Through the Eyes of an Obruni

I think I mentioned this word, obruni, in a previous mail, but it is important enough to the experience that it bears repeating.

Obruni literally means 'white man', but I think it extends to all foreigners, so long as your skin is at least a shade paler than the locals (a very broad category). Obruni is more than just a word, however; it seems to me an experience in itself. If it means anything to you, its the rough equivalent of being called 'gaijin' over in Japan, or 'American' while I was in Canada ;-) It's a strange mix of celebrity and ostracism that makes life equal parts interesting and agonizing by fits and starts. To survive here you have to embrace obruni existence and use it, ironically, as a free VIP pass to more of the behind-the-scene parts of local culture.

But such existential musings are not the primary purpose of this particular entry. With some minor exceptions I'm still trying to get down all those things I find so exotic about Ghana before I've been here too long and they become normalized in my mind. Forgive me if I repeat or, more likely, contradict myself for in the former, I didn't write it memorably enough the first time to remember it or, in the latter, hadn't gotten the whole story yet. Without further adieu, more craziness in Ghana through the eyes of your humble, Obruni, narrator.

The compound where I'm staying is crawling with little kids. Since I'm not responsible for any of them I have few scruples about naming favorites. The two most energetic are, charmingly, a brother and sister pair named Prince and Princess, about 6 and 4 respectively. They appear to be the compound ring leaders, so were naturally were the first two brave enough to befriend me. For a few days they called me "obruni, obruni!" whenever I walked by. Charming the first time and significantly less so every time after. This is typical of kids everywhere, but I while rarely stop to tell kids my name, since these rug rats were going to be sharing a living space with me I thought they should at least know my name.

In hindsight this was a questionable decision, because now instead of being greeted with a chorus of of "obruni, obruni" now I get an even more enthusiastic "Kaylven, Kaylven!" No, people here cannot pronounce my name either. Growing up I never thought my name to be very unique, but having traveled around a bit and heard attempts to pronounce it in various languages I am newly satisfied with its linguistic flexibility. The point, however, is that this is the new chatter that follows me around the neighborhood, and kids expect a response every single time, no matter what incredible distance is between you. Further, acknowledging any calls only leads to new and more enthusiastic chanting.

So you might say Prince is a favorite because he isn't afraid to try some other English out on me. I get frequent requests to "Pick me up", "Give me one", "We shall play", "Where's the big one?" (Mack) and etc. I feel compelled to reward his creativity, at least, though recently I have been forcing "Please" and "Thank yous" before complying. In addition, Prince has an incredible knack for remembering and repeating anything anyone says to him. To illustrate: he was trailing me the other day on the way to pick up some sodas, and along the way he picked up a length of ply wood long enough to emulate a ruler in his hands. Without missing a beat he began, with serious face and perfect inflection, to swat imaginary pupils while crying "Hey! You! Sit down and shut up! I will hit you!" I guess that's how the teachers maintain focus here.

The personal fortitude required not to abuse Prince's ability is overwhelming. I have limited myself so far merely to teaching him a customary call and reponse:

Me: Hello Prince, having a good day?

Prince: For shizzle my nizzle.

Princess, the sister, is more of the same. It bears telling here that many girls of all ages rock the shaved head. It threw me off at first, but after seeing enough of it it is growing in my esteem. The style is low hassle and, paradoxically, incredibly flexible: wig business is booming here. The hallmark of the modern woman. The girls of the house tempted Kendra to shave her head but she fortunately declined. The shaved head is a hit or miss affair, I'm afraid, and on an obruni it is often a sore miss. Good sense prevailed and she settled for braids. But the point of this mention, really, is that Prince and Princess are spitting images of one another, both rocking the egg-noggen, and the only real way to tell them apart is Princess's ghetto fabulous hoop earrings, which I hope to provide pictures of shortly.

I think I already mentioned that sleeping is an festive event here, but I think I should elaborate. Good sleeping hours are from about 9pm to 6am, which anyone who knows me will concede is not my usual cup of tea. Add to that the early morning call to prayer by the mosque and you have a grumpy Kevin. Then there are the hens, of which there are multitudes, serenading each other with spring-time loving. There is a woman who starts sweeping at some ungodly hour; this really creeped me out at first because it sounds just like someone walking and dragging their feet along the cement and, as the noise gets closer and closer every morning, in my dreary state I imagined someone was creeping up on me. Then there are the dudes that work. I don't know what they're working on, but they start digging a massive hole right outside my window every morning starting at 4 or 5, right around when the mosque starts. I guess they're trying to beat the heat, but really... really? I exaggerate not a bit when I say 4 or 5. They were stacking cement blocks so loudly the other morning that is was coming in through the window, bouncing off the opposing wall and coming at me from that far side, leading me to believe, again in my dreariness, that Mack was conspiring with them against me to keep me from sleeping. I rolled over extremely ready to give Mack a piece of my mind for moving furniture only to find him fast asleep. I am not a morning person.

When I do sleep, though, it's always an interesting affair. I've talked about it with other volunteers and the consensus is this: malaria pills mess with your dreams. Some people get crazy nightmares, other people experience fascinating revelations, but the most common side affect, and the one that affects me, is merely extremely vivid dreams. I can't explain it much better than that, but sometimes when I wake up I am truly surprised to find myself where I am. I take my pill on Friday, and I get my most vivid dreams around Monday to Wednesday, so there must be a short delay (extra fortunate for my weekend), but having to wake up from these incredible dreams, where I'm inevitably chilling by a pool or enjoying an incredible meal, and then having to go to work is a little let down, especially when I sit down for yet another bread'n'spread.

Everyone sweats bullets here so laundry is extremely important. I'm sure you guessed that there would be no washing machines in a country without running water, but this obruni is still sad to do it by hand. I got a crash course in hand-washing last Sunday from Annie. You basically get three buckets, ideally one being soapy, another a little less soapy, and the third being water to rinse. This holds true for your first article of clothing, which you learn to cherish as your one truly cleansed item, because after that you are more or less cleaning with soapy mud water. Can't get all the soap out, either, so there is this slick residue on everything that becomes extremely uncomfortable once you start sweating, which is to say always. And for this pay off you will perform feats of Herculean strength. Annie is a seasoned laundry woman and, pardon the pun, she wiped the floor with me. Okay, that wasn't much of a pun, but this girl can wring a shirt like you wouldn't believed. I did my best to copy her, but she was doing 2 loads to my 1 (I was on first bucket duty, and she did parts two and three in the same amount of time). It took about 2 hours to get through my entire 8 days of clothing, and I had blisters by the end of it, and an aching back. Annie just smiled a knowing smile that is disturbing from someone who is only about 12; I do believe I'm not the first obruni she has run through the gauntlet. I had to show my extreme appreciation, though, and the usual Fantas just wouldn't cut it, so I managed to find a couple bars of chocolate and a Thank you For those Feats of Amazing Upper Body Strength Hallmark card. They really do make them for every occasion.

Speaking of feats of incredible upper body strength, Ghanaians have an amazing knack for carrying all manner of things on their heads. The vendors everywhere wander around selling their wares from their heads, keeping their hands free to handle money and babies. Yes, babies. Many mother/vendors roll around with babies on their backs, wares on their heads, and money in hand. I'll try my best to support this claim with photographic evidence. Anyway, you can buy everything from water baggies to toilet paper to trousers to kebabs to cologne and toothpaste from atop someone's head. And even those things which aren't for sale are still transported this way (best sightings yet include a speaker system on a guy leaving a club and a refridgerator on a guy strolling down Bush Road). Besides the convenience of hands-free transportation (these people have amazing balance), everyone here also benefits from incredibly stout posture. I had a chance to carry some water on my head last week when we needed to refill our cisterns and, besides granting the local women an occasion for gawking/laughing their heads off, I discovered my noggen is improperly shaped for such labors.

All sorts of animals here roam around freely, eating garbage out of sewage as they please. Kebab stands are on every corner. You do the street meat math. Supposedly restaurants have to buy their meat and poultry from "licensed" animal brokers, but I imagine even these "legitimate" farmers are happy to let their wares wander during the day as they please. This sad realization aside, its interesting to see how the animals integrate themselves seamlessly into their urban environment. Dogs, cats, goats, hens, cows and even lizards just kind of roam around wherever they feel like. You can't really spook any of them because they're used to human interaction, and in fact given the opportunity they tend to mosey inside, check things out, and make themselves at home before being shooed by an unhappy housekeeper.

The only instance I've seen yet of taxi and trotro drivers giving way goes to this single dog who was sitting, alert but motionless, in the middle a main street running through Teshie. Despite the most adamant beeping, this little guy was frozen in place, observing whatever he was observing, and traffic was forced to submit to his immutable concentration. Unfortunately, so impressed was I with this pup that I missed checking what it was he was so intent on, and neglected to photograph him. You can take my word for it, though, the animals here lay as much claim to the land as the people. Until they're eaten, I suppose (not the dogs and cats).

Ghanaians are a nice group of people, but they certainly have their idiosyncracies like everyone else. It seems ingrained in their culture never to admit that they don't know something. It could be pride, it could be instilled by stern school masters, or they might just be messing with me, but no one wants to look uninformed. If you ask for directions, for example, the person will always cheerfully direct you in some direction. You have about one in four chance of being given the correct direction at any given intersection. Yes/no questions are simply out because "yes" appears to be universally agreed upon answer for those circumstances in which you actually have no idea. Just today I heard my co-volunteer Lee ask one of the local workers, Emmanuel, if he knew how to get to the immigration office. Yes, he replied, but she would have to ask Fifi (another local) for more detailed instructions. He then promptly marched out of the room. "I don't know" would have sufficed, too.

One last oddity that I want to mention is actually something that took me a while to notice. You can find just about everything you need for daily living at the local shacks that sell everything from toilet paper to toothpaste (and everything else that you could find on someone's head at the market), and they all operate so efficiently at supplying the local clientele, that supermarkets in the sense we know them are almost totally unnecessary. Almost. About two weeks in I finally came across one and it was like walking into a little slice of North America in downtown Accra. It was stocked with all sorts of things I didn't realize I missed until seeing them again, and was bathed in air conditioning. Simply heavenly. An extended stroll through the aisles and making a mental list of things I want to eat when I get home was enough to re-energize me as I walked out the door and thrust myself back into the Africa.

Thanks everyone for your various responses to my emails. Unfortunately I haven't the time or internet power at my disposal to respond to everyone, but I do read them all and, more importantly, greatly appreciate the contact. Please accept my collective thank you and appeal for continued response. Until next time.