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I've just added pictures to the previous post "No Joke." Didn't want you to miss 'em!
(courtesy of Jane, as many of the pictures have been and will be)

Easter Weekend with Team Ellis

On Thursday afternoon, Jane and I set out for a reportedly great beach spot west of Accra. We took a taxi, a bus, a tro-tro, another tro-tro and a canoe before we finally reached Ellis Hideout.

While waiting 45 minutes for the second tro-tro to fill up, we made lots of friends and mistook plantains for bananas.

A fairly spacious tro-tro.










A river I paddled up and a monkey that landed on my lap. Potential culprits of my mysterious but relatively mild fever/headache/aches?


ROADTRIPPIN'

It began like so many other roadtrips I’ve taken: four girls (three American, the other French). We could go when we wanted, stop when we wanted, eat when we wanted. In the land of tro-tros, a private car was quite a luxury. The car meant freedom.

It had taken Manon 5 ½ hours to get to Busua in her roommate’s car on Saturday, where she met up with me and Jane. From there, we all headed to Ellis Hideout in Butre, another nearby-ish village. Jane and I had taken a tro-tro to the village and then a short canoe ride across the point where the river joins the sea the day before. The path by road, however, was unexpectedly long, through green hills and palm tree plantations, and we were low on gas.

That, however, turned out not to be an issue. The front of the car bottomed out because the dirt road was deeply rutted. It started to drive funny and smell slightly and smoke a bit. A hose was hanging down from the front that had become disconnected. We still didn’t know how far it was to Ellis Hideout, so sent a boy on the roadside to go tell Lion, the Rastaman owner whose dreads most definitely put him in the lion family. He pulled up in a 4x4 in no time at all: the Hideout was just around the corner. A few more boys had materialized and with their help, we pushed it there.

[The boys were given a ‘dash,’ which can mean bribe, but also means a tip. I hate dashing. People shouldn’t do helpful or nice things just because they expect to get money out of it. But this is a tangent I will return to at another time.]



A taxi driver that had brought some tourists there reconnected the water pipe and added some more gear oil. It was (supposedly but hardly) going to easily make it back to Accra.

On Monday, we left the beach a few minutes before 11 am. (I always check the clock to calculate how long things actually take, but then consult it at so many points that I often forget what each time in my mind marked.) We had gone about a mile when the car started acting up. Luckily, Lion was behind us, taking some American study abroad students to the hospital because they were sick. He left his brother Daniel with us to help. Jane and Megan went back to the Hideout to get more gear oil and Daniel rigged up the hose with wire to reinforce it.

I had developed a fever, headache, and achy body the night before and was still not feeling well. Manon and I lied in the shade of a young palm tree while I recited “ilhumdolilah” and “bismallah” and “Allah Akbar” (Arabic for Thanks be to God, In God’s Name, and God is Great) in cycles of 33. I also asked St. Christopher (Catholic patron saint for travel) for some help and even wondered about the effectiveness of asking God to bless and protect the car in the blood of Jesus Christ (which, until 3 weeks ago, never would have even crossed my mind).

Manon and I decided we had been cursed: The day before we had told some women at the nearby village that we would come buy fried egg sandwiches from them in the morning, which we ended up not doing. Caribbean voodoo actually originates from ‘juju’ here in West Africa and can be powerful stuff.

An hour and a half and several dashes later, we were on our way (the boy who had presumably swum across the river to get the oil since he returned wet, a messenger sent to bring Manon and I water, the brother). The gas gauge was in the orange, but somehow we made it the 10+ km to the nearest petrol station.

Jah! Rastafari! (We’d been hearing these all weekend at our rasta Hideout and it was a non-denominational car.)

Jane and I had bought bus tickets for Monday in advance since Easter weekend is a big travel time and we didn’t know Manon would come with a car. We decided to try our luck at getting a refund, even though there were signs that clearly stated you had to return the tickets two hours before scheduled departure and we were rolling in two hours after. No rules in Africa helped us out and we got the refund (the man sold our tickets before he’d even given us our money back). When we tried to dash him, he waved it away. (Amazing!)

Our luck had changed.

Only it didn’t last long.

We stopped in Cape Coast for a late lunch (4:30) at a café affiliated with an NGO called Globalmamas. Another roadside stop to get pineapples (maybe not so special since the bus on the way had stopped so people could buy bananas, strangely enough. I also have a memory of a San Francisco bus driver stopping to buy watermelon…). A pit stop for the toilet and some ice cream. Smooth sailing, particularly with the nicely paved, Japanese funded highway.

Then, suddenly but not so surprisingly, traffic. (This was the same road with major congestion on my way back from Fetteh a month or so ago: girl left by her bus when she got down to walk, a bus nearly tipping over, a guy trying to punch a tro-tro driver because he’d cut him off.)

The highway was meant to be two lanes (meaning one in each direction). When I was in the patient, behaving tro-tro from Fetteh, together with my fellow passengers, we hated the cars that sped around the main lane of traffic. This time, however, I was in the cheating car and happily so. Many cars darted into the opposite lane because there was, mysteriously enough, no traffic coming from that direction. Why became clear soon enough, when the traffic stopped moving entirely. There were at least 5 lanes of traffic headed toward Accra and none coming out. The police had stopped the cars and were somehow trying to find a sensible solution out of the situation.

Traffic didn’t move for at least two hours. Some boys were dancing in the middle of the traffic a car or two ahead of us. Megan, who has been in West Africa for about 4 years, decided she wanted to get out and dance, too. The rest of us, all under two months old in these parts, were reluctant. The men around behaved themselves though and she was a hit. Everyone was smiling. The back of the tro-tro in front of us popped open and as she slide back into our car, more and more young men showed up to join the dance party. There must have been at least 30, all with incredible bodies and great dance moves. At least there was something to look at while we waited in the traffic! A teenaged boy, wearing a button down shirt as a loose skirt with nothing else on, appeared from somewhere. Another had on a woman’s bathing suit and some shorts.



We all smiled. Only in Africa would there be a traffic jam dance party.

Eventually, we got bored enough to all get out and dance for a bit (and I was feeling well enough at the time). We made it clear that we wanted space and ‘no hands.’ It was mostly heeded. If one would get too close, another guy from the crowd would tell him to back off.

Jane had been telling people all weekend that her name was Jessica. When someone then asked me mine, my mind said, “Say anything but Jessica,” but my mouth said, “Jessica.” Jane hadn’t heard me say that, so she also said her name was Jessica…opps.

After a song and a half, we got back into the car. One young man, Michael, chatted with Jane for some time though the window and later showed us to where a woman was making egg sandwiches on the roadside (but I had no appetite). By this point, we were soooo ready to be home. Finally, traffic began to inch forward.

But our car wouldn’t start.

The engine didn’t even turn over. (At least, this is what I heard Jane say. I realized I have no knowledge whatsoever about cars!) But the headlights would turn on, so we didn’t think it was the battery. We put more gear oil in. The water pipe was still attached. Jane called her mechanic friend and he said maybe it was a fuse. She changed the fuse (I didn’t even know the fuse box was below the steering wheel) or somehow fixed it with wire.

A young man from the car to our left started shouting at Jane to get out of the way, enough though she was not in the path of his car and he could have only moved forward 4 feet max anyway. He started shouting, “F%Y*# you!” and Michael began shouting back. I even felt like shouting, he was so ridiculously out of line. Luckily, no fight broke out.

Then, a blue tro-tro tried to squeeze by us on the right and hit the car. It dented and scrapped it a bit, leaving a blue kiss of paint. Megan ran up to the tro-tro, which had managed to advance three car lengths and shouted at him. We got the license plate number, but I’m not sure if anything will come of that.

Eventually, we pushed the car through the traffic to a side street. Michael was still helping, trying to find us a battery, etc. His ride ended up leaving him behind when he stayed on to help us. We finally pushed the car a block to the Mobil Station (I shouldn’t say ‘we,’ since I was just sitting by a building, watching everything happen, drinking water, and once again feverish) and decided to hire a taxi to take us home (120,000 cedis=$12) since it was midnight. Michael found us a taxi, we loaded our stuff up, dashed the man at the station to watch the car overnight, and we on our way: the four of us in back, Michael in the front.

Jane and I told him we had lied about our names, afraid he’d be mad. He wasn’t. He said he understood and that, in fact, that’s what we should have done since there were so many men around and we had to be smart. We gave him our numbers and I was happy to have met another Ghanaian who didn’t just seem to be out for something for his own interest. The next day, however, he called Jane to say that the taxi driver had made him get down in a spot where there was no transportation back to his house (not the spot we had earlier agreed upon with the driver) and that it had cost him 40,000 cedis to get home and another hour. She thought maybe he was fishing for something…When he talked to me, he hadn’t mentioned the money, just the hassle. I’m not sure if he was motive-less or not, but he was a big help. I hate that I’m more untrusting here in than I am normally inclined to be.

Maybe we were cursed.

Maybe it’s just Africa.

But most likely, Mercury retrograde is to blame for turning the trip into a 14-hour fiasco.


SICK
I felt better on Tuesday, but went to the clinic anyway to have a blood test to rule out malaria and typhoid (about $16). Even though I suspect that I would be much, much sicker if it was either and since I’m taking malaria meds and had a typhoid vaccination.

From the typhoid section of the Lonely Planet Africa Healthy Travel book:

“You almost always get a fever and headache to start with, initially very similar to flu, with aches and pains, a loss of appetite and generally feeling unwell. Typhoid may be confused with malaria…”

Also: stomach pains (which I had on and off) and a red rash (which I discovered Tuesday morning).

The results came back today: negative.

Could it have been dengue fever? Similar symptoms…

I cannot go to school today, said little Peggy Ann McKay.
I have the measles and the mumps.
A gash, a rash, and purple bumps…

While you were away: an update from a fellow traveler (a rather Old World Brit):

"With a torrent of oaths and other profanities Lars the viking left Ellis Hideout this morning on his bike for Winneba and points south and east. Phew. Retired burglars are all very well in their proper place - like southern spain for the British crook or Miami for the eastern US. So I have warned Lion to watch out in future for goblinesque nordic men with heavy arm tattooes and mohicans at age 41 and a half years of adolescence. . Is that prejudice by the way - or rather the light of experience granted by the gift of time spent in the world by yr correspondent?"

No Joke

12 Arab men, 2 Ghanaian drivers, 2 American girls and an Australian with surfboard, in a 6-car caravan, go on a day trip outside of Accra, Ghana.

No, this isn’t the start of a lame joke, but how I spent my Sunday.

Jane and I had been planning a trip to nearby Prampram, but my Egyptian friend Sherif told us that if we waited to go till Sunday, he could take us.

We met at 8 am (an Egyptian on time!?!), strapped Scott’s board on top of the car, and went to a second location because some of Sherif’s friends were going to join us…

8 other Egyptians and 3 Tunisians, to be exact. Engineers for a telecom company and a few embassy staff.


Is this GHANA?!

We arrived to Prampram, but didn’t know exactly what beach spot we were headed to. We followed the road and ended up a few kilometers away in Old Ningo, where a Sunday school class paraded down the street, waving palm branches and singing (Palm Sunday). Just after we passed them by, the lead car was told that the beach was back that way. Six cars then did three point-turns in the middle of the road and passed the parade by again.



We arrived to a restaurant on the beach (where a sign declared Your Secret is Your Power) only to find that it was rocky. Some cars set off down the road to locate another beach, but some had to stay put because Mr. Egyptian Embassy had sent a boy for cigarettes…

Again, we asked directions to a good beach from a couple of men on the street, the first wearing a plastic sack on his head (no rainclouds in the sky), the second a hat fashioned out of what looked like a feedsack and shaped in the Newsies style.

Golden Beach sounded promising, but there wasn’t even a restaurant and the only chair-like things were a few monumental stone benches. While we waited for the rest of the cars to arrive, Jane, one of the drivers, and I joined in a game of volleyball that some local teens were playing.


Golden Beach (?!)

The decision was made to go to Ada, another 45 minutes further outside Accra where the river meets the sea. Periodically, the cars in the lead would pull over till the rest of the cars caught up. Halfway to Ada, I could till the Arabs weren’t exactly amused (are we there yet?!). I felt somewhat responsible, though I was going on what the guidebook said, never claimed to have first-hand knowledge, and hadn’t been expecting to be responsible for the weekend excursion of so many people.

We pulled up to a Yacht Club in Ada…but you have to be a member. (Jane saw an American woman from the Embassy there and got me another tutoring job, which will allow me to stay a bit longer here, at least!) So we headed down the road a bit and got to a hotel. The fee was 35,000 cedis (a bit more than $3.50) to use the pool...I’d just been at a hotel pool the day before in Accra, but since there seemed to be no beach, there wasn’t much to be done. Jane and I tried to get a discount, claiming we’d brought them all this business, but the woman wouldn’t budge.

One thing I forgot-or perhaps never managed to put into words before-is that Egyptians don’t need to find fun; they bring their own! It’s been a long time since I played in the pool so hard. Monkey in the middle / team keep away. They were just like little boys. Jane even chicken fought with them (two people sit on the shoulders of others and try to make the opponent fall into the water) and won! One Egyptian who wasn’t swimming kept coming over to the pool and dumping a bottle of water on our heads, then saying we couldn’t splash him because he had his money and phone in his pocket. He kept coming back, toothpick barely sticking out of his mouth, and doing it over and over again. Another group of Lebanese men in their 20s spent hours running and jumping into the pool, so maybe it isn’t just the Egyptians.

We played some beach volleyball and took a boat ride to where the river meets the sea. They made music, drumming on the side of the boat and singing. I could have been on a felucca in the Nile. The only complaint I have is the smoke. At least most Ghanaians don’t smoke.




In the end, Scott said it was the most fun he’d ever had with 12 Arabs. While I’m not sure I can make the same claim, it’s the most fun I’ve ever had with 12 Arabs in Ghana.

Amazing Grace

My mom was surprised to hear “Jill” and “church” in the same sentence. Not only did I go to church two Sundays ago-I gave money. I kind of felt like I had to, since I was with a religious woman who had been very welcoming and generous to me and I knew it was important to her.

We said grace before eating every meal and prayed before starting the car each time we left the house, asking that the blood of Jesus cover and protect the car and its passengers.

I even went along to the radio station while the husband gave a weekly half-hour sermon he paid the station to broadcast. My task? Say “Amen” every time he said “Hallelujah.”

Those of you who know me well know that I am not religious (though I try to be spiritual) and that in-your-face religion drives me crazy. But this was somehow different. Aside from one question as to whether I go to church and a simple statement of “You should try to go in Ghana,” I wasn’t being converted. The family was just going about their business as they normally did because they believe, they pray, they worship. I was hardly annoyed at all.

Hallelujah!

(Amen.)

Whistle Whilst You Work

My updates have been less frequent because during office hours I'm actually doing work, rather than blogging. Hallelujah.

I'm teaching myself how to use Dreamweaver, a program for webpage design. I'm updating/rearranging/editing/greatly-improving the current site. I was having problems editing in Dreamweaver and just thought it was because I didn't know what I was doing. So I took my laptop to the internet cafe to seek help. Before I could even turn my computer on, the power promptly went out. But I had battery power and that meant the guys there had nothing else to do. Even THEY couldn't figure out why part of the page was locked and webdesign is their job, so I no longer felt incompetent and stupid. Their food came, so I hunted around on my own while they ate---and figured it out! With the trusted help of the handy Help section. I did a victory dance and have had plenty of work to do since then. I like doing webpage design because it reminds me of doing Page Layout as an editor for my high school newspaper.

I've fallen into the abyss of Future Panic (I think I'd prefer a Ghanaian gutter!).

I also found out this week that the place I was hoping to get a job here in Ghana (interviewing refugees for resettlement in the US) isn't hiring till the next fiscal year--which is in October! I felt great disappointment that the plan I'd had in my brain was not panning out. I suppose there may be other ways to stay, but it'll take some time to figure out and some good luck. I'm hoping for some tutoring gigs with the international kids.

I guess I don't have to stay in Ghana...but I wanted to. Why? I put it in my mind, first off. I don't know what else I'd do, secondly. I don't love it here, but I didn't love Egypt and Malaysia in the beginning either. I want to give it a fair shake and I don't feel ready to go back to the States or any type of school yet.

I got into SOAS (London) for a masters program in International and Comparative Legal Studies and have six weeks to decide and basically no time to apply for financial aid, so deferral likely to be requested...which is what I've done with Iowa Law...Peace Corps on hold...Foreign Service Exam in April...

Am I postponing my indecision? Will I ever be sure?

Why can't someone pay me to photograph hippos around the world?

• Check out Scott's Daily Slog. Particularly his account of our trip to the beach two weekends ago (entry dated March 8, 2005) and a couple of pictures.
  

• Who's got a lotto number for me to play?

• I heard myself say, "I'm coming," when I was actually going this morning. A first. And, I pray, a last.

My Weekend in Cape Coast: A Picture Book

I got to the bus station about 11:30 am on Friday and the next available ticket was for 2:30 pm. The bus left an hour late and before we'd even left the city borders, a tro-tro cut us off and we ran into it. Well, barely tapped it. The drivers got out and shouted at each other before heading to the nearby police station. Meanwhile, our bus took up a lane, forcing the rest of the traffic to merge. Two near collisions like ours were narrowly missed. I finally arrived to Cape Coast at 7:30 pm. A long day's journey that makes me reluctant to want to go to the North for Easter...




The Iowa-Ghanaians. Both Mamma and Papa K got their phds from the U of Iowa and I met their Prince in Iowa City before leaving. He even made me Ghanaian food, the best I'd tasted till I had the food at his house here in Ghana. Yum. My new favorite:



Red-red. Beans that you eat with plantains. Hmmmm!



This seamstress made a house call and I got a dress IN AN HOUR! Amazing! The only slight problem is that it's fitted and I find it difficult to get off. Each time I try to take it off, I find myself somehow claustrophobic and thinking I'll have to cut it off. Instead, I think I'll have a zipper added. There was no time for such things that morning.



Because we had to go to Speech Day, which is like a combination of an Awards Ceremony and Homecoming. Here are some high school boys in their uniforms.



On Sunday, after church, we went to Elmina Castle, where the Porteguese and Dutch loaded slaves for Brazil and the Carribean.



View from the Castle of Elmina



Dock outside of Elmina Castle



View of Cape Coast Castle, which the British used. Over 15 million slaves passed through these two castles. The last ships sailed in 1860, which is really not that long ago...



Then we went to a funeral event held 40 days after the man had died (they have a funeral at the time of burial, too). As I understand it, the traditional belief is that the spirit stayed around for 40 days, so this was like a farewell party.






I didn't dance this time because I need to practice in the privacy of my own room the chicken-like dance move that they do. I have a short video clip from my digital camera, but haven't figured out yet how to put that on here...

It was a good weekend!

More details to follow.

1 month and 4 days

1. I will not give you my phone number if I don’t know you. Saying hello does not then mean that we know each other.
2. I will not respond favorably to hand-written notes asking me to be your friend “cuz you so pretty.” Friendship, my friend, is not based on attractiveness. What you want is something else entirely.
3. I don’t think I’ve ever asked anyone to be my friend out loud, certainly not within the first 3 sentences of conversation.
4. I like getting drenched in a surprise rainstorm. Even better is when someone with you makes the observation that it is “somewhere between East Coast and Seattle rain” and you know just what she means.
5. Sleeping on a couch in a green room, wearing someone else’s comfy clothing, during a storm, after good music and good conversation, is fabulously reassuring.
6. Fat bottom girls make this rockin’ world go round. I wish it were “flat-bottomed girls.”
7. Don’t eat the coleslaw.
8. A French girl who was dating an American: I even loved the way he annoyed me.
9. “Knowing that she would hate him long and well filled her with pleasant anticipation, like when you know you are going to fall in love with someone and you wait for the happy signs.” Toni Morrison, Sula
10. What better way to celebrate one month in Ghana than to go to an Ethiopian restaurant?


If it’s not yours, don’t take it without asking:

LM has been at it again, the culprit of my missing sachets of water. Yes, it’s just water, but it’s MINE. I feel like the two-year old I live with: No! Mine! Maybe she thinks she’s acting like we’re sisters or close friends, but we’re not. Other Ghanaians say most people would ask before taking. If she had water I could just take, then at least it’d be even, but she doesn’t. Conclusion: LM is rude by American standards and not exactly exhibiting normal Ghanaian manners. It drives me crazy!

Aliens in Senya:

The woman calls hello. Everyone does and the children are a broken-record with it. But this woman, she, she is bathing topless. And she still calls out to us.

Three obrunis wear sunglasses. Which is the child that worries these pale ghosts have no eyes, only gaping, empty, dried-out sockets? And they’ll use your bones for toothpicks!

My first fufu

I visited my coworker Marian at her house yesterday since we had the day off for Independence Day. She made me fufu, a distinctly Ghanaian food. It's made from cassava and plantains, pounded and mashed. We ate it with palm nut soup and fish. The thing about fufu is that you don't chew it, you're just supposed to swallow it. That should be some indication that it's not something you want to savour...It wasn't bad. I just kept thinking it would get stuck in my throat. And I think I cut my gum with a fish bone.

Notice in this picture a Bible, a bowl of water to wash my hands in, and a sachet of water that is drunk by ripping a corner of the plastic away with your teeth and then sucked.

Views from a tro-tro

The wheels on the bus go round and round, round and round

From our taxi on the way to Kaneshi Station, a known rough spot northwest of the city, we passed by a thief being beaten by a vigilante group, with lots of onlookers. Some moments later, a taxi cruised by carrying the thief and some other young men shouting. To the hospital or just away from the scene of the crime, I’m not sure.

Arriving, we avoided being eaten by the vultures and picked out one that looked like he was trying to help us, not himself. We maneuvered the crowds, bags held close to us and kept a watchful eye out for pickpockets. Looking for the bus was like looking for buried treasure without a map. Those people told us to come here, but these people are telling us to go there. Along the way, Scott somehow managed not to knock any people out with his surfboard.

We get tickets and are happy to learn there are only 2 more left to be sold, so we will not have to wait a long time to hit the road. The surfboard just barely fits in the boot (a much better word for ‘trunk’). The last seats are the ones in the middle that flip down into the aisle and that’s where we end up, in the center of the Ghanaians. I am thankful for the symmetry.

As the bus heads out of town, sellers stand in the middle of the traffic near the stoplights, goods perched atop their heads. A man in the back leans out the window to pay for biscuits, but the bus takes off before he gets the food. He starts yelling, then someone up front to the right responds. They banter for awhile, with additional backup coming from throughout the bus, voicing various support and reprimands. Then the man next to me is in it and I’m afraid his flailing arm is going to hit me. It sounds like he’s threatening the biscuit-less man. People are shouting, angry, but there seem to be smiles at the corner of their mouths. Others, not yet involved, laugh. Some shake their heads. The toothless old woman behind me is disappointed and she speaks to Jane as if she can understand her words. A middle-aged woman with peppered hair hands the man next to me the newspaper, to distract him, I believe.

Four or five stoplights later, the girl with the biscuits appears and the man gets what he is due. How did she make it so far so quickly on foot? And why not just keep the money and not deliver the biscuits? An hour later, when a woman is buying a sachet of pure water from the window and the bus starts to move, she chucks the coins at the girl, who struggles to find them in the dust.

The whole incident seems distinctly Ghanaian. I couldn’t understand the majority of the words, but the faces, the tones, the mood are not dependent on knowledge of language. Everyone is quick to get fired up, offer their opinions. Someone is angry, another person tells him to chill out or shut up, then another offers support and on and on it goes. From the back of the bus, to the front, left, back, right, around and around, leaving only a few untouched. I jokingly suggest to Jane that we stand up and do a little dance to offer a diversion. Fortunately, the air, already heavy with humidity, could not handle too much tension. As quickly as it begins, it seems to end.

People sit shoulder-to-shoulder. It’s impossible not to be touching the people beside you (sticking to them, more like). In that limited space, maybe it’s not so hard to think that someone’s business is your own. For those few hours, the passengers talk and do not talk, alternatively. A conversation between two is heard by many others, who might join in. Not the same kind of conversation you have with the person sitting next to you on a plane. More intense, more opinioned, less about who you are and where you’re going.

The doors on the bus go open and shut, open and shut

Because our organization was having a church service for International Women’s Day (March 8^th) on Sunday, I had to come back earlier than Jane and Scott, who found waves right after I left. Jane and Scott were worried about me traveling by myself, though I wasn’t. I was allowed to once I promised to send text messages periodically letting them know I was okay. A young boy selling sweets stared at me for the 30 minutes we waited for the tro-tro to fill up. I couldn’t help but think that I’m really not that interesting to watch and felt some sympathy toward zoo animals.

As we bumped along the dirt road to the highway, I smiled to myself and felt happy. I’m in Africa. This is the way people in Africa travel: crowded together, hot, dusty, bumpy, uncomfortable. In the same instance, I knew it was a novelty for me but that it was the daily life for my fellow passengers. Not something to be viewed as quaint or charming. It is hardship and I was smiling.

Traffic was bad due to road construction and more cars for the holiday weekend (March 6^th is Ghanaian Independence Day, so Monday was a holiday). We were barely moving for a large portion of the journey. There was a bus two spots ahead of us and I watched as men got down, peed not ten steps away and re-boarded. I even saw a woman relieve herself, using a sarong/cloth as a curtain to shield herself.

A 20-something woman in a dress got off the bus and began to walk forward. I imagine she wanted to stretch her legs and get some exercise. Just then, traffic picked up. The woman started to jog, but the bus went ahead. When it slowed again, the man next to me was looking out the window to see how far back she was: very. Traffic was crawling again, but then would pick up. Crawl, pick up. I wanted to get home, but I also felt bad for this woman and wanted her to catch her bus, which meant I had to hope for a standstill. I don’t know if she had money or a phone on her when she got down from the bus, but after more than 2 miles (roughly, I’m bad with measurement and weight estimations!), I have little hope that she got the same transportation back…

Tro-tros, buses and taxis were all trying to get ahead of each other in this one-lane snail’s race. Some were trying to edge each other out by going along the shoulder of the road. Two tro-tros went down a slight incline and I worried about them tipping. Then a full-sized bus did it and I knew by the gasps of my fellow passengers that I was not the only one would thought it not only possible, but likely. This bus then tried to cut us off, nearly running into us to force its way into the line. This elicited yells from our tro-tro to the bus and we somehow managed to stay ahead of that crazy driver. I know sitting in our bus that I was annoyed at the others ‘cheating,’ but that if I’d been in those vehicles, I’d be thankful to be getting home faster…

Traffic in the opposite direction was also very slow. We passed by a black 4WD with tinted windows stopped with the driver’s door open. The driver was reaching into the window of a tro-tro trying to punch the driver, while the rest of the passengers were shouting. I imagine the tro-tro had cut him off. Our lane opened up and on we went, every craning their necks to see what was happening. But like the bus-less woman, we’ll never know.

Senya and Fetteh

I spent Friday and Saturday at the beach with two friends and we stayed overnight at a fortress formerly used for holding slaves.

The best stories happened on the way there and back and in another language, but are very telling about Ghanaian society. More on that soon. For now, here are a few pictures, but I'm hoping to get more from my travel companions, perhaps even a short video clip!

Food pictures

Plantains

Banku (made from cornmill and water, eaten with sauce with fish or chicken usually)

Eating with your hand

Together forever? Hardly...

From conversations thus far, the following scenario seems common:

William and Ellen are in a relationship (boyfriend and girlfriend, not just casually dating). Ellen starts to flirt and go out with Edward behind William’s back and eventually leaves William for Edward.

This can go both ways, with the man as the culprit.

It’s not that they break up first and then find someone new. No, it’s finding someone (actively looking, perhaps!) while engaged in a relationship that is supposed to be monogamous. And it doesn’t seem to be a big deal, because everyone does it. And because everyone does it, nobody trusts anyone and might as well be looking for someone better because your partner might be doing the same.

Jealousy seems to be a big thing, then, because of the lack of trust. Near Valentine’s Day there was a case of a man shooting his girlfriend, her female friend who happened to be with her, and himself in a fit of rage over some text messages she’d received from another guy.

I can understand dating more than one person at a time if none of the relationships are yet serious. But once you’re throwing around the term “boyfriend” or “girlfriend,” it’s cheating, plain and simple, for you to start dating someone else. Obviously this is known, because it’s being done secretly, behind the back of the other.

The girls in my office didn’t seem to even think it was a big deal. That’s just how it goes.

Unfortunately.

An office annoyance: We have two typed documents from board members and we are supposed to scan each page so that we have them on the desktop and can print them (because the copy machine leaves black marks so it doesn’t look very clean and professional). Now, obviously the documents have already been typed and are on another computer or disk somewhere. But for some reason, we don’t have them on disk and I don’t think anyone even attempted to locate them. I’m sorry but that is completely inefficient. It’s difficult to make the pages a standard font and the same type settings if each is scanned (because eventually they’ll become one document) and seems such a waste of time and effort. I said as much, too. Then the power went out and I couldn’t have done it even if I wanted to.

Frequently heard: “I’m coming” when the person is are actually leaving. Meaning “I’ll coming right back.” Also sometimes meaning “I’ll be right with you.”

Words: In Ga, the word for “to smell” is the same as “to hear.”

Dear Miss Manners

I’ve been learning more about Ghanaian manners…or lack of manners by our standards.

A girl in my office (let’s name her LM) called me Monday afternoon (I had left work early because no electricity meant I couldn’t do anything) saying that she was coming to my house. I was napping, but gave her directions and told her to flash me (miscall my cell phone) so that I’d know she was nearby and I’d meet her at the gate. I waited an hour and she didn’t come. I called her phone and she didn’t pick up. The next day I asked what happened and she said that it had gotten late and she decided she wanted to go home instead.

1) she invited herself over

2) she didn’t come

3) she didn’t call to say she couldn’t come (though the next day claimed that she had meant to but had forgotten)

4) she didn’t apologize for not coming and/or not calling

On Tuesday, LM tells me that I’m buying her and the other girl in the office bangku for lunch. I’m startled to be told that I’ll be paying for their lunches not a request, but more like a statement. I yielded, knowing that our three lunches would cost less than a $1 US total and that someday I’d probably be going to their homes and be fed.

Last weekend, as I waited for a tro-tro, the woman sitting next to me declared that I’d pay her fare. That one I objected to, not knowing her at all.

I asked a friend if these were normal behaviors and was told that the first is, the second questionable, the third inappropriate. He said if I had been waiting for her and decided to go out before she came, I should probably call to say so. But that it’s common to have someone say they’ll come, but then they don’t. Things come up, I understand, but it seems like the decent thing to do to call…

But I’m in Ghana, so I must adapt. And I guess that means it’s okay for me to do the same thing, if I should need to…but it just seems like you’re saying “something better came along.”

As for the sharing, generous bit, I’ve noticed that there’s a flip side to it, where people take what is not theirs. Bags of my “pure water” disappear from the refrigerator; LM finished one I had beside me off without asking. Later, she took a drink of someone else’s Fanta. Is it just this particular girl with these seemingly rude manners or is it okay in Ghanaian culture?