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Published: September 22nd 2010
True to the old Chinese curse, I am living in interesting times. I went to the market Saturday before last, looking for cream-colored silk fabric with no pattern. Ha. Such a thing is not easily found in Ghana. Almost all of the material I saw was cotton or synthetic. The few swaths of silk available were in bold, vibrant floral patterns. Dresses here are certainly not boring. It didn’t help that many traders in the market places speak somewhat limited English, especially the older women. This meant that I often had to gesticulate or find another girl to translate. Fortunately, Carolyn came along and was able to help me through my fool’s errand. I was not successful, by the way. Not even with Carolyn’s help.
Ghanaians really like to party. The Friday before last was Eid el Fitr, the conclusion of Ramadan. The actual conclusion was Thursday, but Friday was the designated holiday/party day. Classes were unofficially cancelled, of course. I got a haircut on campus, and the streets there were virtually deserted. All the Muslims were decked out in their long tunics (men) and hijabs (women). The different religious groups get along pretty well here in Ghana. They have reached a general consensus that, Allah or God, they’re all different names for the same thing. Plus, it’s a whole new set of holidays to celebrate! I went to Osu to meet a Muslim friend of mine for a drink, but I didn’t stay for the evening festivities. Osu can be a bit hairy after dark, especially when the streets are crowded.
I’ve noticed that the more crowded a place is, the more comfortable people feel making mischief. People have warned me about this and I’ve seen it for myself too. Places like Kwame Nkrumah Circle, which is perpetually clogged with vendors lining narrow, littered sidewalks, are notorious for pick-pockets. I’m learning to be a bit more cautious about how I carry money. I’m also learning not to take crap from crafty young men. Some of them are really blatant. I was leaving my house the other night and a guy stepped out of the dark and said, “Hello, I want to be your friend.” That tactic has been worn a bit threadbare.
I miss everyone at home. I didn't mention that last time, but I miss you every day. I can't wait to see everyone again. I love you all.
-Claire
Others are cleverer. They will strike up a conversation with you on the tro-tro or the taxi, pay your fare so you feel indebted, and then ask you for your number. At first, I felt obligated to give it to them because they’d been so nice, but after having been bombarded by phone calls for the last month, I’m beginning to develop a thicker skin to this sort of hospitality. Then there’s the approach which involves outright harassment. There’s the arm grab (always a favorite) coupled with, “Hey Akosua, how are you?” Or there’s verbal harassment. “Hey, you want to come with me? You have a sister? She’s good for the (*mimics sex movements*) too.” Fortunately, that was only one particularly bad incident shortly after I arrived, and his friends seemed ashamed of his behavior after they saw me storm away furiously.
On Tuesday, I got fondled at the beach. I was sitting on a reclining beach chair eating popcorn and a guy walked over, stroked my thigh, and then strode away quickly as I started to yell at him. A bit later, another guy and his friends walked over to where my friends and I were sitting and sat down on our chairs (without any sort of invitation). We indicated that there were other chairs free so they had no reason to sit on ours, and then they stood up and loomed over us. They were on my side and I was getting increasingly uncomfortable, so I asked if they couldn’t stand somewhere else. This was exactly the opening the lead guy was waiting for, and he proceeded to accuse me of thinking I was “big”, and said I didn’t own the beach. Then he stood even closer and remained there until we left. I shouldn’t have opened my mouth.
The general attitude of younger men towards women here seems (to me) to be one of entitlement coupled with resentment. There is a strong belief in male dominance, according to the young male population at the university. Women do not occupy very many high posts in either the public or the private sectors. They are traditionally homemakers and traders, although they are also Queen Mothers, and highly respected once they become elderly. Western ideology is changing women’s expectations. Now, dating is en vogue, but it has a distinctly African twist. Historically, a man was supposed to throw lots of money into courting his fiancée’s family in order to show them that he was financially capable of supporting a wife. Since dating is replacing courtship, now the man is expected to buy his girlfriend everything she wants. If they go out to eat, he pays. He drives her everywhere. I’ve even heard of a guy who takes notes in lectures for his girlfriend and then goes and teaches her what he learned, so she doesn’t have to take the trouble to go to class herself.
Some of the girls are not afraid to demand this royal treatment because they have adopted the Western sense of entitlement. However, they don’t care much for Western independence. What this boils down to is that young, broke university lads have a reduced dating pool because the fanciest ladies at school want a sugar daddy. This leads to quite a bit of bitterness, naturally. On the other hand, you have the male machismo. Men are not expected to be faithful. In fact, the more sexual conquests, the better. There is intense pressure on men to be sexually active and cheating is commonplace among college-age men, according to several students both male and female with whom I spoke about this issue. So perhaps the girls who want their boyfriends to treat them like princesses are actually ensuring that their men are investing in them, rather than some other girl. They want to keep the guy on a short financial leash. If he’s rich enough to provide for more than one woman, it can lead to broken hearts and angry accusations. The extra woman is usually blamed, since the guy is expected to try to cheat.
What this means for me is that there are a bunch of guys looking for a good time without commitment. They aren’t finding very many willing Ghanaian ladies, because the ladies are looking for romance, relationships, marriage, and/ormoolah. The lads also want to have diverse sexual experiences to brag about to their friends. And they’re curious. So they go for the Obruni girls. Western women are notoriously easy and free-wheeling. So we should just fall into bed with them if they pursue us for a bit. That’s the mindset for many of these amorous fellows, anyway. We’re also wealthy enough to buy our own lunch, and theirs as well. All of this also means that it’s somewhat difficult for Obruni girls to make friends with Ghanaian girls.
The Sunday before last, I went to a Hindu service. It was very colorful, and there were drums and tambourines and an offering of sweets afterwards. I was much more comfortable with it than I was at Power Gospel Ministries. The Indians were very nice, and one lady even gave me the number of her Buddhist friend, who in turn gave me directions to the Zen Buddhist temple in Accra. There’s a monk who lives there, so I can go any time.
I went out with some of the CIEE students to a dance club on Thursday. The club was called Tantra, and it was in the Osu district of Accra. We arrived at almost midnight and the place was deserted. People started trickling in after midnight and by 1 a.m., the dance floor was full. Recreational drunkenness isn’t very popular here, but dancing certainly is. I danced for a while but the music was too loud so I sat outside and talked to the girl taking money at the door for the rest of the night. I think this means I am getting old. Oh well. My friends, as luck would have it, were the very last to leave and they decided they wanted to get food at the only place open at 4 a.m. in Osu. We took a cab to the chop bar at my insistence, because I had heard of some guys who had gotten beaten and robbed by thugs in Osuthe night before. That didn’t sound like a nice time.
We ate and got back to the dormitory, and I slept for an hour before getting up again to go home. I then resolved never, ever to go clubbing until the wee hours of the morning again. I’m glad I didn’t drink, or it would have been even worse. I felt bad for the ones who had gotten drunk and then had class the next day. My one class didn’t start until 1:30 p.m. so I got a nap, but I still had a hard time staying awake in Urban Sociology, and I nearly cried when I saw the hill leading from the taxi drop at Blue Gate to my house. So yes. Clubs are overrated.
Last weekend, CIEE arranged a two-day trip to Cape Coast, famed location of Elmina and Cape Coast castles. It was a 3 ½ hour drive along a pretty decent road, and we had air-conditioning. I’d hate to make the trip in a crammed, rickety tro-tro, though. Cape Coast is a sunny beach town. It’s good-sized but not crowded like Accra. You can see the ocean as you enter the city limits, with little two-man fishing canoes bobbing out on the water and traders walking past balancing huge buckets of fish on their heads. There are men selling fetishes (a.k.a. dead rats) along the roadside, and the entire city is a checkerboard of yellow, blue and red, the colors of the three competing major cell phone services in Ghana. Their favorite way to advertise is to paint everything in a quarter-mile radius, including trees, cars, and dogs, with their company colors and logos. We passed through the MTN district (yellow), the Zain district (blue), and the Vodafone district (red). Zain was lagging a bit behind the other two. Too bad. I like blue.
We split into two groups: the Elmina group and the Cape Coast group. Those weren’t the only two castles in Cape Coast. They dotted several hillsides, and some looked to be in surprisingly good repair, but Cape Coast and Elmina are the only two currently open to the public. I went with the Cape Coast group because it was smaller, and I wanted to hear the tour guide. Brief history lesson: Cape Coast and Elmina were primarily slave-trading centers once the Europeans started making an industry out of human lives. They were major players in the Trans-Atlantic triangle. Ships would leave from Europe, sail to Africa, pick up slaves, and ship them to the Americas, primarily. Then, back to Europe to divide the spoils. Thus, the three sides of the triangle.
Europeans were not the sole actors in this gruesome play, though. The powerful empires in Africa routinely raided neighboring villages for slaves to sell. Entire tribes would be captured and sold for things like mirrors, spices, and cloth. Ghana was where the Europeans got much of their gold, so it didn’t have quite as much value to the West African empires. To be fair, the African concept of slavery was very different from the twisted European version. If members of a neighboring tribe were taken into slavery, they could eventually win their freedom and become integrated into the society of the village where they were held. Slavery in North and South America left no possibility for eventual integration. Because of their darker skin color, captive Africans were slaves from birth until death. And to keep miscegenation and working-class revolution from occurring, the idea was perpetuated that a darker skin color somehow made one inferior. This drove a wedge between African slaves and white indentured servants/poor folk. By fabricating an idea of racial superiority, white aristocrats both justified their horrible treatment of African slaves and ensured that their iron-fisted rule of the working classes was not overthrown.
Cape Coast and Elmina were where the racism began. The white traders sequestered themselves within the castles and, except for business and booty calls, had little to do with the African neighbors who kept them so well supplied with slaves. Offspring of white traders and local women were called ‘mulattos’ and were given special privileges and a white upbringing. This ostracized them from the African community and made them targets of resentment. Then there was the treatment of the captured Africans.
They were marched across the countryside in shackles at a grueling pace. Some died during this journey. Once they reached the castle, they were led to enormous holding pens. The men were kept beneath the ground in dark rooms with poor ventilation. The floor was several inches thick with years of accumulated human waste. The rooms were crowded past capacity, and the men and women were kept inside for a period of three months before being sold onto slave ships. The women had marginally nicer accommodations. They, at least, were above ground, although their rooms were just as dirty and crowded. There was a large door set in the wall above their holding pen where white men could survey the women and decide which one (or ones) they wanted for the evening. That woman would be dragged out and cleaned by white soldiers, used, and returned to the pen. If she became pregnant, she would be taken outside of the castle, be delivered, and return to be sold. The ‘mulatto’ child would be raised by the whites. If her pregnancy was not discovered until she was on-board the slave ship, she would be thrown overboard for the sharks, because the traders would get in trouble if word got out that they were fraternizing with slaves.Rebellion was dealt with brutally. If one or a few men tried to revolt, or sometimes even if they just looked at an officer the wrong way, they were thrown into a small room with no ventilation, and left there until they died from thirst, starvation, or asphyxiation.
I am glad they have left Cape Coast and Elmina in the same way that I am glad that there is a Holocaust museum. People need to know how atrocious they are capable of being, so that these mistakes aren’t repeated. It makes me wonder how much good we are really capable of doing, with our history tainted by this much cruelty. Our ancestors were the ones who carried out these deeds. Our blood is their blood, and our society descends from theirs. We are where we are as a result of that inhumanity. No wonder the world is such a mess.
On to lighter things. The next day, Sunday, we visited Kakum National Forest. It is a mix of rainforest, deciduous forest, and swampland a half-hour drive outside of Cape Coast. There is a canopy walk through the trees which allows you to see for miles in all directions from the tops of some of the tallest trees in the forest. The canopy walk is a narrow rope walkway with boards on the “floor”. There’s room enough for just one person to go through, and the rope walk sways in the breeze. It’s about 100 meters above the forest floor. It is epic.
After Kakum, we visited a rather unique place for lunch. The owner has several crocodiles which she feeds regularly, so that they aren’t quite as vicious as wild ones. They’re tame enough to touch, if you’re brave. She was still cautioning us to approach them from behind, and not to make any loud noises or sudden movements. Apparently they’re not that tame. They had their mouths open so that you could see the long rows of sharp teeth. Their skin felt like hard leather, and was surprisingly warm. Their eyes were the scariest part, for me. They looked predatory. I didn’t linger long.
On Monday, I went to Nkrumah Circle to get a package from the post office. The ladies working there were surprisingly quick to serve me, considering all the horror stories I’d heard about two-hour waits. I think it helps to be friendly and talkative. I made them laughed with my attempts at Twi. It is a policy that all people receiving packages of a certain size must open them for the post office to inspect. My family had packed several snacks for me, and a certain gleam lit up the ladies’ eyes when they saw my goodies. I offered them a package of ginger snaps which they readily accepted, and miraculously, my fee was waived. Thank you, Mom.
Kwame Nkrumah’s birthday was yesterday, September 21, and it was declared a national holiday. Told you Ghanaians like to party. We had classes cancelled again, and I did some laundry. I got a text from some friends inviting me to come to Labadi Beach, so I went. It was very crowded. Most of the Ghanaians were swimming in their clothing. Actually, most of the Ghanaians were playing soccer by the shore, and cheering when the soccer balls soared over the heads of the tourists. Some of the Ghanaian women wore bathing suits, but they were fairly conservative in appearance. The white people stood out more than usual in their bikinis and swim trunks. I had been warned that Labadi Beach was notorious for hecklers and obnoxious guys. Those warnings were true. They were particularly aggressive, I think because it was such an obvious haven for white people with money. Everything was really expensive. They were also more forward with the women who weren’t there with men. Figures. My two female friends and I were the recipients of much unwanted attention. I got in an argument with a couple of guys who refused to leave us alone, and we left shortly afterwards. I felt a little bit bad for losing my temper, but it was a long time coming.
In other news, Patrick, the abandoned baby boy, has been transferred to Osu Children’s Home. I want to visit him, but I don’t know if I’ll be able to right now. There’s an investigation into abuse, child neglect, and misuse of funds going on. There were some horrific-looking documentaries about the grievous offences committed at Osu, aired by an undercover cop. Immediately afterwards, there was an investigation launched. I tried to visit one day to read to the kids, and they said that volunteers weren’t allowed until the investigation was complete. I hope things get better.
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mike
non-member comment
wow... that was a really long one, and I'm impressed I read through to the end! Yours has been an interesting read about my homeland. Anyway... first thing.. you should say "me pa wo chewo" it means "I beg of you" or please, pardon me, etc as the French use s'il vous plait. You'll find Ghanaians saying "I beg you" when saying 'please' as is a literal translation from Twi to English. Second thing... where do you find all these Neanderthals? It's a bit sad to read about how disrespectful some men are in Ghana. I would hope theirs hasn't given you the impression that we're all the same. I have loads of male friends in Ghana who are quite the opposite, and we don't carry on like we're entitled to act that way towards women. I don't know if it's a generational thing (I'm 30), but growing up, boys/men didn't behave this way, certainly not with such brazing disregard for one's personal space. It's a bit unfortunate to have to suggest, but I'd advice you always try to have a trusted male friend with you whenever you imagine you'll meet with such behaviour. Also, if you have the time or the means, you should consider weekend trips to Ada, Keta, Busua, Axim, etc. They're all further from Accra with much nicer beaches.