woman outside, around the corner and down the hall to file some other report, but she was on her lunch break. We waited for over half an hour outside when suddenly a woman who looks like Loretta Devine approached me with a slim and modest-looking man probably in his late-20s but looked no more than 20 years old (typical of Ghanaians).
"I am here for my sister, Naomi," the woman told me flatly. Naomi must have texted her sister - she still had her phone. I envisioned her sister asking Naomi, "How will I know which lady it is?" I was, after all, the only white person at the station. Tettey, Kwame and his brother, their arms folded across each of their chests, walked over to me. It seemed that the off-duty officers roaming the outdoor hall also noticed the pot was about to be stirred. They crowded around us.
"Oh, hello. What can we do for you?" (Ugh, sorry about your sister... what else was I supposed to say?)
"How much money was stolen?" she asked.
"It was 80 U.S. dollars, which is 112 Ghana cedis," I told her. "Why?"
"One thousand twelve Ghana cedis?"
"No, 112 Ghana cedis."
"Oh!" she laughed. "I wish to pay it," she said, fishing through her purse. I stood in front of her, stunned for the second time that day.
"You...want to pay it," I sounded it out to her. To myself. "Why?"
The man spoke up softly and calmly. "Because that is our sister in there. She should not be in jail, we can't let her be in jail. It would be embarrassing to our family." His older sister nodded, pulling her wallet out of her purse.
I imagined her summoning her brother to accompany her to the bank, not knowing how much money was at stake, therefore withdrawing as much money as possible from her account, and driving to the Osu Police Station to save their younger sister. It made me miss my younger brother and sister in a deeper way than before. If I ever needed to save either of them like that, I couldn't.
My gaze drifted from the sister, in her expensive-looking outfit and pearls, nose held high and wallet clutched tight, to the brother, with his puppy dog eyes and sweet disposition. My voice came out softer than it had in what felt like months, "But why would you do this if you don't know if your sister took the money?"
She made the common sucking noise with the sides of her mouth and she and her brother started walking toward the lobby. "Oh! In Ghana, sometimes you must do things even if you don't think..." I stopped listening. I couldn't pretend to not mind being patronized. This was too beautiful a moment - an "I believe in the good of humanity" moment that has revisited me countless times while living in Ghana. Maybe I am immune to noticing these moments back in the states, or maybe they don't happen as often as they do here. The thing is, people in Ghana see each other. Truly see each other. There's hardly ever a missed "Good morning, how are you?" or a genuine smile or energizing eye contact. Complete strangers feel more familiar than neighbors back home. They push each other to improve. They take care of each other. Ghana is a pulsating family, expanding and contracting with vigorous rhythm.
Saturday, February 5, 2011
Can't Be Bothered (Evening Episode)
After an enjoyable day tour of Accra, Ghana with 14 graduate and undergraduate students from New York University, our bus driver dropped us off at Lake Botsumtwi Hotel in touristy Osu. I trudged up the stairs to my single bedroom, unlocked the door, threw my purse and shopping bag on the chair in the corner and fell horizontally across my bed like an axed-down tree. The University of Missouri group had left that evening, and the NYU group was leaving the next morning. The exhaustion had officially set in. It’s difficult to be “on” 24/7 for over two weeks straight. (“It’s not easy being green…”) Ten minutes later, nose still pressed into the moldy scratchy blanket, I heard a knock.
It was Yvonne, one of the student-volunteers. She explained in an eerily calm voice, sounding pleasant but pissed off, that 80 dollars was stolen from her suitcase. She had told their professor/leader but she had redirected her to me.
My heart fell as I processed the information. “No…” I said in disbelief, leaning against the open door. Then, straightening, “Okay, let’s go to your room and you can show me how you found this out.” I put on my sandals, locked my door and followed her to her room a few doors down the hall.
We had been shopping all day; I assumed Yvonne had two wallets – one with Ghanaian cedis, which she had in her purse all day, and one with her American money and credit cards. Yvonne explained she had wanted to change into comfortable clothes before going into the hotel conference room for the group’s nightly discussions they call “Reflection Time.” She mimicked what she did when she had first entered the room and replayed her thought process aloud for me. She opened her suitcase and picked up her wallet lying on top of her clothes. She said at that moment she knew someone had been fiddling with her things because she remembered putting her wallet in the suitcase’s interior netted pocket. She opened her wallet and her suspicion was confirmed by the folded dollar bills – apparently she never folds her money. She counted $80 less than her total $200.
“I have a lock on the zipper to the compartment on the front,” Yvonne said while showing me the front of her suitcase, “and the silly thing is that I keep my passport in here, but for some reason didn’t think to put my wallet in here too. It was the one time these whole two weeks that I didn’t put my wallet in the locked pocket,” she said with heavy remorse.
I knew there was nothing we could do about the missing money besides point fingers and hope a guilty conscious would give in. We had no proof that she had $200 in her wallet when she left the hotel in the morning, and the only way the hotel staff could be held liable for the theft is if the money had been put in a safe.
But I knew I couldn’t say these things to Yvonne right then. I tried assuaging her self-blame by suggesting that we talk to the hotel manager about who had access to the keys.
As we walked down the stairs to the front desk I pondered why Yvonne had not mentioned the possibility of the money being taken from her wallet before she had left her hotel room. What if her roommate took the money? I immediately declined the notion. She and Nanci are good friends – they’re even taking a girls’ trip to Puerto Rico together this summer. I knew her roommate could not be dismissed as a suspect on the basis that they had become besties over the past two weeks, but it seemed an unlikely case in comparison to the other potential leads.
As we approached the front desk I reminded myself to keep an open mind to every possibility. I trusted Yvonne to not jump to any conclusions but still hoped she would let me do most of the talking. Working with Ghanaians through critical junctures is the flesh and bones of my job.
The receptionist was the same lady we had given our keys to in the morning. She had also worked the previous night shift, which I remembered because after checking into my room I had gone past the front desk to buy a bag of sachet waters from a shop on the street to accompany the group’s dinner. As I smiled walking past her, she proudly announced, “Room nine.” Now, with Yvonne at my side, I studied her briefly. What if she had memorized each of our room numbers? But then how would she have known Yvonne had all that accessible money. Still, though… I asked her politely but sternly where we could find the manager. Her eyes flickered, as if she sensed something was wrong. “He is outside on the patio. In the back.”
We thanked her and went outside through the propped-open front doors. The patio curved in a lax C-shape, cupping the hotel perimeter and facing the neighborhood street. The first table we passed, the only one occupied, sat two male Ghanaians. Probably guests. The manager was sitting alone at the end of the curve smoking a cigarette under a tall thick tree that would’ve provided ample shade had it been daytime. He was leaning back in his white wired chair with one leg over the other on the table. It seemed a peaceful hiding place for a man who didn’t like being bothered.
As we drew nearer, I recognized his face. He had been on the patio the previous night when our group arrived. He had asked me if I was the “boss lady.” I replied that I was and we exchanged local names (mine in Fante, his in Ga).
“Hello, good evening, Kwame.” I said as Yvonne and I stood at his side.
“Ekua, how is it?” he smiled, leaning farther back.
“It’s no good. We have a problem. While we were touring the city today, someone stole 80 dollars from one of our volunteer’s suitcases.” I waited for a reaction. Nothing.
“We were wondering if you could help us find out who had access to room twelve during the day.”
His eyes moved slowly from us to the quiet street. He took a drag on his cigarette, held it, then exhaled toward the looming leaves. Feet still on the table, he pulled his cell phone from his shirt pocket and studied it. We waited while he talked to someone on the phone in Ga. When he hung up he said, “That was the cleaning lady. I told her to come to the hotel so you can ask her if she took the money.” Drag, exhale, feet still on table.
Was he serious? If this girl had taken the money, how likely was it that she’d confess? Especially in front of us? In front her boss? It seemed as if the manager knew calling her in wasn’t going to solve the problem, but he couldn’t be bothered to think of another solution. I couldn’t bear to look at Yvonne. For only being in Ghana for two weeks, I figured this was probably her first encounter with the Ghanaian style of management. Welcome to our world, honey. It’s humorous at first till you realize it’s serious shit. CBB (Can’t Be Bothered) should be the new TIA (This Is Africa).
The satisfied look on the manager’s face hinted that he had done his part and wanted to finish his cigarette.
“Well, I guess we’ll wait for her at the front desk,” I said. Yvonne stifled an incredulous laugh. I remembered the group was scheduled to leave the hotel at 5 a.m. for their flight home. “To be honest,” I said to Yvonne as we walked through the patio, “I don’t think we’ll get the money back tonight. I will keep trying tomorrow after you've left. If I do happen to get your $80 back, there are ways we can get it to you so don’t worry about the bad timing.” She nodded.
“Did you find the manager?” the receptionist asked eagerly. She seemed to have caught on that something was wrong.
We told her “yes” and explained the situation. Her reaction gave me a funny vibe – it seemed a bit theatrical. (Huge gasp, “What? Oh! Sor-ry,” interspersed with throaty scoffs and tsks, which in Ghana signifies disapproval.) This would be a normal reaction from a Ghanaian if the timing between each exclamation didn’t feel so unnatural. I’m not at an expert at detecting liars - I want to give everyone the benefit of the doubt - but her reaction somehow did not seem genuine.
“…and then your manager Kwame called the cleaning lady to tell her to come to the hotel,” I finished.
The receptionist’s eyes grew. “You know,” her voice had lowered, “she’s going to deny the entire thing. Why would she admit to something like that?”
“Wait,” I couldn’t believe she was ratting out her colleague right in front of us. “You think she took the money?”
The receptionist shrugged and smiled. “Who goes into the rooms all day? She does.”
“Well, if she’s not going to admit to it then what should we do?” asked Yvonne.
“You should file a police report."
"Yes, we will in the morning," I said.
The receptionist continued, "Oh – and you should call the owner! He won’t come tonight, but he will come tomorrow. You call him and tell him about this and he will fix it.”
“That would be good because the manager was not very helpful. He didn’t seem to care about it all,” I said to Yvonne. She shook her head.
Just then, we heard a taxi pull up near the front doors. It was Tettey, our tour guide.
“Tettey! What are you doing here?”
Tettey is an infectiously smiley, tall and gangly man of about 30. Then again, guessing Ghanaians' ages with accuracy is really hit-and-miss. “I forgot to get money from one of your volunteers. She owes me five cedis,” he said. He would see the volunteers in the morning but maybe needed five cedis before then.
“Oh. They are in the middle of their ‘Reflection Time’ still, but I can go interrupt real quick. Which one owes you money?” I asked.
Tettey looked up to the ceiling and threw his hands out as if to describe the volunteer by air-tracing their silhouette. “Glasses… red…”
“Mev?”
Tettey nodded. Mev was the only redhead in the group. I remembered her complaining that she only had 50 pesewas (coins) to her name after leaving the Accra National Arts Centre in the morning. That was nice of him to loan her money, I thought.
I turned toward the conference room down the hall. “Oh, wait!” I nearly shouted and spun around to the front desk again, “Tettey, this is good that you’re here! Yvonne, can you fill him in on what’s happened?”
I got the money from Mev and returned to the drama. The manager had joined too, sitting in a low-seated tan sofa chair next to the front desk. I looked at the others and sensed Tettey had been filled in.
“So, Tettey. Has something like this happened before to your tour groups at this hotel?” I asked.
“No,” he shook his head, staring at the ground with both arms folded across his chest.
“What about at a different hotel?”
He shook his head again, trance unbroken. He seemed very upset.
The sound of a car engine flooded the lobby. It was the cleaning lady. I noticed she was the same woman who served us breakfast, fresh-faced, all smiles.
She was wearing a grey conservative dress with an airy scarf around her shoulders. Her black glossy purse hung over her shoulder and in her hand was a Bible. Was that a...prop? Couldn’t she have just left it in the cab or stuck it in her purse? It's not a likely thing to forget to have in one's hand... it was definitely intentional.
The scene was quite predictable: The manager asked me to assert our concern, I explained what had happened and asked Yvonne if I had left anything out, and the cleaning lady denied taking the money. Yvonne watched in silence, Tettey studied the staff members and I attempted to keep peace.
It was quite humorous aside from the gravity. The cleaning lady was yelling at the receptionist and manager in Ga, occasionally looking at me and Yvonne. What was the point of her defending her innocence to the staff? They didn’t care. “In English, please,” I had to remind her a few times. In English, she went off about morality and why she has never stolen a single thing in her life. “I never even touched her suitcase!” At one point she even shook her Bible in the air to emphasize a point. The manager sat, legs sprawled and chin cupped in his hand, as if he was watching TV.
When the cleaning lady got particularly worked up, I interrupted, “Please. Let me speak. We are not accusing anyone. We simply want to know more about what happened to Yvonne’s room during the day.” Why all the hostility? I tried placing myself in her shoes. I couldn’t decide if I would act this way if I were innocent or guilty. When she switched from English to Ga again, I took advantage of not having to listen and examined her. She was well-dressed and accessorized and her nails were painted. I decided appearance had nothing to do with the likelihood of her being a thief. Rich or poor, 80 dollars is 80 dollars.
When she was done ranting, the manager moved his hand from under his chin and thrust it forward as if to say, “I told you she didn’t take it.” Instead, only slightly more appropriately, he said, “As you can see, she did not steal the $80." Ha! I almost burst out laughing. "If the money had been put in a safe, we would have more to do. But that is not what happened.”
“Well, thank you for coming here to tell us your side of the story,” I said to the cleaning lady. She nodded and looked at the floor with disdain. “I am calling the owner tonight to set up a time to continue the discussion in the morning, and then we will file a police report.” I looked at Yvonne. She had been quiet during most of the cleaning lady's rant. “Yvonne, anything else you’d like to add?”
She looked at me, then looked at the cleaning lady and shook her head.
“Naomi,” said the manager. The cleaning lady looked up. “You may go.” Naomi spun in her heels and marched out the lobby doors. Yvonne went to the front desk and talked to the receptionist while Tettey and I spoke to the manager. Tettey and I decided that after dropping off the group at the airport, we would return to the hotel and sleep in the rooms until the owner arrived. Then we would get to the bottom of the issue.
“That'll work. Write down his PayPal email address on that piece of paper too," I said.
"I will," Yvonne assured me. She sank into her chair in the corner, and I sat on her desk.
"What do you think of the cleaning lady?" Yvonne asked. "Do you think she did it?"
"I'm not sure. I definitely know the receptionist rubs me the wrong way for some reason. It could've been any of the staff - Naomi, the receptionist or the boy who takes over at the front desk during the day. I don't know why we just targeted the cleaning lady tonight."
"You're right." She sighed. "You know, I feel like this happened to me because I got away with such good bargains the whole time I was here. Karma's a bitch," she said, laughing.
"No, let's not think it was karma because you couldn't have done anything to deserve someone stealing from you. It was just bad luck. And you know, I think you handled this better than the majority of the group would have. I just hope this experience doesn't ruin your image of Ghana. This sort of thing can happen anywhere."
"True, but the thing that maybe bummed me out more was the way it was handled by the management," Yvonne said.
"You're right, that manager doesn't know left from right. But you should try not to let one person or one incident give you a sour taste in your mouth the night before leaving Ghana. I wish you could be here tomorrow to see how it turns out. I'm sure your spirits would be lifted."
"This isn't going to take away from my feelings about Ghana," Yvonne assured me. "My love for this country is too strong. This was just a little bump in the road. I wish I could see how things turn out too, but I trust that everything will turn out as it should."
I nodded.
"And you know," Yvonne said, laughing, "I really wish our group hadn't decided to make this an alcohol-free trip because I could really go for a glass of wine right now!"
It was Yvonne, one of the student-volunteers. She explained in an eerily calm voice, sounding pleasant but pissed off, that 80 dollars was stolen from her suitcase. She had told their professor/leader but she had redirected her to me.
My heart fell as I processed the information. “No…” I said in disbelief, leaning against the open door. Then, straightening, “Okay, let’s go to your room and you can show me how you found this out.” I put on my sandals, locked my door and followed her to her room a few doors down the hall.
We had been shopping all day; I assumed Yvonne had two wallets – one with Ghanaian cedis, which she had in her purse all day, and one with her American money and credit cards. Yvonne explained she had wanted to change into comfortable clothes before going into the hotel conference room for the group’s nightly discussions they call “Reflection Time.” She mimicked what she did when she had first entered the room and replayed her thought process aloud for me. She opened her suitcase and picked up her wallet lying on top of her clothes. She said at that moment she knew someone had been fiddling with her things because she remembered putting her wallet in the suitcase’s interior netted pocket. She opened her wallet and her suspicion was confirmed by the folded dollar bills – apparently she never folds her money. She counted $80 less than her total $200.
“I have a lock on the zipper to the compartment on the front,” Yvonne said while showing me the front of her suitcase, “and the silly thing is that I keep my passport in here, but for some reason didn’t think to put my wallet in here too. It was the one time these whole two weeks that I didn’t put my wallet in the locked pocket,” she said with heavy remorse.
I knew there was nothing we could do about the missing money besides point fingers and hope a guilty conscious would give in. We had no proof that she had $200 in her wallet when she left the hotel in the morning, and the only way the hotel staff could be held liable for the theft is if the money had been put in a safe.
But I knew I couldn’t say these things to Yvonne right then. I tried assuaging her self-blame by suggesting that we talk to the hotel manager about who had access to the keys.
As we walked down the stairs to the front desk I pondered why Yvonne had not mentioned the possibility of the money being taken from her wallet before she had left her hotel room. What if her roommate took the money? I immediately declined the notion. She and Nanci are good friends – they’re even taking a girls’ trip to Puerto Rico together this summer. I knew her roommate could not be dismissed as a suspect on the basis that they had become besties over the past two weeks, but it seemed an unlikely case in comparison to the other potential leads.
As we approached the front desk I reminded myself to keep an open mind to every possibility. I trusted Yvonne to not jump to any conclusions but still hoped she would let me do most of the talking. Working with Ghanaians through critical junctures is the flesh and bones of my job.
The receptionist was the same lady we had given our keys to in the morning. She had also worked the previous night shift, which I remembered because after checking into my room I had gone past the front desk to buy a bag of sachet waters from a shop on the street to accompany the group’s dinner. As I smiled walking past her, she proudly announced, “Room nine.” Now, with Yvonne at my side, I studied her briefly. What if she had memorized each of our room numbers? But then how would she have known Yvonne had all that accessible money. Still, though… I asked her politely but sternly where we could find the manager. Her eyes flickered, as if she sensed something was wrong. “He is outside on the patio. In the back.”
We thanked her and went outside through the propped-open front doors. The patio curved in a lax C-shape, cupping the hotel perimeter and facing the neighborhood street. The first table we passed, the only one occupied, sat two male Ghanaians. Probably guests. The manager was sitting alone at the end of the curve smoking a cigarette under a tall thick tree that would’ve provided ample shade had it been daytime. He was leaning back in his white wired chair with one leg over the other on the table. It seemed a peaceful hiding place for a man who didn’t like being bothered.
As we drew nearer, I recognized his face. He had been on the patio the previous night when our group arrived. He had asked me if I was the “boss lady.” I replied that I was and we exchanged local names (mine in Fante, his in Ga).
“Hello, good evening, Kwame.” I said as Yvonne and I stood at his side.
“Ekua, how is it?” he smiled, leaning farther back.
“It’s no good. We have a problem. While we were touring the city today, someone stole 80 dollars from one of our volunteer’s suitcases.” I waited for a reaction. Nothing.
“We were wondering if you could help us find out who had access to room twelve during the day.”
His eyes moved slowly from us to the quiet street. He took a drag on his cigarette, held it, then exhaled toward the looming leaves. Feet still on the table, he pulled his cell phone from his shirt pocket and studied it. We waited while he talked to someone on the phone in Ga. When he hung up he said, “That was the cleaning lady. I told her to come to the hotel so you can ask her if she took the money.” Drag, exhale, feet still on table.
Was he serious? If this girl had taken the money, how likely was it that she’d confess? Especially in front of us? In front her boss? It seemed as if the manager knew calling her in wasn’t going to solve the problem, but he couldn’t be bothered to think of another solution. I couldn’t bear to look at Yvonne. For only being in Ghana for two weeks, I figured this was probably her first encounter with the Ghanaian style of management. Welcome to our world, honey. It’s humorous at first till you realize it’s serious shit. CBB (Can’t Be Bothered) should be the new TIA (This Is Africa).
The satisfied look on the manager’s face hinted that he had done his part and wanted to finish his cigarette.
“Well, I guess we’ll wait for her at the front desk,” I said. Yvonne stifled an incredulous laugh. I remembered the group was scheduled to leave the hotel at 5 a.m. for their flight home. “To be honest,” I said to Yvonne as we walked through the patio, “I don’t think we’ll get the money back tonight. I will keep trying tomorrow after you've left. If I do happen to get your $80 back, there are ways we can get it to you so don’t worry about the bad timing.” She nodded.
“Did you find the manager?” the receptionist asked eagerly. She seemed to have caught on that something was wrong.
We told her “yes” and explained the situation. Her reaction gave me a funny vibe – it seemed a bit theatrical. (Huge gasp, “What? Oh! Sor-ry,” interspersed with throaty scoffs and tsks, which in Ghana signifies disapproval.) This would be a normal reaction from a Ghanaian if the timing between each exclamation didn’t feel so unnatural. I’m not at an expert at detecting liars - I want to give everyone the benefit of the doubt - but her reaction somehow did not seem genuine.
“…and then your manager Kwame called the cleaning lady to tell her to come to the hotel,” I finished.
The receptionist’s eyes grew. “You know,” her voice had lowered, “she’s going to deny the entire thing. Why would she admit to something like that?”
“Wait,” I couldn’t believe she was ratting out her colleague right in front of us. “You think she took the money?”
The receptionist shrugged and smiled. “Who goes into the rooms all day? She does.”
“Well, if she’s not going to admit to it then what should we do?” asked Yvonne.
“You should file a police report."
"Yes, we will in the morning," I said.
The receptionist continued, "Oh – and you should call the owner! He won’t come tonight, but he will come tomorrow. You call him and tell him about this and he will fix it.”
“That would be good because the manager was not very helpful. He didn’t seem to care about it all,” I said to Yvonne. She shook her head.
Just then, we heard a taxi pull up near the front doors. It was Tettey, our tour guide.
“Tettey! What are you doing here?”
Tettey is an infectiously smiley, tall and gangly man of about 30. Then again, guessing Ghanaians' ages with accuracy is really hit-and-miss. “I forgot to get money from one of your volunteers. She owes me five cedis,” he said. He would see the volunteers in the morning but maybe needed five cedis before then.
“Oh. They are in the middle of their ‘Reflection Time’ still, but I can go interrupt real quick. Which one owes you money?” I asked.
Tettey looked up to the ceiling and threw his hands out as if to describe the volunteer by air-tracing their silhouette. “Glasses… red…”
“Mev?”
Tettey nodded. Mev was the only redhead in the group. I remembered her complaining that she only had 50 pesewas (coins) to her name after leaving the Accra National Arts Centre in the morning. That was nice of him to loan her money, I thought.
I turned toward the conference room down the hall. “Oh, wait!” I nearly shouted and spun around to the front desk again, “Tettey, this is good that you’re here! Yvonne, can you fill him in on what’s happened?”
I got the money from Mev and returned to the drama. The manager had joined too, sitting in a low-seated tan sofa chair next to the front desk. I looked at the others and sensed Tettey had been filled in.
“So, Tettey. Has something like this happened before to your tour groups at this hotel?” I asked.
“No,” he shook his head, staring at the ground with both arms folded across his chest.
“What about at a different hotel?”
He shook his head again, trance unbroken. He seemed very upset.
The sound of a car engine flooded the lobby. It was the cleaning lady. I noticed she was the same woman who served us breakfast, fresh-faced, all smiles.
She was wearing a grey conservative dress with an airy scarf around her shoulders. Her black glossy purse hung over her shoulder and in her hand was a Bible. Was that a...prop? Couldn’t she have just left it in the cab or stuck it in her purse? It's not a likely thing to forget to have in one's hand... it was definitely intentional.
The scene was quite predictable: The manager asked me to assert our concern, I explained what had happened and asked Yvonne if I had left anything out, and the cleaning lady denied taking the money. Yvonne watched in silence, Tettey studied the staff members and I attempted to keep peace.
It was quite humorous aside from the gravity. The cleaning lady was yelling at the receptionist and manager in Ga, occasionally looking at me and Yvonne. What was the point of her defending her innocence to the staff? They didn’t care. “In English, please,” I had to remind her a few times. In English, she went off about morality and why she has never stolen a single thing in her life. “I never even touched her suitcase!” At one point she even shook her Bible in the air to emphasize a point. The manager sat, legs sprawled and chin cupped in his hand, as if he was watching TV.
When the cleaning lady got particularly worked up, I interrupted, “Please. Let me speak. We are not accusing anyone. We simply want to know more about what happened to Yvonne’s room during the day.” Why all the hostility? I tried placing myself in her shoes. I couldn’t decide if I would act this way if I were innocent or guilty. When she switched from English to Ga again, I took advantage of not having to listen and examined her. She was well-dressed and accessorized and her nails were painted. I decided appearance had nothing to do with the likelihood of her being a thief. Rich or poor, 80 dollars is 80 dollars.
When she was done ranting, the manager moved his hand from under his chin and thrust it forward as if to say, “I told you she didn’t take it.” Instead, only slightly more appropriately, he said, “As you can see, she did not steal the $80." Ha! I almost burst out laughing. "If the money had been put in a safe, we would have more to do. But that is not what happened.”
“Well, thank you for coming here to tell us your side of the story,” I said to the cleaning lady. She nodded and looked at the floor with disdain. “I am calling the owner tonight to set up a time to continue the discussion in the morning, and then we will file a police report.” I looked at Yvonne. She had been quiet during most of the cleaning lady's rant. “Yvonne, anything else you’d like to add?”
She looked at me, then looked at the cleaning lady and shook her head.
“Naomi,” said the manager. The cleaning lady looked up. “You may go.” Naomi spun in her heels and marched out the lobby doors. Yvonne went to the front desk and talked to the receptionist while Tettey and I spoke to the manager. Tettey and I decided that after dropping off the group at the airport, we would return to the hotel and sleep in the rooms until the owner arrived. Then we would get to the bottom of the issue.
I said goodnight to Tettey and the manager. Yvonne was still listening to the receptionist. "She said she came straight from church. Did you see how angry and loud she got and how she shook her Bible in the air?" she laughed. "She is lying. You heard her when she said she didn't touch the suitecase? Of course she touched the suitecase! Her saying that only made her seem more guilty - to clean properly you must touch everything!"
"Has she gotten in trouble for something like this before?" I asked.
The receptionist looked at us and lowered her voice, "Oh, yes. And the manager knew about it too."
"If the manager knew about her history of stealing things, why didn't he say anything about it to us?" Yvonne asked.
"Because they are friends," she responded.
Yvonne laughed and shook her head. I wondered why this lady was so openly telling us all these awful things about Naomi and the manager.
"Think about it," she continued, "she is the only one who could have done it. She had access to all the keys throughout the day."
"But we put the keys on the front desk when we left. What happened to the keys after that?" I asked.
"You gave us the keys, I put them in their boxes right here." She motioned to a wooden rack on the wall with about 30 cubby holes big enough for a hand to fit inside. "We put all the dirty rooms' keys in these - " pointing to the "Dirty Rooms" sign, " - and then when they are clean, we move them to the 'Clean Rooms' boxes below," she said, pointing to the identical set of 30 cubby holes two inches below.
"Who worked at the front desk during the day?" I asked.
"Oh, there was a different boy. He comes mid-morning to mid-afternoon."
I continued pressing, hoping she wouldn't catch on to my developing sideways accusation. "Could he have used the keys to go into the rooms?"
Her mouth opened and closed. "You see, at the front desk we are responsible for so many things. We cannot leave the front desk for very long. There is no way he could have left long enough to check all of the rooms to see which suitcase had money laying freely."
For some reason, I believed her. By the look on Yvonne's face, I think she was convinced of this excuse as well. It was as if this receptionist was a mind ninja - she had won both of us over by verbalizing our thoughts, like: "The manager is clueless. He is always asking me what to do." Maybe she could tell that Yvonne didn't want ambiguity and instead needed something to put her negative energy toward.
The receptionist received an internal phone call. She hung up and said, "I am coming," to us, and then walked around her desk out the side door to the compound next-door. About a minute later she returned with a towel and said, "Come. I must bring this to a guest."
We followed her two doors down the hallway and continued listening. I wanted to continue walking up the stairs to my bed, but sensed Yvonne felt comforted by her. Then I remembered I should call my boss Kirsty to fill her in. I went upstairs to fetch my phone. I felt a lot better after talking to her. She said that because Yvonne did not put her wallet in the hotel's safe, the hotel is not liable, and neither are we as a NGO. And neither is Tettey's tour agency, which technically was in charge of the group since the day before.
Yet, I still felt somewhat responsible for making sure Yvonne got her money back since she wasn't able to fight her own battle the following day. I really didn't want to hand off the case to the police, considering our NGO's previous experience with "law enforcers." Not even a week earlier, one of the male volunteers from the University of Missouri group was guilelessly walking alone in the dark and was followed and robbed. He had a number of important items in his stolen backpack, including his passport (who carries their passport around when traveling?). So we filed a police report. When the University leaders, the volunteer, Kirsty and Lawrence stated their case to the front desk policeman, he actually asked them, "What do you want us to do about it?"
Kirsty told me to keep threatening to file a police report to make sure the staff knew we meant business, and maybe the owner would crack and cough up $80 in the morning.
The receptionist had a similar idea. "It would be so dishonorable for the hotel to be involved with the police," she said, handing the portable hotel phone to me to call the owner. "You should call him now. You must sound very angry."
"I can do that. What is his name?"
"Call him Mr. Charles."
I thought it was strange that she was giving me tips on how to talk to the owner, along with all the other insider information she had given us. Later I realized it was probably to win over Yvonne and I as friends so we trusted her and didn't think that she, too, was a suspect.
I called the owner while Yvonne and the receptionist watched. "Mr. Charles?"
"Yes?"
"Good evening. This is Michaela. I am the leader of the volunteer group staying at your hotel last night and tonight. Today while we were away, we believe someone from your staff took a lot of money from one of the rooms." My voice was crescendoing with force.
"I am very sorry to hear that."
"Yes, it is most unfortunate because the group is leaving very early tomorrow morning to go back to America. I need to meet you tomorrow morning to discuss what we are going to do about this issue."
"I will be in tomorrow at 9 a.m.," said Mr. Charles.
"Nine a.m., I look forward to it. And I hope you will show more concern than your manager did this evening. It was not handled well at all," I said, my eyes meeting Yvonne's.
"Madam, please, I do apologize."
"Thank you, and I am sorry to disturb you at such a late hour. I hope you understand."
"It is no problem, Madam."
"I will see you tomorrow."
I hung up and the receptionist beamed. "That was perfect! He will do everything possible to help you tomorrow, I am sure."
Yvonne lingered to ask the receptionist more "whys" and "hows." I was getting antsy, feeling we were wasting time trusting this receptionist, but didn't want to dishearten Yvonne. About fifteen minutes later we retreated upstairs to Yvonne's room.
"In the morning you should give me all your contact information - I will need it for the police report. We have it in our database online, but that doesn't help," I told her.
"Right."
"And if I get your money back for you, I can have it wired to your account. Or we can send it through PayPal.”
“I don’t have PayPal but my husband does,” Yvonne said, unlocking her door.“That'll work. Write down his PayPal email address on that piece of paper too," I said.
"I will," Yvonne assured me. She sank into her chair in the corner, and I sat on her desk.
"What do you think of the cleaning lady?" Yvonne asked. "Do you think she did it?"
"I'm not sure. I definitely know the receptionist rubs me the wrong way for some reason. It could've been any of the staff - Naomi, the receptionist or the boy who takes over at the front desk during the day. I don't know why we just targeted the cleaning lady tonight."
"You're right." She sighed. "You know, I feel like this happened to me because I got away with such good bargains the whole time I was here. Karma's a bitch," she said, laughing.
"No, let's not think it was karma because you couldn't have done anything to deserve someone stealing from you. It was just bad luck. And you know, I think you handled this better than the majority of the group would have. I just hope this experience doesn't ruin your image of Ghana. This sort of thing can happen anywhere."
"True, but the thing that maybe bummed me out more was the way it was handled by the management," Yvonne said.
"You're right, that manager doesn't know left from right. But you should try not to let one person or one incident give you a sour taste in your mouth the night before leaving Ghana. I wish you could be here tomorrow to see how it turns out. I'm sure your spirits would be lifted."
"This isn't going to take away from my feelings about Ghana," Yvonne assured me. "My love for this country is too strong. This was just a little bump in the road. I wish I could see how things turn out too, but I trust that everything will turn out as it should."
I nodded.
"And you know," Yvonne said, laughing, "I really wish our group hadn't decided to make this an alcohol-free trip because I could really go for a glass of wine right now!"
Part Two: Can't Be Bothered (Morning and Afternoon Episode)
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