Pill Pusher

Solomon and I caught a bus back to his house on Friday afternoon, instead of a tro-tro. The buses have 4 seats per row and then a 5^th flips down into the middle aisle. The bus guys (the ones who collect the money) insisted that 6 squeeze into each row, packing us in like sardines but maximizing their money. That means that there were roughly 75 people in this particular bus. And I, the foreigner to be seen, was dead center in the middle.

I was in for an interesting ride, though not a wholly intelligible one. For this was an infomercial on wheels, with a captive audience if ever there was one. The man at the front of the bus began working the crowd right from the beginning. A few grumbled about the extra person per seat, but he told them not to be annoyed and began his stand-up comedian routine. He was probably somewhere in his mid-40s, though most people have been older than I thought so far. The hair framing his face was just starting to gray. His sweat was visible from where I sat 6 rows back and he would wipe his face periodically with a handkerchief, but not always before a big sweat drop would roll from his forehead down the side of his nose.

I was sitting attentively, trying to figure out as much as I could about what was going on, though most of it was not in English. A few English words would stumble out, in the middle of an otherwise incomprehensible sentence, encouraging me to keep listening. But not only was I listening, I was watching. From the general tone, gestures, facial expressions of the man and the sly, shy smiles of the people (as if they were trying not to smile), and the laughs of a few of the uninhibited, I sensed that the jokes were a little off-color. That was confirmed when the young woman next to me muttered, “He’s not in the Bible.”

He would say something sternly, as if angry, then break into a smile at the end of the rant, exposing his missing front tooth. At some point, he became a preacher, drawing a few Amens from the crowd. “Marriage is an understanding. Marriage is not about love. Love is a lie,” was the longest string of English words. “Beat wives,” “cassava leaves,” “don’t be annoyed.” Add teacher and doctor, as he began to talk more about the product he was selling. The box said it could be used in the treatment for piles, increasing men’s strength, painful menstrual pains, and dimness.

In the end, I couldn’t help but think he was a magician, considering the number of people who reached for their pocketbooks while their hands shot up into the air to buy (at least 10 boxes). The price is about $2 US for a month’s worth. The expiration date was 2005, so when someone asked, the man said simply, “December.”

I had never considered the similarity in skills shared by successful politicians, salesmen, preachers and con men: engage the audience, make ‘em laugh, and talk about God. I couldn’t help but think that this mode of communication would be an innovative tactic to use for public education, awareness raising, even political campaigning. The people didn’t shush him, no one challenged him. Where they just tired from a long week of work? I was initially skeptical that these pills would work and surprised at the naivety. But then again, maybe they know something I don’t? What if it does work? $2 seems to be a lot for a Ghanaian within normal means. Would they just throw it away for that?

When I was recalling this spectacle to my housemate, her son’s nanny Na said that these peddlers are often Nigerians who take the real pills out of those boxes and replace them with fakes. Meaning, I gather, that there are real pills that actually work, curing “everything but hunchback and AIDS.”