Goodbye, Sweat Rag: Mainstream Beauty Revisited

We're going to sidestep from my reflections on South Africa and Swaziland. Right now I would rather talk about how pretty I felt this New Year's Eve.

Since returning to the states after almost two years on "The Dark Continent," I've felt attractive again. That is, attractive in the sense of no longer exuding the scent of toxic bug spray every night and sweating profusely from every pore, two disadvantages of living in malaria-riddled sub-Saharan Africa.

While living in Ghana my "essential beauty tool" I couldn't leave the house without was a handkerchief. Oh, yes, I had quite the mighty collection of sweat rags. Actually, I wouldn't even call my sweat rags a beauty tool - they were more like a basic work supply. I could survive a day at work without one, but I wouldn't have been in my element. My sweat rags granted me the ability to concentrate, while also helping Ghanaians to take me more seriously. Because nothing in one's physical appearance gives away "I'm not from West Africa and will always be an outsider" more than dripping in sweat over peeling burnt skin inflamed by mosquito bites.

Now that I am back home in the U.S., I cannot say I would readily revert back to constantly looking moist and feeling slippery. I do miss the exotic inconvenience of every bit of exposed skin being covered in red dust and dirt at the end of my days; yet, adapt as I tried, it still didn't fit my standards of "pretty" or even "comfortable."

I spent this recent New Year's Eve in my hometown, Omaha, Nebraska. It was the first big event I've been to since being back in America for two months. To my delight, besides hours of sweaty high-energy dancing, no outside interference converted my appearance. Not heat, rain, humidity, mosquitos or sickness. I took a laughable amount of time to get ready for the evening, but I enjoyed every minute.

I'm grateful for my year-and-a-half hiatus from hair products and tools, heels, perfume, make-up, fancy dresses and other beauty enhancers. Although I have a limitless tolerance for discomfort; for instance, squatting on a ledge to urinate into a hole in the ground in a doorless, ceilingless public urinal under the scorching sun, I realized I'm still a girly girl in the end. I guess some things never change – every once in a while it's fun to try (really hard) to look extra pretty. Oh, so pretty.

Happy 2012!

Conversations Over Street Food: Religion, Virginity and Love

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.

Blind Man's Music

Two more passengers was all we needed. As one of the first to board the tro-tro, I had waited two hours for it to fill. We were heading to Kumasi, four hours north of my home in Cape Coast. I was going on a long weekend trip to Mole National Park by myself. (See previous post for details.)

It was more of a van than a tro-tro, as it had almost double the number of seats (22). If you don’t like people touching you or don't do well in small spaces, public transportation in Ghana and probably in the rest of Africa is not for you.

The front had two seats next to the driver and the back looked like this:

Don’t let the divided lines fool you – they are not separated individual seats. They are benches. The bench in front of you is usually about 12 inches away from your chin, and you are thigh to thigh, hip to hip and arm to arm with the person or people next to you. Although tro-tros and vans are not the most comfortable way to get around, the forced physical closeness makes for my most interesting moments in Ghana. This morning was no exception.

An old man in a navy blue jumpsuit too big for his slight body stepped onto our van in the opening space where there was no seat. He faced us. He was blind in a rather painful-looking way. His left pupil was permanently positioned left, revealing a yellowed sclera. Near his right eye's iris was some sort of puncture wound the size of a dime. He lowered his lids halfway (I wondered whether he did this consciously) and began speaking to us in Fante, the main local language spoken in the Central and Western Regions of Ghana. I only know a handful of Fante phrases and words, but knew the gist of what he was saying.

When tro-tros are almost full, salesmen stand by the open door and duck their heads inside to give a minute-long sales pitch on energy drinks, pens with calendars inside them, body soap, religious books, how-to books – you name it. And sometimes on the vans, where there is more room to stand, eloquent gracious representatives of religious bodies (usually Christian churches) will recite a prayer and mention the importance of faith and knowing Jesus and the Lord. Then he wishes the passengers a safe and blessed journey, sings a soulful song and steps out of the van. I’ve witnessed these van prayers three times and each van reacted the same way. Whereas the passengers generally ignore the salesmen on the tros, they clap, exclaim and give money to these people of extraordinary faith.

All I could understand of the old man's prayer was “St. Francis.” He mentioned his name several times. I had no recollection of what St. Francis was known for and wondered why this man chose to speak about him rather than St. Christopher, the patron saint of travelers.

He spoke softly, but his words still reached everyone in the van. His voice sounded as old as his weary eyes looked. Although his eyes didn’t seem to register anything, he moved his head slowly from one side of the van to another as he spoke. He used his hands at times, moving them with control and grace.

The man next to me leaned over my lap to pull his wallet from the back right pocket of his trousers. He took out a one cedi bill and asked the woman sitting in front of him to give it to the man. She took the cedi and placed it inside the man’s idle hand by his waist. His eyes still projected ahead, his fingers fumbled for the money, though not with desperation or greed. He stopped his speech to say, “May God bless you,” and tucked the cedi into his left breast pocket, his finger catching the rim of the pocket, jingling a few coins from the bottom.

He finished the prayer and took out two light wooden cylinder-shaped sticks and began building a rhythm. The sticks were about six inches in length and an inch in width. He hit the right one on the left, rotating the left stick in his hand each time after striking it with the right. The rhythm was simple – one, two, one, two, one, two. It was so genuine. As a devoted admirer of African music, I am convinced Africans are born with musical inclination. There were countless rhythms and combinations of rhythms he could have played with those two sticks, but he chose the simplest, purest beat there is.

In his blind eyes, in his quiet demeanor, I could not detect a trace of sadness or of desperation. He was calm and steady. It was as if his only intention was to bring us faith and hope. When he began to sing, it was too beautiful for me. Too unexpected. Too needed. I couldn’t handle it. My throat swelled and tears brimmed. I laughed quietly at myself and pulled out my wallet. Despite never giving money to those who beg due to its often pointlessness and even negative repercussions, giving money to this blind man seemed like the most natural thing to do. There was no question in my mind about it. From moments like these I've learned there is a difference between sustainable giving and kindness.

In fear of completely losing it, I didn't dare look at the old man again or anyone as I handed a one cedi bill to the man next to me. I asked if he could pass it up. He looked at me, then looked at the van’s open entrance, where girls and women stood by our door with boxes and bowls of food on their heads. “You want a meat pie?” he asked. He probably didn’t think I would give the man a cedi because there was no way I had understood his prayer. A meat pie seemed like a more obvious purchase for a foreigner.

“No, can you give it to that man?” I nodded in his direction.
The guy next to me looked from me to the singing man and then back at me. “That man?”
I nodded, feeling my throat swell again. I kept my gaze unfocused and downward; it would've been impossible to keep the tears in if I had locked eyes with another.
I could hear him smile. “God bless you!” he said, and passed my cedi forward.

I looked the other way out the window, wishing the old man would stop playing his music and stop singing. It was too beautiful.

Public Urination vs. Paying to Pee: I wish I had the choice

I strongly believe people should not pay to use a toilet. It’s like paying to breathe. Can you imagine? “That’s my air you’re breathing. I look after it and keep it clean, so pay up!” Especially considering the public “toilets” in Ghana are in fact not toilets at all, but a wall with a door (and occasionally a ceiling), a standing block and a hole in the ground. Perhaps my biggest sticking point about this pay-to-pee policy is that it does not suit a society that allows public urination. Public urination for Ghanaians only, that is.

A special thanks to growing up with guy friends who were practically extras in the TV show Jack Ass, enjoying the reputation of the daredevil in my group of girl friends in middle school and high school, and my rowdy freshmen and sophomore years of college, I am more than comfortable peeing in public. Though, I prefer to call it “wilderness urination.” To any cops reading this, only once have I urinated on an unnatural object, and I don’t regret it at all. (Taco Bell, once upon a time when your drive thru window was open until three a.m., customers like me took that seriously. Quarter to three is still before three. And nevermind that I had tried to order from your drive thru window by foot.)

Now that I've made it clear I’m neither shy nor reluctant to urinate in public, it should also be known that that doesn’t mean I have the skill and confidence to do it in plain sight like many Ghanaians. Some men even carry on a conversation while peeing. Some wave with one hand while guiding with the other. I’m not quite at that level yet.

The only thing holding me back from semi-public urination - ducking into an alleyway or behind a quiet building - is that I am a foreigner, a white sheep among a flock of black. I realize people from home may take offense to this backwards expression, but I've been away from the overly politically correct society for a while now and regularly converse with Ghanaians who use the terms "blacks" and "whites" instead of "locals" or "Ghanaians" and "foreigners." I'm over color sensitivity, at least until I go back to the states. Back to my point, the kids in Ghana (Cape Coast especially) practically have a heart attack every time they see an obroni – I don’t want to know what would happen to them if they saw a white female squatting with her underwear down. White male foreigners are luckier - peeing while standing up is far less conspicuous.

Why can’t I relieve myself in semi-public? Yet, the inconvenience of this double standard doesn’t bother me enough to want to try to pull it off – I am certain it wouldn’t go over well if I were caught by a Ghanaian who disapproved of public urination. Especially considering many Ghanaians think obronis are more intelligent than they are simply because we aren't from Africa. They probably think we're above peeing in public. Well, this girl isn't.

Instead, I have to "be a lady" and hold it until I find a stall and when I’m finished pay the man or woman sitting on a stool outside the stalls who seven times out of 10 – I wish I was exaggerating – try to cheat me by saying it’s 20 pesewas instead of the usual 10.

Double standards piss me off. (High fives for pun fun!)

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!

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.

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)

Birth, Outdooring and a Naming Ceremony

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

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

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

“Ohh, God bless you!”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Case of the Mondays

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

ASSumptions

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


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

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

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

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

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

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

“Michaela.”

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

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

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

“Thank you, and what’s your name?”

“Essi.”

“Ah, Sunday born. I am Ekuwa.”

“You are Wednesday born.”

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

She beamed, “I have one child.”

“That’s wonderful. Boy or girl?”

“Girl.”

“And what’s her name?”

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

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

“Monday.”

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

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

We laughed.

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

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

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

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

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

“You will come to think so,” he said.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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


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

Taxi Drivers Remind Me I Am a Minority

I figured it’s about time to talk about my love-hate relationship with the transportation system in Ghana. It took a couple weeks to get acclimated to the Ghanaian way of driving, which is offensive rather than defensive, but it's a comforting sort of recklessness. When I was in Peru, the driving was more suicidal than reckless. Ghanaian driving is like coloring outside the lines of a picture, and the picture turning out better because you dismissed the limitations of suggested guidelines; whereas Peruvian driving is coloring outside the lines, off the page and onto the desk, with horrific colors. At least the majestic Peruvian mountains and lush trees were satisfying distractions.

But I digress. The source of my sporadic frustration is not Ghanaian driving, but the transportation system as a whole; specifically, the unfair prices I sometimes face as a foreigner.

I get around Cape Coast by shared and drop taxis. Shared taxis are cheaper than drop taxis. Shared taxis pick up everyone on the side of the road who is pointing toward the direction the driver is going. Occasionally it can take as long as 15-20 minutes to find a shared taxi going your way. The function of a shared taxi is comparable to the purpose of a metro bus. The best part about taking shared taxis is hearing and telling the passengers “good morning” and “good afternoon,” and the drivers know they can't try to rip you off because a shared taxi is always a set price. Sometimes our volunteers are uncomfortable taking shared taxis and tro-tros the first couple weeks because they’re packed with Ghanaians. I don’t understand why, but I’m trying to. It's smart to avoid dodgy crowded areas in foreign countries, but it's pretty unavoidable in developed countries if you want cheap transportation.

Drop taxis take you from wherever you are to wherever you need to be. I use drop taxis when I don’t know where I’m going, when I’m really late and when it’s dark. Drop taxis are also used when you want to go from one town to another, as shared taxis only operate within town, but it’s a lot more expensive than using a tro-tro or a Ford van.

When I go from Cape Coast to another town, I use a tro-tro, which are boxy vans with three sitting benches in the middle. Tro-tros are the same price as shared taxis and are much cheaper than using drop taxis to get from one town to another. They’re similar to the combis I rode in while volunteering in Peru but much less crowded. Ford vans are more spacious than tro-tros and have air-conditioning. They’re most suitable when you have a long journey ahead. If you have a lot of bags, it’s best to use a drop taxi.

I’ve only come across taxis with air-conditioning in Accra. AC is a luxury in Cape Coast. Driving with the windows down is more fun anyway. I rely on my morning taxi rides to dry my wet hair from my shower and the afternoon rides to dry my sweat and cool me down. Seat belts are available, but they’re either stuffed into the seats or have a clip in them that you have to remove before fastening. I’ve been meaning to ask one of my taxi drivers the purpose of the clip. Kirsty told me it’s smart to build an army of taxi drivers by taking phone numbers from the ones I like. I call my drivers when I need someone to “pick me” (they don’t say “pick me up”). I only take phone numbers from taxi drivers who are calm, respectful, friendly but don’t talk the whole time, don’t ask me for my number and give me a good price the first time I ask. Ha, man, I’m a toughie. But really, I savor the quiet time the drop taxis provide me. They are my refuge after a chaotic bout in the market. Kirsty judges drivers based on conversation and how good of shape their car is in. Cape Coast taxis are all manual cars, which you don’t notice until you want to roll down the window and the lever is broken. But taxi drivers share cars, so I never recruit them into my army based on their car.

From my apartment to the main road at the bottom of the hill, it’s about a 10-minute walk. If I want to go toward Elmina, which is a 15-minute drive west of Cape Coast, I cross the road and try to get a taxi from that side. But most days I stay on the side of the road by the bottom of the hill to head to town or to Abura (a busy suburb where most of our volunteers’ homestay families live and where many of our NGO partners’ offices reside). When I see a taxi coming from the left, I use my right hand to point forward in the direction of Abura, or point behind me if I’m going to town. It’s disrespectful to use your left hand for anything in Ghana because historically the left hand was thought of as the dirty hand.

If I want a drop taxi I look for the taxis with no passengers. It’s 3 or 4 cedis to take to town. When a taxi pulls over for me, I bend down until I’m level with the driver (no need to lean in on the door – your money gets you a lot farther than your cleavage, unfortunately.. or fortunately?) and ask through their unrolled window, “Kingsway?” They nod. “How much?” I learned the hard way that no matter how long you’ve waited for a taxi, how hot it is, or how late you are, you must never forget to ask how much the fare is before getting in.

Whenever I forget to ask, I realize I’ve forgotten as soon as I get inside his car and we start driving. My stomach plummets because, out of sheer absentmindedness, I’ve subjected myself to a possible asshole. I’ve come up with the embarrassingly pessimistic discovery that every time an obroni approaches a taxi driver here, there’s a 50 percent chance he’s an asshole. I hate arguing with taxi drivers. It’s exhausting to constantly have to prove that I’m more than my white skin; I’m more than a money sign, and it’s even more exhausting to listen to their relentless bantering, all the while knowing that I wouldn’t even being having the conversation if my skin was black.

I only argue with taxi drivers when I have to. The majority of the arguments took place in July and August when Cape Coast was busting at the seams with obronis on their summer break from school, and the taxi drivers thought every obroni was only here for a few weeks. So of course, when they asked how long I’ve been in Cape Coast, the first question on rotation of all taxi drivers’ small-talk talking points, they were all delighted to hear that I’d been in town for a while and I’m staying for two years. The thing that really gets under my skin is when the driver and I agree on a price of a drop taxi and then when he gets to my apartment he tells me he didn’t realize how far away I live (bull shit) and tries to charge me more. Or when the driver picks up me and one or two of my obroni volunteers as an agreed shared ride – 30-60 pesewas each, depending on the route we give him – and then a few minutes later the driver says, “Where am I dropping you?” But at least if this happens you can get out, not pay anything and look for another ride.

During my first week in Ghana while trying out the taxi system without help, I forgot to ask the fare amount until I got to my front doorstep and the driver charged me double the expected price. I didn’t have any one cedis either, so I couldn’t give him the amount he should’ve charged me and then made an exit. It’s not very advisable to do that when you’re with a particularly hostile driver, but you can get away with it if you disagree over the price early and make pleasant small talk with them during the drive. It feels like a passive-aggressive cop-out but whatever.

I forget I am a minority in Ghana until I do anything that involves spending money. It's frustrating to be discriminated against, but I got used to it quickly. You have to. And I realize I have nothing to complain about if this is the most blatant form of discrimination I've faced in my life. To Africans, simply not being from Africa automatically means we have more money than they do. In Ghana you are considered wealthy if you can provide yourself your needs and most of your wants. If we used this principle as a measuring stick of wealth in America, I would be considered rich. Most people would be considered rich.

But we must not compare apples to oranges.