the chicken inn experience

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CHANTEL - Today was pretty uneventful and easily classified as a normal day on campus. Run around for awhile and then sit and get work done in the office. The only difference about this day was our little incident at the Chicken Inn, one of the little fast food places at the gas station near campus. An and I try to limit how often we eat there but today was a day where we both felt like we needed some good old chicken burgers and fries. After we ordered and sat down An noticed that some guy who had been watching us as we walked in was about to come over and chat us up. The unattractive scary looking forty-something white guy flashes his icky smile and informs us that he was watching us come in and that he likes the way we walk. He starts grilling us about what we are doing in Ghana and tries to push the conversation towards a very inappropriate topic. I shoot him down pretty hard, making it clear that we have no interest in anything that has to do with him EVER. Things start to get pretty ugly from there. We knew it was not going to go well when he says “do you know who I am?” Well no we don’t and frankly we don’t care. He then starts in on how he owns Ghana and how he is apparently a big deal and how he can have his security come in and take care of us. The threats start when he tells me that he can have me “exported” from the country, and not only that, he will have me exported in the trunk of his car. At that point I tell him that he can leave us alone now and he refuses. So what do we do next? In Canada this would be the point in time where I would throw an absolute fit, cause a huge scene and probably throw the table though. In Ghana, however, we were both terrified, we’ve been not even two weeks, we have no idea what’s going on and we don’t know how serious to take this guy. More than likely he’s just some random loser who can’t take rejection, but what if he’s serious? How do you call 911 in Ghana? Anyways I do the only thing I can think of, completely ignore him and stare out the window in hopes he will get the point and go away, An follows suit and after some of the scariest minutes ever he gives up and goes back to his table, and within a few minutes he leaves. Biggest sigh of relief ever. We find out that guys threatening girls when they refuse to give them their phone number, or tell them where they live is actually not that uncommon. The guys we’ve since made friends with ensure us that we’re safe and that so far has been the only scary moment. That and our first interaction with the local police. But that’s a story for later.

AN - I would like to say that I was so proud of Chantel and how she acted towards this extremely disgusting and vile human being… actually human being may be a stretch. This man was terrifying and there has never been an encounter remotely close to this during our time in Ghana. He was so vile and absolutely disgusting… and positively frightening. Once we had told our friends about the encounter, everyone was equally shocked as we were. They also assured us that this particular scenario we encountered was extremely rare, and if he had decided to lay a finger on us, the people in the restaurant would have stood up for us. This made me feel a little better about the situation. Anyways, back to how Chantel conducted herself: I was so proud that she didn’t do what she wanted, which was jump over the table, do a one, two, punch, kick into the face of the most disgusting thing I’ve met in Ghana. I’m also sure, Chantel would have followed all this physical violence with a slew of words that would have made a sailor blush. The thing is, I’m sure Chantel could have taken on this man that was threatening our lives and she would have looked good kicking his ass as well, but I’m glad she didn’t because, as much as we all know the fact that Chantel can kick some serious ass, I think we both forget at times that we are in Ghana, a foreign country where we were still unfamiliar with boundaries, cultural conduct, etc. Now that was a run-on sentence if I’ve ever seen one.

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