I have officially lived out my worst day in Ghana, so far.
I have conclusively and undoubtedly, as I was warned, stuck my foot in my mouth, made a fool of myself, insulting those local Ghanaians around me.
Not once, but three times in the same day.
It all started, I suppose, a week prior when resentment and frustration towards certain social differences and cultural struggles that inevitably exist between obrunis (foreigner) and Ghanaians began to grate on my nerves, boil my blood, nip at me and suck me dry like those damn mosquito's that fester on my front porch.
Some of these include:
1) The incessant verbal, sometimes even physical attention, from Ghanaian men (i.e. forced to get a lifeguard to physically remove a man's arms locked so tightly around me I couldn't move while swimming at Labadi beach)
2) The consistent harassment when I light a cigarette in public (i.e. "Don't Smoke!", "Smoking Bad", or just a point of the finger and a shake of the head from those who walk, even drive by hollering out a tro-tro window)
3) The inability to comprehend a local language used in circumstances where it would really help to know what the hell is going on around me (i.e. while working each day in a newsroom full of reporters laughing and chatting in Twi ... those who you are meant to build relationships with to do your job)
4) The ongoing assumption that because you are obruni you have unlimited money, so you can share all your purchases and possessions, even with strangers. (i.e. packs of smokes literally evaporate and empty beer bottles mount table tops fast)
5) The miscommunication and inability to understand that just cause we're friends and we hang out does not mean I need to see you during every minute of my spare time. (i.e. repetitive cell phone calls and text messages one after another and guilt trips to follow if you fail to pick up or respond)
So, with all this and more on my mind, I felt worn down and it was only a matter of time before someone, something, in some way was gonna make me snap. Patience, just to let you know, ain't always my forte, let alone my virtue.
Moving along to the peak of my embarrassment...
It was Saturday afternoon and after a rough and unproductive week at work and a few days battling a damn bladder infection, I wanted to relax, be on my own, enjoy my space, and get some writing and work done, that had long since been procrastinated.
Settling onto the couch in my living room, booting up my laptop, opening up my latest half-written JHR foreign correspondence piece, with coffee to my right, cheese and crackers to my left, I was finally ready to get down to business at 2pm.
Three minutes into typing away and I decided it would be a great idea to watch a movie while working. Something I had not yet taken advantage of since I moved into my home despite having a TV and DVD player at my fingertips for several weeks.
Grabbing the converter, I press the 'Power' button and snap! spark!. The TV screen flashes bright white and then goes black again. Try again, same thing. And again, same thing. Great, the TV is now broken and I broke it.
Doesn't seem like a big deal, I know, but when your nerves are shot and more than two dozen other things have gone wrong (broken oven, biting guard dog, busted washing machine, keys cut the wrong size etc.) in your home within a month - so much so that you're reminded of the Tom Hank's and Shelley Long 80's movie, the Money Pit, each time - eventually all those little things add up to one big bad mood.
Instead of trying to fix the TV, I continued working until one of my roommates appeared to help deal with our next house issue.
Twenty minutes passed and just as I became absorbed in the writing process, Jane, aka. roommate, entered the living room, so I told her about the TV. She attempted to fix the fuse in the plug (God knows how she knows how to do that kind of stuff, and God bless her for it), while I stood by paralyzed due to my lack of electrical appliance knowledge.
Then came the a knock at the door.
In the doorway stood one of my Ghanaian friends, Roxy, who I had already explained to earlier that day that I needed some time to do my work before I had any visitors or left the house to hang out.
Following through on his earlier generous offer, Roxy had contacted his friend, Solo (how ironic?), who apparently fixes ovens, and decided to bring him around now, despite the fact that I had told Roxy to hold off on this until I ran it by my roommates.
Feeling awkward and too embarrassed to say "no", since Solo had made the trip out, Jane and I let him in to take a look at the oven, only to find out but a few minutes later that it worked all along. There was simply a safety lock on the knob that we had to release.
Relieved that we finally had an oven that worked, we thanked Solo for his help, but were left debating whether we had to pay him for simply turning a knob. On Jane's advice I told Roxy to explain to Solo that we appreciated his help and if we have any future problems with the oven we'd be sure to contact him for repairs.
This, however, wasn't good enough.
With a discontent, solemn expression on his face, Solo asked us to give something from our hearts for his efforts.
Now, deep down I really didn't have a problem with dashing (tipping in Ghanaian terms) the guy a couple of Cedis for making the trek out to our place. But, there was something else burning inside me. Some sort of embarrassment, awkwardness that led to an overreaction, an irrational action that was about to play out.
Settling on a dash of 2 Ghana Cedis, I reached for the cash on the coffee table left over from buying a phone card earlier that day, walked towards the front door where Roxy waited. But instead of placing the money in his hands, I threw it at him!
You heard me - THREW IT AT HIM!
The two bills fell to the floor, Jane gasped, rushing to bend down and pick them up, while I turned on my heel and flopped myself down on the couch, heart racing, face burning up, guilt quickly resonating in my heart.
"Sophie!" Roxy gasped in confusion. "You just threw money at me. You just threw money at me!" he repeated in utter shock.
"I'm so frustrated" I pathetically responded.
And, with that he turned on his heel, slamming the door behind him.
Ahhh! Nooo! My friend, Roxy. My dear Ghanaian friend, Roxy! I didn't mean to! I swear I didn't mean to!
But it was too late for pitiful explanations or shameful excuses.
The deed was done, and I was left to bear the consequences.
Now, after a lengthy discussion with Jane about my disgraceful reaction to what was really, though badly timed, just a generous act of kindness and consideration, I decided to give Roxy a call to apologize. Not explain, cause what was I to say, but apologize.
This I did within the hour, and oddly enough Roxy apologized to me. Having none of that, I cut him off, told him how deeply sorry I was. From there he laid into me saying that in Ghana they wouldn't even throw money at dead people. My embarrassment rising up and up and up, causing my brain to throb, I told him I did not want to talk about it further at this time and that
I was truly sorry again. Then I hung up the phone.
Now believe it or not, though just 24 hours has passed (as I type this) since this horrifying incident, Roxy has forgiven me and allowed the past to be the past.
But my glorious, random, hysterical acts of perhaps culture-shock-gone-bad did not end there and that big bad mood moved through me into the very early hours of the next morn.
It was 2:30 a.m. and fellow JHR trainer, Hannah, and I were taken by Roxy and his friend to a local club, Jokers, just around the corner from my house. Now Jokers is seedy, a total dive a place if you ask me, swarming with old white men arm in arm with young Ghanaian women.
I wasn't digging it, but we had just paid 5 Ghana Cedis to get in and before I left I was certainly getting my money's worth if not in value then in time.
Questioning Roxy on the issue of white men escorting Ghanaian women, he told me that all Ghanaian women want is money and that's why they go after white men. Myself, always ready for a little controversy, challenged him on what Ghanaian men wanted.
"And Ghanaian men, Roxy? What do they want? Please fill in the blanks for me?"
Ooohh ... faux pas number two.
In short, this accusational comment led to Roxy storming away from me and Hannah and I left to our own devices, touring that sketchy bar on our own, as other Ghanaian men eyed us up and down. We eventually ended up out onto the patio away from the internal chaos, plopping ourselves down at a table, next to Gold, a Nigerian girl who had just arrived in Accra to live indefinitely one month ago. We chatted with her for some time and shared cigarettes until Roxy and his friend tracked us down.
The kicker is coming...
Just as I was talking of leaving the joint to hit the hay, a Ghanaian guy I did not know, a complete stranger, approached our table, grabbed my cigarettes, opened the pack up and pulled one out.
"Do I know you?" I asked, staring him directly in the eye.
He said nothing, placing the cigarette between his lips and the pack back on the table.
"Do I know you?" I repeated a little bit louder, a little bit more hostile, not removing my glare from his pupils.
"I am taking a cigarette." he told me.
I stood up, leaning in towards his face.
"I don't know you!" I yelled, reaching for the cigarette and pulling it out of his mouth. "So, don't take a cigarette from me without asking!" I added a little louder, placing the smoke back in my pack.
"You stingy, white, bitch!" he yelled back at me.
"I'm outta here!" I told my company, storming off the patio and towards my home.
Wow! What was that?
Granted that guy perhaps should have asked before taking, and maybe shouldn't have made the assumption he could just help himself to a stranger's smokes, but come on, Sophie, there are better ways of handling a situation than that. Body, breath and mind detached ... Sophie was not in the yoge!
I made it home safely that night, stranding Roxy, who fell in a ditch filled with sewage as he tried to chase me down and holler after me .. leaving Hannah as well to get home from the bar by herself (though I did call to make sure she was okay).
It was time to take a breather. It was time to chill out, regroup and revisit why exactly I am here in Ghana, why I yearned to come in the first place, and what I was actually here to do.
Sunday I spent at home closed in my house, away from the Labadi community beyond the compound where I live, shielded from the hectic rat race of downtown Accra.
And, now, despite a resonating feeling of embarrassment caused by abominable behaviour, I feel relatively back on track.
Moral of my story:
If you want time alone in Ghana, hide! If you can't get, suck it up and shut your trap!
I have conclusively and undoubtedly, as I was warned, stuck my foot in my mouth, made a fool of myself, insulting those local Ghanaians around me.
Not once, but three times in the same day.
It all started, I suppose, a week prior when resentment and frustration towards certain social differences and cultural struggles that inevitably exist between obrunis (foreigner) and Ghanaians began to grate on my nerves, boil my blood, nip at me and suck me dry like those damn mosquito's that fester on my front porch.
Some of these include:
1) The incessant verbal, sometimes even physical attention, from Ghanaian men (i.e. forced to get a lifeguard to physically remove a man's arms locked so tightly around me I couldn't move while swimming at Labadi beach)
2) The consistent harassment when I light a cigarette in public (i.e. "Don't Smoke!", "Smoking Bad", or just a point of the finger and a shake of the head from those who walk, even drive by hollering out a tro-tro window)
3) The inability to comprehend a local language used in circumstances where it would really help to know what the hell is going on around me (i.e. while working each day in a newsroom full of reporters laughing and chatting in Twi ... those who you are meant to build relationships with to do your job)
4) The ongoing assumption that because you are obruni you have unlimited money, so you can share all your purchases and possessions, even with strangers. (i.e. packs of smokes literally evaporate and empty beer bottles mount table tops fast)
5) The miscommunication and inability to understand that just cause we're friends and we hang out does not mean I need to see you during every minute of my spare time. (i.e. repetitive cell phone calls and text messages one after another and guilt trips to follow if you fail to pick up or respond)
So, with all this and more on my mind, I felt worn down and it was only a matter of time before someone, something, in some way was gonna make me snap. Patience, just to let you know, ain't always my forte, let alone my virtue.
Moving along to the peak of my embarrassment...
It was Saturday afternoon and after a rough and unproductive week at work and a few days battling a damn bladder infection, I wanted to relax, be on my own, enjoy my space, and get some writing and work done, that had long since been procrastinated.
Settling onto the couch in my living room, booting up my laptop, opening up my latest half-written JHR foreign correspondence piece, with coffee to my right, cheese and crackers to my left, I was finally ready to get down to business at 2pm.
Three minutes into typing away and I decided it would be a great idea to watch a movie while working. Something I had not yet taken advantage of since I moved into my home despite having a TV and DVD player at my fingertips for several weeks.
Grabbing the converter, I press the 'Power' button and snap! spark!. The TV screen flashes bright white and then goes black again. Try again, same thing. And again, same thing. Great, the TV is now broken and I broke it.
Doesn't seem like a big deal, I know, but when your nerves are shot and more than two dozen other things have gone wrong (broken oven, biting guard dog, busted washing machine, keys cut the wrong size etc.) in your home within a month - so much so that you're reminded of the Tom Hank's and Shelley Long 80's movie, the Money Pit, each time - eventually all those little things add up to one big bad mood.
Instead of trying to fix the TV, I continued working until one of my roommates appeared to help deal with our next house issue.
Twenty minutes passed and just as I became absorbed in the writing process, Jane, aka. roommate, entered the living room, so I told her about the TV. She attempted to fix the fuse in the plug (God knows how she knows how to do that kind of stuff, and God bless her for it), while I stood by paralyzed due to my lack of electrical appliance knowledge.
Then came the a knock at the door.
In the doorway stood one of my Ghanaian friends, Roxy, who I had already explained to earlier that day that I needed some time to do my work before I had any visitors or left the house to hang out.
Following through on his earlier generous offer, Roxy had contacted his friend, Solo (how ironic?), who apparently fixes ovens, and decided to bring him around now, despite the fact that I had told Roxy to hold off on this until I ran it by my roommates.
Feeling awkward and too embarrassed to say "no", since Solo had made the trip out, Jane and I let him in to take a look at the oven, only to find out but a few minutes later that it worked all along. There was simply a safety lock on the knob that we had to release.
Relieved that we finally had an oven that worked, we thanked Solo for his help, but were left debating whether we had to pay him for simply turning a knob. On Jane's advice I told Roxy to explain to Solo that we appreciated his help and if we have any future problems with the oven we'd be sure to contact him for repairs.
This, however, wasn't good enough.
With a discontent, solemn expression on his face, Solo asked us to give something from our hearts for his efforts.
Now, deep down I really didn't have a problem with dashing (tipping in Ghanaian terms) the guy a couple of Cedis for making the trek out to our place. But, there was something else burning inside me. Some sort of embarrassment, awkwardness that led to an overreaction, an irrational action that was about to play out.
Settling on a dash of 2 Ghana Cedis, I reached for the cash on the coffee table left over from buying a phone card earlier that day, walked towards the front door where Roxy waited. But instead of placing the money in his hands, I threw it at him!
You heard me - THREW IT AT HIM!
The two bills fell to the floor, Jane gasped, rushing to bend down and pick them up, while I turned on my heel and flopped myself down on the couch, heart racing, face burning up, guilt quickly resonating in my heart.
"Sophie!" Roxy gasped in confusion. "You just threw money at me. You just threw money at me!" he repeated in utter shock.
"I'm so frustrated" I pathetically responded.
And, with that he turned on his heel, slamming the door behind him.
Ahhh! Nooo! My friend, Roxy. My dear Ghanaian friend, Roxy! I didn't mean to! I swear I didn't mean to!
But it was too late for pitiful explanations or shameful excuses.
The deed was done, and I was left to bear the consequences.
Now, after a lengthy discussion with Jane about my disgraceful reaction to what was really, though badly timed, just a generous act of kindness and consideration, I decided to give Roxy a call to apologize. Not explain, cause what was I to say, but apologize.
This I did within the hour, and oddly enough Roxy apologized to me. Having none of that, I cut him off, told him how deeply sorry I was. From there he laid into me saying that in Ghana they wouldn't even throw money at dead people. My embarrassment rising up and up and up, causing my brain to throb, I told him I did not want to talk about it further at this time and that
I was truly sorry again. Then I hung up the phone.
Now believe it or not, though just 24 hours has passed (as I type this) since this horrifying incident, Roxy has forgiven me and allowed the past to be the past.
But my glorious, random, hysterical acts of perhaps culture-shock-gone-bad did not end there and that big bad mood moved through me into the very early hours of the next morn.
It was 2:30 a.m. and fellow JHR trainer, Hannah, and I were taken by Roxy and his friend to a local club, Jokers, just around the corner from my house. Now Jokers is seedy, a total dive a place if you ask me, swarming with old white men arm in arm with young Ghanaian women.
I wasn't digging it, but we had just paid 5 Ghana Cedis to get in and before I left I was certainly getting my money's worth if not in value then in time.
Questioning Roxy on the issue of white men escorting Ghanaian women, he told me that all Ghanaian women want is money and that's why they go after white men. Myself, always ready for a little controversy, challenged him on what Ghanaian men wanted.
"And Ghanaian men, Roxy? What do they want? Please fill in the blanks for me?"
Ooohh ... faux pas number two.
In short, this accusational comment led to Roxy storming away from me and Hannah and I left to our own devices, touring that sketchy bar on our own, as other Ghanaian men eyed us up and down. We eventually ended up out onto the patio away from the internal chaos, plopping ourselves down at a table, next to Gold, a Nigerian girl who had just arrived in Accra to live indefinitely one month ago. We chatted with her for some time and shared cigarettes until Roxy and his friend tracked us down.
The kicker is coming...
Just as I was talking of leaving the joint to hit the hay, a Ghanaian guy I did not know, a complete stranger, approached our table, grabbed my cigarettes, opened the pack up and pulled one out.
"Do I know you?" I asked, staring him directly in the eye.
He said nothing, placing the cigarette between his lips and the pack back on the table.
"Do I know you?" I repeated a little bit louder, a little bit more hostile, not removing my glare from his pupils.
"I am taking a cigarette." he told me.
I stood up, leaning in towards his face.
"I don't know you!" I yelled, reaching for the cigarette and pulling it out of his mouth. "So, don't take a cigarette from me without asking!" I added a little louder, placing the smoke back in my pack.
"You stingy, white, bitch!" he yelled back at me.
"I'm outta here!" I told my company, storming off the patio and towards my home.
Wow! What was that?
Granted that guy perhaps should have asked before taking, and maybe shouldn't have made the assumption he could just help himself to a stranger's smokes, but come on, Sophie, there are better ways of handling a situation than that. Body, breath and mind detached ... Sophie was not in the yoge!
I made it home safely that night, stranding Roxy, who fell in a ditch filled with sewage as he tried to chase me down and holler after me .. leaving Hannah as well to get home from the bar by herself (though I did call to make sure she was okay).
It was time to take a breather. It was time to chill out, regroup and revisit why exactly I am here in Ghana, why I yearned to come in the first place, and what I was actually here to do.
Sunday I spent at home closed in my house, away from the Labadi community beyond the compound where I live, shielded from the hectic rat race of downtown Accra.
And, now, despite a resonating feeling of embarrassment caused by abominable behaviour, I feel relatively back on track.
Moral of my story:
If you want time alone in Ghana, hide! If you can't get, suck it up and shut your trap!
1 comment:
I feel your pain... and have my own short missive on the frustrations I feel....
http://tinyurl.com/388pnm
Cheers!
Doug
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