I set the alarm on my phone for 2:30 a.m. I would have to recruit a taxi driver from the roadside to pick me up at 3 a.m. from my guesthouse. Hopefully I wouldn’t oversleep and hopefully he wouldn’t be late – I didn’t want to miss the bus to Tamale and be stuck in Kumasi another day.
It was almost 4 p.m. With strained effort I got up from the guesthouse’s soft mattress. My body and mind ached for a nap but I knew I should find some dinner instead and head to bed soon after that.
I left the guesthouse and wandered down the street. Bantama is a suburb of Kumasi, the second largest city in Ghana. This street and the ones branching off it were laden with men. Staring and talking at me in Twi, then laughing to each other about it. I was used to friendlier strangers and felt more like a zoo animal rather than a celebrity, a status I had grown accustomed to (but was still skeptical about) in the past 10 months. From the way they were acting I could’ve assumed I had suddenly grown a ghastly tumor on my face.
I turned right at an intersection in hope of finding Ghanaians who wouldn’t stare, jeer, laugh and point at the obroni. And to find a taxi driver for tomorrow morning. And to buy juice – I was feeling fruit-deprived.
Shortly after the turn I found myself on Bantama’s main drag. Loud music blared from every fifth shop, trinkets from the outdoor market crept from the building to the sidewalk, leaving a walkway wide enough for only two people to pass each other. I maneuvered around the neatly stacked displays of shoes, jewelry, purses, black wigs, fabrics, football (soccer) gear and clothes. I turned into a corner shop and bought a box of pineapple juice.
Then I stood on the side of the road and waved an empty taxi car to my side. Without a word, I got inside. I greeted him and and told him I needed a driver to “pick me” from my guesthouse at 3 a.m. I asked if he would do it and he agreed.
“Where to?”
“Metro Mass Station.”
“You mean the station this way or this way?” he asked, pointing forward and then behind him.
“This way. Metro Mass Station,” I said, pointing behind us. I felt a surge of gratefulness for Isaac, the taxi driver who drove me from the Metro Mass Station to the guesthouse and showed me how close it was.
“Oh, ok,” he said. “And please, where is the guesthouse?”
“I will show you. Drive forward and pass right here.”
I directed him to the guesthouse which was around the corner from where I had gotten into his car. We negotiated a price for the morning fare. He tried charging me 10 cedis but I knew the distance was more deserving of three. He laughed when I called him out on it and agreed to three cedis. We took each other’s names and numbers and parted ways.
Now back at the front of my guesthouse, I continued down the street again in search of a rice stand. I found one past the intersection that initially I had turned onto. Spacious enough for two to work inside, the stall had countertops on each side and plastic windows to keep the flies out.
I said "good afternoon" to one of the two women working inside the stall, the woman nearest to the front cage screen. She looked up from scooping rice into a plastic bag for another customer's takeaway and smiled. She spoke in Twi to the other woman but maintained eye contact with me. All I understood was “obroni” and then they both laughed.
She scooped red spicy sauce called "gravy" or "stew" into a plastic bag, then scooped the rice on top of the sauce. I asked for 30 pesewas of salad (coleslaw), an egg (available at rice stands in hardboiled form) and stew (spicy and sometimes fishy reddish brown sauce). She added those bits, wrapped the plastic bag in newspaper and put it inside another black plastic bag. I paid and left before remembering to ask for a plate and utensils. I was in a hurry to leave - I felt unwanted and disrespected as a foreigner there, with the woman talking about me, at me but in another language which she knew I didn't understand, to everyone around.
About 20 paces down the street back toward the guesthouse, I approached a teenage girl as she was walking through the side door of a rice stand. We exchanged greetings. I asked if I could use a plate and utensils. She shook her head quickly and said, “No.”
The next business that was open was another rice stand a few meters from the entrance of my guesthouse. I had walked by earlier but no one was around except a woman sprawled on a bench behind the stand sleeping. As I walked by again I saw she was still laying on the bench but was awake and staring at me. I went over to her behind the stall, greeted her and asked if I could use a plate.
“O, yes, come,” she said, sitting up abruptly. “What food is it?” she asked, moving into the stall. Her hand hesitated between a bowl and a plate.
I told her it was rice and she looked a little disappointed. I explained I had come by her rice stand earlier but she was sleeping and I didn’t want to wake her.
“O! It is fine!” she replied. She rinsed a bowl in a tub of water, shook the water droplets off and handed it to me. I removed my food from the outer bag and newspaper, pulled apart the plastic and dumped the food into the bowl.
“Will you eat with a spoon or your hands?” the woman asked.
“Normally I would eat with my hands but I don’t want to today.” I wanted her to know that I do like to learn and practice her culture.
She washed a spoon and handed it to me. She sat on the bench next to me and leaned back against the white wall. We talked about our Ghanaian names, our ages, why I’m in Ghana, where I’m from, who she knows in the states, if I go to church, what religion I practice, which church, etc. Her name is Adjowa, she is 37 years and she has four children ages six to 13. She is married. She met her husband in their church's choir practices. She is a Baptist. Her rice stand has been on this street corner for five years and she is from this town, Bantama.
“So, do you want me to be your pal?” Adjowa asked.
“Yes, of course!”
“I will be your senior sister, and you will be my junior sister.”
“I would like that very much.”
“Do you have a driver for tomorrow when you leave early in the morning?”
“Yes.”
“Do you know him?”
I knew his name, his number and that he’s a driver in Kumasi. “Yes.”
“Is he a good driver?”
“He is.”
“So will you wait for him here?” Adjowa pointed around me to the front entrance of the guesthouse, where I had told her I was staying.
“Yes.”
“Ok,” Adjowa nodded. Her eyes moved left to right over the street. “Where do you live? Does your place of work have a living quarters?”
“No, I live in a different part of town than where my office is.”
“Do you rent space?”
“Yes, the organization I work for rents it for me and my roommate.”
“How many rooms? Do you have three rooms?”
“Yes!”
“Do you have a hallway?”
“No, we have three separate rooms, each with doors. We have a self-contained kitchen, and it is connected to another room that has our shower and toilet,” I responded.
“Are you a virgin?”
WOW...did she seriously just ask that? I stifled a laugh. I nodded slowly and said "yes," remembering from our conversation earlier that she is a very religious woman. The judgmental type, I suspected. A woman who goes to church Sundays, Tuesdays, Wednesdays, Thursdays and Fridays – sometimes twice a day – would not like hearing that I wasn’t a virgin if I am not married. But, wait a minute. How is my sex life related to where I live?!
“Thank God!” Adjowa exclaimed. Please, laughter, stay inside. “Thank God you have kept yourself. Because men will take you and then dump you, you know that?”
“Yes,” I responded solemnly.
I was more a spectator in this conversation than an active participant. I could’ve shared what I really thought, but I didn’t want disharmony – especially not while I was eating.
Yet, out of desire for more amusement, I blurted a Ghanaian phrase that took the middle road between my polite answers catered for strangers and my real thoughts. “But it’s hard-o.”
“Yes, but thank God you have kept yourself.” Adjowa continued, “You said you are not married and do not have a fiancé – do you have someone in mind?”
“For me, there is almost always someone in mind. I never start that serious though.”
“Then is your fiancé white or black?”
“I don’t have a fiancé.”
“You said you have someone you want to marry.”
I wanted to explain that crushing is different than dating, dating for fun is different than dating someone you could marry, and most people who are in a relationship don't know for at least a year or two and sometimes longer if they want to marry that person.
Instead I said, “Oh, I don’t want to marry anyone right now. In the states, usually being attracted to someone just makes you want to get to know the other person. Then, if you become friends, you might want to date more seriously and eventually become fiancés. Those feelings take time to grow.”
I noticed Adjowa had stopped listening and was staring intently at my bare arms beaded in sweat. “Where is your handkerchief?” she asked. I pointed to my bag. “You are too wet! I will get your handkerchief for you.”
I laughed. “Yes, I am always wet in Ghana. Eating hot food makes me even more wet.” In Ghana people say "hot" when they mean "spicy."
Adjowa reached into my bag and placed my purple and orange plaid handkerchief in my lap next to my half-eaten bowl of rice. “Finish your food. Keep the houseflies away and then you can use your handkerchief.”
I smiled to myself as I spooned more bites into my mouth.
“Do you want a white or black husband?” Adjowa asked.
“You can’t choose who you fall in love with.”
Adjowa was clearly fishing for a juicier answer. “Do you want to marry a rich man? Or…would you rather marry a rich man or a God-fearing man?”
I paused. “Neither. I want to marry someone I’m compatible with and who loves me for who I am and who challenges me to be a better person.”
Blank stare and silence.
“But you wouldn’t want to marry a God-fearing man?” she pressed. “You wouldn’t want to marry a man who fears God?”
“No.”
Adjowa’s jaw dropped. I continued, “I don’t like the word ‘fear’ in this context. I would rather have him embrace God, however he understands God.”
I finished my water sachet in silence and glanced sideways at her. Her stare was fixed on the street where half a dozen children were playing tag.
“I must go,” I told her. “I need to sleep.”
We both stood. “You won’t bathe before you sleep?” she asked with concern.
“Oh, you’re right. I should bathe tonight.”
I handed Adjowa my dish, uttered medaase and hiked my bag over my shoulder.
Adjowa grabbed my shoulders and squared them so I was facing her. "You said you are Christian," she said gravely. "Are you a good one?"
"Sometimes. I try."
"You must try harder."
"I will," I assured her.
Adjowa smiled and squeezed my shoulders and stroked my arms. “Safe journey to Tamale tomorrow.”
“Thank you, medaase. We will meet again, Adjowa.”
“Yoo, goodbye, sistah Ekua.”
I walked through the children’s game to my guesthouse, marginally oblivious to their obroni calls, wishing I could've shared that conversation and experience with a friend.
