Guarded Friendliness, also known as The Trouble With a Walk to the Bank

Just like in most study abroad experiences, there are good days and bad days in Ghana. (Today was actually a good day, but I still feel the need to write about this.) There are great days where you go out into Accra or beyond (especially beyond) and get the feeling that you are really seeing Africa, and that you get it. But there are also bad days, days when the water doesn't run, the food makes you sick, or too many men pester you with marriage proposals. It is the last of this list that I want to try to explain.

In Africa, or at least in my experience in Accra, you learn to approach certain people and situations with a sort of guarded friendliness. It is a reflection of the economic situation in Africa that there are many unemployed men that have little better to do than sit around on the sides of the streets, and these are the people to avoid. It is certainly easier if you are a guy, and easiest when you are with Ghanaians, but for a white female walking down the street alone, just getting to the bank (or grocery store or anywhere else) and back can be quite an ordeal. Especially in an affluent district like Osu, all white people are assumed to be rich, and there is never a shortage of people who want to sell you things or simply ask you for money (or declare their love for you). People will approach you with "hello, what's your name?" which seems rude to ignore, but this "conversation" will get to "have a look at my jewelry" or "please, give me money" in about 2 minutes. Really less. If they don't have anything to sell, they want to "be your special friend," they ask for your phone number and say "when can I see you again?"


And it's incredibly frustrating, not because I can't say no, but because outings like this, especially when I am alone, force me to put on a mask of guarded friendliness in which every gesture, facial expression, and word has to be chosen to make me seem unapproachable. But when someone does approach you, it rarely works to completely ignore them. The trick is to be friendly and polite while still preventing the conversation from continuing. It's a tough balance to keep, but there are ways.

Body language helps a lot. You can say "no" as much as you want, but it won't help if your body language is open for interaction. For example, I learned from a Nigerian friend here to wave instead of shaking the hand that someone holds out. She says she does it because you never know where a hand has been, but it also serves as a way of keeping yourself separate from someone you don't really want to talk to. You can wave and keep walking, instead of being pulled into a conversation. It helps a bit to smile too, but I think the most important thing is to keep walking, and to look like you know where you are going (which I do now!). I've also heard advice to say "not today" or "maybe next time," something to that effect. It isn't as effective as I might have hoped, but it is probably the easiest thing to say, rather than explaining that you are a student without much money, etc. etc.

The worst part about this, as I said, is not that it is difficult to get out of certain interactions. Sometimes men are really persistent, especially when it's just girls, but I have not yet been in a situation where I really felt in danger. (But some other girls in my program have had much more physical run-ins with guys on the street. One of my friends basically got groped in this really busy market-place, and turned around and yelled at the guy. I like to think that my "New York face" has some effect, but maybe I've just been lucky.) The worst part is that it makes you wary of any new person you meet. They might not even be "new" - a student I met once might not be familiar to me, but of course they recognize the blonde girl. Even walking around in our neighborhood in the afternoon can be challenging - I usually err on the side of friendliness, because even if I cannot recognize someone, they are most likely a neighbor or shop owner, and at any rate there aren't really any street hawkers in Labone. But there is also a palm wine "spot" (i.e. benches of unemployed drunk men) on the walk home from school, which can be a little scary at night.


I don't want anyone to worry about me. Even when you are new to Accra, the worst that usually ever happens is that you give out your phone number or cash to too many people, which really just results in being broke and getting lots of annoying phone calls. The toll of these types of interactions is more emotional. It's getting your personal space and security violated, it's hating the way you have to be rude to strangers, it's feeling like you always stand out. And it can make the difference between a good and bad day here.

PHOTOS: (borrowed from the web) Oxford St. in Osu

Val's Day and Other Reflections

February 14 is a major holiday in Ghana, and although there is certainly a strong romantic element, it isn't a holiday only geared towards couples like it is in the U.S. There are parties, concerts, and all sorts of other social events - it might be the busiest Wednesday night I've seen here yet. It is also known as national chocolate day (cocoa being one of Ghana's biggest exports) which I personally think is a whole lot better than all of that romantic stuff.


Besides the chocolate, though, Val's Day (as a lot of people call it here) turned out to be a surprising window into Ghana's sexual culture, as well as a really fun night out. In Leadership 4 (a course for Ashesi seniors that focuses on how to be a community leader) on Wednesday we had a speaker from West African AIDS Foundation come to talk to the class, and some of the reactions were quite startling. Before the speaker showed up, the professor asked a few questions to start up a conversation on sex and love. What was stranger to me than the comments was the general mood - the giggles and jokes made me feel like I was in a middle school classroom. When the NGO worker later asked how many students had ever had an AIDS test, only one Ghanaian student raised her hand. (I should admit here that I have never been tested myself, but at least I know how and where to get tested, and I'm not afraid to talk about it.) In discussions later about the class, we (the CIEE students) couldn't decide whether students at Ashesi really aren't having sex, or whether they just don't know how to discuss it. I wonder how many students will take advantage of the AIDS testing that will soon be available on campus.

On a less serious note, Valentine's Day was also a great opportunity to go out (on a weeknight too, a strange rarity here), and I experienced something of a breakthrough in my mentality towards nightlife here. I ventured out (in red pants) with two other American girls, and we eventually made it to an outdoor concert designed to raise awareness about AIDS. (Continuing the theme from above: one of the MCs, after promoting the use of condoms, suggested that women could also use "that pill thing." Um, no, that won't work. What the hell. Right in that moment I understood a huge part of the problem of AIDS prevention in Africa.) But the storyline that took us from our hostel to the concert and back includes several other stops that weren't exactly planned, which is the way most days and nights out unfold in Ghana.


The difference is that on Wednesday night I was fine with it. We were with our program assistant's younger brother, but perhaps more important than that was our own growing confidence in our knowledge of Accra. For the first time, I wasn't worried about how things would turn out, because I knew that whatever happened, we could always walk out and get a cab and direct the driver home. These are some basic urban survival skills that I didn't have when I walked off the plane; I didn't know how to bargain with the cab drivers, I didn't know my way anywhere, I didn't even know where to buy groceries or how much they should cost. But now I am comfortable in this city. It's still no Manhattan - without streetlights, public transportation and reliable police, it will never be as safe. But I know how to navigate through all of that now. Now it's time to relax and have fun.

PHOTOS: the fishing boats at Cape Coast (stolen from Netanus), schoolchildren just outside Accra

Lost in Translation

One of the luckiest things about me studying in Ghana (I had originally planned on Senegal) is that the official language here is English. Not that everyone here speaks English, or speaks it in a way that is intelligible to an outsider. Cab drivers, market women, artists, and many of the people you encounter away from the university setting will tend to speak more of a mix of incorrect English and Twi or other indigenous languages. Yet even when speaking with classmates and professors at Ashesi, (all of whom are well-educated, many of whom are also well-traveled) so many things seem to get lost. For a long time I thought my roommate was in the same year as me - it turns out she is a first-year, not a "junior" in the way I meant. I'm still under the impression that we are the same age, but who knows, that could be wrong too.


For example, the use of "please": it is interchangable with "thank you" and sometimes even "you are welcome," and it can generally be thrown into any sentence to make the language more polite and formal. "I'm coming" is also tricky - what it really means is "I am going, but I will be back," and the time frame is undetermined. (This is a common theme in Ghanaian culture - everything is always "soon" and "coming" and "close," but often these things are a long time or a far distance away.) As you can imagine, this can make for some frustrating misunderstandings.

Just like in British English, there are specific words for certain objects or concepts that are used slightly differently than they would be in the US. (I once asked a bartender for a "napkin" - he sort of frowned at me and shook his head and was like "how about a tissue?" and handed me exactly what I had asked for.) Ghanaians use "cutlery," not silverware, they "wash," they don't shower, (though perhaps this is a helpful distinction as our "shower" rarely works as such) and "chill" means the exact opposite as it does at home - "chillling" means going out to a bar or club until 2-3 am, not sitting around at home watching a movie. I figured this one out as a friend asked me incredulously why we were "chilling" the night before we had to board a bus at 7 am.

My favorite misunderstood concept would have to be "ponding." Pronounced the Ghanaian way, it sounds more like "pounding," which makes sense as a form of punishment. Turns out, the word is "ponding," as in putting someone in a pond. Yeah. Apparently it is a great source of embarassment and public punishment for the members of a certain fraternity.


The mistranslations are mostly humorous, although understanding taxi or tro-tro drivers can be a real problem. Of course the accent here is different, and what we have learned is that it often helps people understand you if you pronounce your Ts a bit more, and your Rs a bit less (as in "water" - imagine pronouncing the first half of the word like a British person, and the second half as "ah" instead of "er"). So don't be surprised if I come home speaking English a bit funny.

PHOTOS: Cape Coast Castle, the rainforest view in Kakum National Park (stolen from Netanus)

African Journalism: I

I envision this entry as the first in a series about journalism in Africa, or, more accurately, journalism in Ghana. I hadn't really expected to be a "journalist" here (I don't really think blogging counts). I was content to be a "student," occassionaly a "tourist," and perhaps even a "political scientist," but because of the people I happened to meet, I find myself being drawn once again into the journalism world.

But that world here is entirely different. "Community journalism" becomes an entirely different concept in a country where the biggest, most well-respected newspaper is literally run by the state. As recently as eight years ago, journalists had to flee the country to avoid arrest for writing anti-government pieces, and even now publications can be more or less destroyed by lawsuits filed by the government which charge editors with libel for writing against the party in power.

Today in Twi class (the local language which I am only sort of learning) we heard the remarkable story of our teacher who lived in Nigeria in 1999 in order to escape arrest by the military. He had written a story incorrectly placing the president at the scene of a beating (the man was in fact one of two look-alikes, if I understood his story correctly), and as a result, soldiers came to his house while he was away and took all of his books and papers, including his passport. He escaped through Cote d'Ivoire, and is now back in Accra. It sounds like a truly extraordinary story, especially to have taken place so recently, under a supposedly democratic regime.

Thoughts of a senior thesis on democratization in Africa are turning in my head, and the more I think about it, the more freedom of the press seems like a logical aspect to explore. I can see several visits to newspapers and radio stations in my future. Good thing I brought my tape recorder.

The Clearing Harmattan

Even though the Harmattan is clearing, there is still dust everywhere on the ground which will continue to bake until the rains come, supposedly in late March. But water hasn't been behaving as it is supposed to in this part of the world; the Volta River -- and the amount of hydro-electricity produced by its dam -- is lower than it should be, which means our taps and lights work only occasionally. These are the signs and effects of global warming; anyone who doesn't believe the scientists should come to Africa and feel it in the flesh.

A few weeks ago Ghanaians were complaining of the "cold." But the dry, sandy winds from the Sahara are diminishing, and the tropical sun is shining ever more intensely down on Ghana. At less than 5 degrees from the equator, I managed to get a slight sunburn on my shoulders just from walking to and from class in a week. My favorite part of each day is the 5 minutes I spend in the shower, just letting cool water splash over me (sometimes from a shower head, but more often from a bucket). In another 5 minutes I will be sweaty again.

With the growing heat, the highly air-conditioned library at Ashesi University is even more of a haven than Butler ever was. It is small, with a serious shortage of books, but at night there are usually computers open and ALWAYS lots of AC. Sometimes I will make up excuses to be in the library -- I will search for a novel that I know I will not check out -- just to get out of the heat. Some nights when there isn't much going on I'll get on a computer and try to connect to my friends back in Eastern Standard Time (3-5 pm there). But the effort to connect across 5 hours and a completely different daily life sometimes makes me more lonely on this side of the planet than I was before. Which isn't to say that I don't love talking to people from home, or that I don't adore hearing from you in any form. But the effort of describing my life to so many different people frequently makes me feel maddeningly inarticulate. So here I will describe things to the nameless internet, and hope that everyone I love will understand.