As the warmer months across West Africa’s Gulf of Guinea draw to a close, Derek soaks up Ghana’s final sunnier days before the rainy season and gears up for the new classes in computer programming he plans to take in the upcoming academic year. For the 21-year old, the summer holidays have been a time for introspection and reflection about the present and future.
“My main goal for the future is to marry and have two kids. Not too many kids, because then they just cry and annoy you,” Derek muses. However, while Derek’s yearning for fatherhood and a happy marriage are common enough—in West Africa and everywhere—in Derek’s case, these possibilities remain elusive and troubling.
He finally voices the question that is bothering him. “And how do you expect me to marry a man and have kids?” he asks. “You have to be crazy to think that. It just can’t be.”
Derek is one of Ghana’s two million gays and lesbians, a cohort that comprises roughly ten percent of the nation’s population. And for the many Ghanaians who identify as queer, Derek’s concerns about bridging the gap between his own sexuality and societal expectations are not at all unfamiliar.
In this country where being gay is one of Ghana’s unspoken taboos, adverse views toward gays and lesbians are not uncommon among the general public, and this widespread homophobia is only solidified by legal statutes that criminalize homosexuality.
British common law, first introduced into Ghana’s legal code while the country was still a colony of the British, is used to arrest and prosecute gays and lesbians even today. While same-sex relations are not explicitly illegal in Ghana, section 104 of the criminal code of 1960 criminalizes “unnatural carnal knowledge.” The clause was last amended in 2003, and for queer Ghanaians, section 104 often holds precedence over the freedoms of association and expression guaranteed by the constitution.
In 2003, the government used the clause to charge and sentence four Ghanaian men for homosexual behavior. The Daily Graphic, Ghana’s state-sponsored newspaper, ran a front-page spread with headshots of the four men, who were eventually found guilty by a district magistrate court of “unnatural carnal knowledge” and sentenced to two-year jail sentences each.
More recently, in September of last year, former Minister of Information Kwamena Bartels cited the same clause in a statement condemning homosexuality.
“The government does not and shall not condone any such activity which violently offends the culture, morality and heritage of the entire people of Ghana,” the statement read.
Bartels’s office issued the statement in response to rumors of an international gay rights conference allegedly scheduled to take place later that month at the Accra International Conference Centre.
However, the gay and lesbian community in Ghana denies that such a conference was ever scheduled to take place. Prince MacDonald, founder or the Gay and Lesbian Association of Ghana (GALAG), said that the government released the statement without verifying the rumors.
“If there was an international conference scheduled, they should have checked to see if somebody had booked the place,” he said.
While the state plays a central role in the criminalization of gays and lesbians, the government’s treatment of the issue is for the most part a reaction to popular views on homosexuality, explained Abraham Akrong, a senior researcher at the Institute of Africa Studies at the University of Ghana and an associate pastor at the Ghana Police Church.
“The government said no, for completely political reasons,” he said. “Because when the government says yes, the thinking is, ‘How can you subject society to what is unnatural, to catastrophe?’ Even if the politicians feel it’s nothing.”
MacDonald said that several national media houses spawned the rumors surrounding the conference and then presented negative coverage of the incident.
“The media pushed the government to make the statement, which just shows you how empty the government is,” he said. “Ghana’s media, most of it is not objective. Even if we paid millions of cedis [the Ghanaian currency], we would still have got the same coverage because of their biased mindset and religious perspectives.”
In the month following both the 2003 arrests and the 2006 statement, a deluge of anti-gay sentiment flooded the country’s national papers and airwaves.
“Most of them were horrible,” MacDonald recalled of the news coverage written and aired in response to the incidents.
The view that homosexuality is a foreign or imported lifestyle is widespread in Ghana, and many Ghanaians perceive same sex relationships as un-African, a phenomenon of the Western world.
“The media would never publish a story about two consenting adults, but then they would publish something about a white person sodomizing a Ghanaian,” McDonald added.
The Daily Graphic ran an editorial the day following the 2003 arrests claiming that “all the reported cases of homosexuality have some foreign interest.” The editorial also underscored the need “to insulate our rich cultural practices from the incursions of the destructive effects of the West.”
“It is imperative,” the editorial continued, “that we take bold steps to protect our young ones from falling into the debased form of sexual practices that offend the sensibilities of the African and the Ghanaian in particular.”
Yaw Boadu-Ayeboafu, editor of the Daily Graphic, said that Ghana’s legal code and popular views on homosexuality compelled the paper to publish the editorial.
“It’s criminal here to be a gay or to be a lesbian. Whatever is criminal here can’t be presented in a positive manner,” he asserted.
“You can talk about some issues that are controversial, but it’s been very unanimous in terms of the gay issue,” he continued. “No one wanted to assault anyone, but no one can positively portray something criminal. The gay rights issue is a simple issue. It’s a question of illegality.”
“You only need to talk to the average person and see their reaction,” Ayeboafoh added. “You should have seen the letters people wrote in about the piece [on the September 2006 conference]. They were enraged.”
Although public discussion of same sex relationships remains largely nonexistent, when the issue does arise, many Ghanaians express views positioning homosexuality as a lifestyle both alien and disruptive to traditional culture and belief systems.
“I do have some gay friends, but they are all foreign,” asserts Anthony, a vendor who sells jewelry and curios to the tourists who visit Elmina’s beachside resorts. “From the US, Holland. I have one from Switzerland, and I have one from England and we could never agree.”
While Akrong disagrees with the view that homosexuality is foreign to Ghana or West Africa more generally, he acknowledges that the visibility of the gay rights movement is a recent development.
“[Homosexuality] has been here before colonialism, but it’s so suppressed that it’s difficult to own it,” he said. “The reality is that there may be many gays in Ghana, but its prominence is what is foreign. The fact that we discuss it at all is very recent.”
MacDonald calls into the question the very premise used to relegate homosexuality to a sphere of otherness—the distinction between African and foreign.
“The notion that this is not African, that it’s a foreign thing, it’s a big lie. There are so many things that are foreign, like the chairs and the tables we are sitting at now. The shirts and the clothes that we wear now are not African when we first started using them. But we use them now anyway, so that is why we have to ask, ‘What is African and what is not? What makes something foreign and what makes it Ghanaian?’ That needs to be clarified.”
“The issue truly is that most of us in Ghana never met anyone—I never met anyone from the US or the UK—before I knew I liked other men,” MacDonald recalled. “To me this is an insult, to tell me I don’t know what I want as an African. But even when I was in my village, I knew I was gay. I just didn’t have a word for it.”
© 2007 Rhema Hokama
Monday, November 19, 2007
Unequal rights, unequal access: Police brutality and medical discrimination
By day, George trawls online chat rooms and dating sites, brainstorming new ways to contact and perhaps meet up with gay men in Ghana’s capital city of Accra. At night, he frequents the city’s underground gay hangouts, visiting the beaches and nightclubs popular with Ghana’s gay community.
But he isn’t merely looking for a good time. As an HIV/AIDS educator working with the Canadian-funded West Africa AIDS Foundation (WAAF), George is on a mission to reach out to those most vulnerable to the virus: Ghana’s roughly two million gays and lesbians.
With over 80 percent of Ghanaians having regular access to the internet, George has found online networking a discreet means of organizing meeting places for Accra’s gay population, where he distributes condoms and lubricant and talks with men who have sex with men (MSM) about safer sex practices and their medical options.
In a country where anti-gay sentiment is pervasive among the general public and homosexuality is a criminal offense according to the books, many queer Ghanaians find it difficult—or downright dangerous—to access medical services or seek treatment for HIV/AIDS.
“Most gay people in Ghana don’t even like approaching hospitals or even laboratories for testing,” George said of the widespread discrimination against the gay community by medical service organizations.
“Sometimes I educate them just to be like straight, when you go in for the AIDS test. I let them know that they can pretend they are straight and then at least they can go and get the test done.”
The non-discriminatory policies of the WAAF are unique in a country where other larger organizations like the Christian Council of Ghana routinely deny their HIV/AIDS services to gays and lesbians.
Joyce Larko Steiner, senior programmes officer for the Council, designs and implements a range of HIV/AIDS prevention and sex education programs for various target populations. However, the Council does not offer its services to gays and lesbians.
“We as a Council don’t have any program for them,” she said.
“We have mandates, and whatever we do will fall in our mandates. So if we have programs [for gays and lesbians], we are saying they are right. It is against our culture and I don’t see how the Church will accept it. Culturally, it is not right for us,” she added.
The WAAF works to meet the needs of gays and lesbians by offering services other organizations deny them because of their sexual orientation. In the past, the WAAF established a safe space for MSM to meet and talk though the challenges faced by Ghana’s gay community and learn about the services available through NGOs like WAAF, which offers counseling and testing difficult to receive elsewhere. At the program’s height, about thirty to forty MSM attended meetings, George recalls.
However, lack of interest and funding forced WAAF to dismantle the program three years ago. Yet despite the program’s initial flop, George hopes to get a similar program up and running within the next few months, and is currently networking through the internet to raise awareness and interest in the new club. He estimates that eighty percent of Ghana’s gay population uses the internet for networking and hookups, and said that responding to online personal ads is the most effective and anonymous means of connecting with the city’s gay community. Currently George is corresponding with over 200 gay men online and through phone conversations.
But even if George manages to raise interest in the MSM club, lack of funding threatens to stymie this second attempt at bringing together Ghana’s gay men.
“Right now we don’t have any funding from any organization. It’s not legalized here so the Ghana AIDS Commission won’t pay. So we are trying to get funding from outside and maybe we can get transportation costs together,” he said.
Prince MacDonald, president and founder of the Gay and Lesbian Association of Ghana (GALAG), also said that in the past, the state-run Ghana AIDS Commission has responded negatively toward requests by the gay community for services and funding.
“They have never helped. They just make comments that don’t explain what’s really happening,” MacDonald said.
According to the Ghana AIDS Commission, of those people living with HIV/AIDS in Ghana, 80 percent were infected through heterosexual sex, another 15 percent from their HIV-positive mothers through childbirth, and the final five percent from contact with blood or injecting drug use (IDU). But because of the illegality of homosexuality in this country, the Commission does not keep tabs on the percentage of the gay population infected or at risk for HIV/AIDS.
“Oh yes. It fits in. It factors in,” said Eric Pwadura, the Commission’s communications officer, of the infections incurred through homosexual sex, despite the silence of the statistics on the risks for gays and lesbians. “But our culture frowns on it, so we don’t really have these kinds of figures. We don’t have figures on MSM.”
Pwadura said that the Commission does not currently have a program or even a study underway to address the needs of Ghana’s gay population, and attributed this to the national lack of interest queer issues.
“As a commission, we run a national response. We call for proposals, we evaluate these proposals, and we provide funding for them,” he said.
“We coordinate the national response. If we have a proposal [for MSM outreach], we will deal with it. We will be ready. But because the movement is underground, we haven’t had anything, not that I know of so far. If we have to deal with in the future, we will deal with it.”
Director Eddie Donton of the WAAF said that collecting numbers on MSM living with HIV/AIDS is difficult for the additional reason that most gay men themselves do not wish to reveal their sexual orientation or lifestyles.
“They come in for treatment and services and we don’t know their history,” Donton said.
“It’s difficult to discuss the issue openly, which is why we can’t quantify anything for you. Right now we’re not interested in the numbers as much as we are in making sure they are receiving treatment,” he added.
Help from abroad and from home
The national government and local human rights organizations have given scant attention and even outright resisted spearheading HIV/AIDS prevention programs targeting Ghana’s gay and lesbian community, despite the group’s particularly high risk for contacting the virus. MacDonald’s organization, the Gay and Lesbian Association of Ghana, receives most of its funding from organizations abroad.
“Most human rights organizations in Ghana don’t believe gay and lesbian rights is an issue. There is cultural silence on the issue,” he said.
MacDonald also said that several organizations that have offices within Ghana collaborate with GALAG, but nevertheless remain hesitant to associate themselves publicly with gay issues for fear that they will lose their political and financial backing. Lack of finances, coupled with the already hostile environment in which Ghana’s gays and lesbians live and work, make the challenges faced GALAG and advocates like George that much more difficult.
“Locally there isn’t much support. But internationally, I feel we can build more friendships, do more talking and become more visible,” MacDonald added, and said that international community offered the best prospective for enhancing capacities within Ghana’s gay community.
While MacDonald speaks favorably of the possibility of accruing funding and logistical support from abroad, so far international organizations like UNAIDS, the Joint United Nations Programme on HIV/AIDS, have remained largely silent on the issue.
Lord Dartey, social mobilization adviser for the UNAIDS office in Ghana, explained that the UN is unable to move forward to address the HIV/AIDS threat to the country’s gay population because of the reticence surrounding the topic.
"Now MSM is a little sensitive in this country, so you have to be careful when you discuss the issue," he said. "We have to support the country in whatever they want to do. IDU [injection drug use] and MSM are not being proactively looked at."
However, Dartey said he expected that the Ghana AIDS Commission would integrate programs targeting the country's gay population within the upcoming years, but could not provide a date by which these programs would be launched. He said that the Commission had attempted to study the risks of HIV/AIDS for MSM in the past, but the lack of interest suspended the process. The Commission has tentative plans to seek out researchers for the study a second time.
"[The Commission] advertised the study, but the response was not good. But there are plans to re-advertise, so I expect [MSM] to become a part of the national response," Dartey said.
Although it is unclear whether, when and where activists like MacDonald and George will acquire support in the years to come, segments of Ghana’s gay community have nevertheless been able make progress even without aid from the national government or the UN.
The Centre for Popular Education and Human Rights Ghana (CEPEHRG) is an Accra-based organization that distributes condoms and lubricant, and provides information and counseling for both gay and straight people. CEPEHRG director Mac-Darling Cobbinah said that a recent grant of $30,000 issued by the Astraea Lesbian Foundation for Justice, a New York City-based organization which raises and distributes funds to LGBTQ organizations in the US and elsewhere, has helped his organization build its existing capacities and extend the services it offers for Ghana’s queer community.
“[The grant] is being used to educate young people to accept and tolerate people with differences—honor diversity, as we should say,” Cobbinah said. “It's also strengthened existing [queer support] groups in Ghana. We distribute condoms, lubricant in regions throughout Ghana. [Astraea] paid for the office space and we created a safe space for people to meet and talk about these issues."
“We held discussion to improve these facilities and got people involved in advocacy and new policies to improve services [targeting the gay community]. We got information to people to get access to services. You can go to the service center and demand your rights to be treated," he said.
A portion of the grant money also enabled CEPEHRG to establish a support group for marginalized and lesbian women called Sisters of the Heart, which has helped to increase the visibility of lesbian and bisexual women within Ghana’s queer community.
Although Ghana’s gay community is generally ignored, the needs of lesbian and bisexual women are particularly overlooked. The silence on issues pertaining to lesbian sexual health stems in part from the social pressure on Ghanaian women in general to remain in the home. Lesbian and bisexual women must often deal with the additional stigma attached to a lifestyle many Ghanaians consider unconventional.
Donton, of the West Africa AIDS Foundation, said that most of the sexual minorities who come in for services are MSM, and that very few queer women seek out treatment and counseling.
“The lesbians don’t come out as much as the gays,” he said. “But they are around and I see them sometimes. There’s such a huge stigma to it. If you think about the stigma attached to MSM, you can only imagine the stigma over lesbianism.”
But for peer-educators like George, the stigma both lesbians and gays face is no deterrent from the work he knows must be done. Braving the challenges and risks that come with his job description, he continues to visit Accra’s beaches and gay-friendly meeting spots to network and distribute condoms.
George usually organizes informal meetings through online venues beforehand, and then brings condoms and lubricants to the men when they meet face-to-face. The net provides anonymity for those seeking the services and information George offers, and also weeds out those that are only passing as gay.
“No, you can’t do it that way,” George laughs, explaining why he does not indiscriminately distribute condoms without planning a meeting spot ahead of time. “Or a lot of straights will just come and grab them too.”
There is always the risk of imposters posing as gay men who network within the gay community only to take advantage of the law by blackmailing unsuspecting men who agree to meet up in person. But George says the benefits of his work far outweigh those risks.
And while many of the men George contacts online choose not to meet in person for further support and counseling, fearing backlash from family and friends, there are always a few that do attend the meetings.
“Before we hook up, I know a lot of them won’t even show up to the meetings,” George reflects. “But the ones that do, you see from their eyes and the way they dress and act that they’re real. That’s how you tell.”
Gay in Ghana today and tomorrow
Efforts to raise awareness of gay issues in Ghana, spearheaded by organizations like GALAG and CEPEHRG and individuals like George, have propelled the gay rights movement into the limelight in recent years. But despite the attention the media, government, and public interest have channeled toward the issue, and the subsequent successes in health care and education following the coverage of the alleged conference last year, the fight for acceptance of same-sex loving people in Ghana is far from over.
While ultimate success of the movement will depend largely on the willingness of international queer and human rights organizations to offer infrastructural and financial assistance, local efforts will equally determine the future of Ghana’s gay rights movement. The gay community needs a responsive support base within Ghana to act in collaboration with the international queer community, said MacDonald.
“If everyone decides to remain underground and not reach out, and if there are only a few people making noise, when those people get tired, there’ll be no one to sing the songs, no one to dance the dance,” he said. “They’ll be no one left to fight for gay and lesbian rights.”
Abraham Akrong, a senior researcher at the University of Ghana’s Institute of Africa Studies, predicts that the process of secularization will eventually create a niche for gays and lesbians within Ghanaian society.
“This is my own speculation, that the level of secularization will help to give space to homosexuals in society,” Akrong postulates. “Homosexuality will just be seen as another sexuality. But to predict the future for gays and lesbians will be tough, it’s difficult to say right now. Our changes come in bits and pieces.”
“Homosexuality is a human phenomenon. The issue is whether society will give them space to express themselves. And in our case, we are not yet there.”
“It all comes down to education,” observes Derek, a gay man from Teshie in western Accra. “People hate gays because they just don’t have the education to know we’re okay. Or even if they do have education, the knowledge just isn’t there yet. In the future that’s going to change.”
For MacDonald, speaking both as a gay activist and a gay man, his goal for the Ghana’s human rights movement is a simple one: to gain the right for queer Ghanaians to be themselves.
“What I most hope for the future? The freedom to express ourselves, the freedom to associate, and the freedom to do what makes us us, to not have to dance to someone else’s tune rather than our own,” he reflects.
“We just want the freedom to remain who we are.”
© 2007 Rhema Hokama
But he isn’t merely looking for a good time. As an HIV/AIDS educator working with the Canadian-funded West Africa AIDS Foundation (WAAF), George is on a mission to reach out to those most vulnerable to the virus: Ghana’s roughly two million gays and lesbians.
With over 80 percent of Ghanaians having regular access to the internet, George has found online networking a discreet means of organizing meeting places for Accra’s gay population, where he distributes condoms and lubricant and talks with men who have sex with men (MSM) about safer sex practices and their medical options.
In a country where anti-gay sentiment is pervasive among the general public and homosexuality is a criminal offense according to the books, many queer Ghanaians find it difficult—or downright dangerous—to access medical services or seek treatment for HIV/AIDS.
“Most gay people in Ghana don’t even like approaching hospitals or even laboratories for testing,” George said of the widespread discrimination against the gay community by medical service organizations.
“Sometimes I educate them just to be like straight, when you go in for the AIDS test. I let them know that they can pretend they are straight and then at least they can go and get the test done.”
The non-discriminatory policies of the WAAF are unique in a country where other larger organizations like the Christian Council of Ghana routinely deny their HIV/AIDS services to gays and lesbians.
Joyce Larko Steiner, senior programmes officer for the Council, designs and implements a range of HIV/AIDS prevention and sex education programs for various target populations. However, the Council does not offer its services to gays and lesbians.
“We as a Council don’t have any program for them,” she said.
“We have mandates, and whatever we do will fall in our mandates. So if we have programs [for gays and lesbians], we are saying they are right. It is against our culture and I don’t see how the Church will accept it. Culturally, it is not right for us,” she added.
The WAAF works to meet the needs of gays and lesbians by offering services other organizations deny them because of their sexual orientation. In the past, the WAAF established a safe space for MSM to meet and talk though the challenges faced by Ghana’s gay community and learn about the services available through NGOs like WAAF, which offers counseling and testing difficult to receive elsewhere. At the program’s height, about thirty to forty MSM attended meetings, George recalls.
However, lack of interest and funding forced WAAF to dismantle the program three years ago. Yet despite the program’s initial flop, George hopes to get a similar program up and running within the next few months, and is currently networking through the internet to raise awareness and interest in the new club. He estimates that eighty percent of Ghana’s gay population uses the internet for networking and hookups, and said that responding to online personal ads is the most effective and anonymous means of connecting with the city’s gay community. Currently George is corresponding with over 200 gay men online and through phone conversations.
But even if George manages to raise interest in the MSM club, lack of funding threatens to stymie this second attempt at bringing together Ghana’s gay men.
“Right now we don’t have any funding from any organization. It’s not legalized here so the Ghana AIDS Commission won’t pay. So we are trying to get funding from outside and maybe we can get transportation costs together,” he said.
Prince MacDonald, president and founder of the Gay and Lesbian Association of Ghana (GALAG), also said that in the past, the state-run Ghana AIDS Commission has responded negatively toward requests by the gay community for services and funding.
“They have never helped. They just make comments that don’t explain what’s really happening,” MacDonald said.
According to the Ghana AIDS Commission, of those people living with HIV/AIDS in Ghana, 80 percent were infected through heterosexual sex, another 15 percent from their HIV-positive mothers through childbirth, and the final five percent from contact with blood or injecting drug use (IDU). But because of the illegality of homosexuality in this country, the Commission does not keep tabs on the percentage of the gay population infected or at risk for HIV/AIDS.
“Oh yes. It fits in. It factors in,” said Eric Pwadura, the Commission’s communications officer, of the infections incurred through homosexual sex, despite the silence of the statistics on the risks for gays and lesbians. “But our culture frowns on it, so we don’t really have these kinds of figures. We don’t have figures on MSM.”
Pwadura said that the Commission does not currently have a program or even a study underway to address the needs of Ghana’s gay population, and attributed this to the national lack of interest queer issues.
“As a commission, we run a national response. We call for proposals, we evaluate these proposals, and we provide funding for them,” he said.
“We coordinate the national response. If we have a proposal [for MSM outreach], we will deal with it. We will be ready. But because the movement is underground, we haven’t had anything, not that I know of so far. If we have to deal with in the future, we will deal with it.”
Director Eddie Donton of the WAAF said that collecting numbers on MSM living with HIV/AIDS is difficult for the additional reason that most gay men themselves do not wish to reveal their sexual orientation or lifestyles.
“They come in for treatment and services and we don’t know their history,” Donton said.
“It’s difficult to discuss the issue openly, which is why we can’t quantify anything for you. Right now we’re not interested in the numbers as much as we are in making sure they are receiving treatment,” he added.
Help from abroad and from home
The national government and local human rights organizations have given scant attention and even outright resisted spearheading HIV/AIDS prevention programs targeting Ghana’s gay and lesbian community, despite the group’s particularly high risk for contacting the virus. MacDonald’s organization, the Gay and Lesbian Association of Ghana, receives most of its funding from organizations abroad.
“Most human rights organizations in Ghana don’t believe gay and lesbian rights is an issue. There is cultural silence on the issue,” he said.
MacDonald also said that several organizations that have offices within Ghana collaborate with GALAG, but nevertheless remain hesitant to associate themselves publicly with gay issues for fear that they will lose their political and financial backing. Lack of finances, coupled with the already hostile environment in which Ghana’s gays and lesbians live and work, make the challenges faced GALAG and advocates like George that much more difficult.
“Locally there isn’t much support. But internationally, I feel we can build more friendships, do more talking and become more visible,” MacDonald added, and said that international community offered the best prospective for enhancing capacities within Ghana’s gay community.
While MacDonald speaks favorably of the possibility of accruing funding and logistical support from abroad, so far international organizations like UNAIDS, the Joint United Nations Programme on HIV/AIDS, have remained largely silent on the issue.
Lord Dartey, social mobilization adviser for the UNAIDS office in Ghana, explained that the UN is unable to move forward to address the HIV/AIDS threat to the country’s gay population because of the reticence surrounding the topic.
"Now MSM is a little sensitive in this country, so you have to be careful when you discuss the issue," he said. "We have to support the country in whatever they want to do. IDU [injection drug use] and MSM are not being proactively looked at."
However, Dartey said he expected that the Ghana AIDS Commission would integrate programs targeting the country's gay population within the upcoming years, but could not provide a date by which these programs would be launched. He said that the Commission had attempted to study the risks of HIV/AIDS for MSM in the past, but the lack of interest suspended the process. The Commission has tentative plans to seek out researchers for the study a second time.
"[The Commission] advertised the study, but the response was not good. But there are plans to re-advertise, so I expect [MSM] to become a part of the national response," Dartey said.
Although it is unclear whether, when and where activists like MacDonald and George will acquire support in the years to come, segments of Ghana’s gay community have nevertheless been able make progress even without aid from the national government or the UN.
The Centre for Popular Education and Human Rights Ghana (CEPEHRG) is an Accra-based organization that distributes condoms and lubricant, and provides information and counseling for both gay and straight people. CEPEHRG director Mac-Darling Cobbinah said that a recent grant of $30,000 issued by the Astraea Lesbian Foundation for Justice, a New York City-based organization which raises and distributes funds to LGBTQ organizations in the US and elsewhere, has helped his organization build its existing capacities and extend the services it offers for Ghana’s queer community.
“[The grant] is being used to educate young people to accept and tolerate people with differences—honor diversity, as we should say,” Cobbinah said. “It's also strengthened existing [queer support] groups in Ghana. We distribute condoms, lubricant in regions throughout Ghana. [Astraea] paid for the office space and we created a safe space for people to meet and talk about these issues."
“We held discussion to improve these facilities and got people involved in advocacy and new policies to improve services [targeting the gay community]. We got information to people to get access to services. You can go to the service center and demand your rights to be treated," he said.
A portion of the grant money also enabled CEPEHRG to establish a support group for marginalized and lesbian women called Sisters of the Heart, which has helped to increase the visibility of lesbian and bisexual women within Ghana’s queer community.
Although Ghana’s gay community is generally ignored, the needs of lesbian and bisexual women are particularly overlooked. The silence on issues pertaining to lesbian sexual health stems in part from the social pressure on Ghanaian women in general to remain in the home. Lesbian and bisexual women must often deal with the additional stigma attached to a lifestyle many Ghanaians consider unconventional.
Donton, of the West Africa AIDS Foundation, said that most of the sexual minorities who come in for services are MSM, and that very few queer women seek out treatment and counseling.
“The lesbians don’t come out as much as the gays,” he said. “But they are around and I see them sometimes. There’s such a huge stigma to it. If you think about the stigma attached to MSM, you can only imagine the stigma over lesbianism.”
But for peer-educators like George, the stigma both lesbians and gays face is no deterrent from the work he knows must be done. Braving the challenges and risks that come with his job description, he continues to visit Accra’s beaches and gay-friendly meeting spots to network and distribute condoms.
George usually organizes informal meetings through online venues beforehand, and then brings condoms and lubricants to the men when they meet face-to-face. The net provides anonymity for those seeking the services and information George offers, and also weeds out those that are only passing as gay.
“No, you can’t do it that way,” George laughs, explaining why he does not indiscriminately distribute condoms without planning a meeting spot ahead of time. “Or a lot of straights will just come and grab them too.”
There is always the risk of imposters posing as gay men who network within the gay community only to take advantage of the law by blackmailing unsuspecting men who agree to meet up in person. But George says the benefits of his work far outweigh those risks.
And while many of the men George contacts online choose not to meet in person for further support and counseling, fearing backlash from family and friends, there are always a few that do attend the meetings.
“Before we hook up, I know a lot of them won’t even show up to the meetings,” George reflects. “But the ones that do, you see from their eyes and the way they dress and act that they’re real. That’s how you tell.”
Gay in Ghana today and tomorrow
Efforts to raise awareness of gay issues in Ghana, spearheaded by organizations like GALAG and CEPEHRG and individuals like George, have propelled the gay rights movement into the limelight in recent years. But despite the attention the media, government, and public interest have channeled toward the issue, and the subsequent successes in health care and education following the coverage of the alleged conference last year, the fight for acceptance of same-sex loving people in Ghana is far from over.
While ultimate success of the movement will depend largely on the willingness of international queer and human rights organizations to offer infrastructural and financial assistance, local efforts will equally determine the future of Ghana’s gay rights movement. The gay community needs a responsive support base within Ghana to act in collaboration with the international queer community, said MacDonald.
“If everyone decides to remain underground and not reach out, and if there are only a few people making noise, when those people get tired, there’ll be no one to sing the songs, no one to dance the dance,” he said. “They’ll be no one left to fight for gay and lesbian rights.”
Abraham Akrong, a senior researcher at the University of Ghana’s Institute of Africa Studies, predicts that the process of secularization will eventually create a niche for gays and lesbians within Ghanaian society.
“This is my own speculation, that the level of secularization will help to give space to homosexuals in society,” Akrong postulates. “Homosexuality will just be seen as another sexuality. But to predict the future for gays and lesbians will be tough, it’s difficult to say right now. Our changes come in bits and pieces.”
“Homosexuality is a human phenomenon. The issue is whether society will give them space to express themselves. And in our case, we are not yet there.”
“It all comes down to education,” observes Derek, a gay man from Teshie in western Accra. “People hate gays because they just don’t have the education to know we’re okay. Or even if they do have education, the knowledge just isn’t there yet. In the future that’s going to change.”
For MacDonald, speaking both as a gay activist and a gay man, his goal for the Ghana’s human rights movement is a simple one: to gain the right for queer Ghanaians to be themselves.
“What I most hope for the future? The freedom to express ourselves, the freedom to associate, and the freedom to do what makes us us, to not have to dance to someone else’s tune rather than our own,” he reflects.
“We just want the freedom to remain who we are.”
© 2007 Rhema Hokama
Sunday, August 26, 2007
NYTimes poll of 10 sub-Saharan countries
Check it out here. Ghana's included.
The areas of concern perceived with most negativity surprise me. Also surprising, the relatively positive views toward the national leaders, government, and media. Interesting.
The areas of concern perceived with most negativity surprise me. Also surprising, the relatively positive views toward the national leaders, government, and media. Interesting.
Friday, August 10, 2007
blahblahblah, praisethelord? hallelujahamen.
Last Sunday I went with Kojo and his family to church. The particular congregation I visited is a pentecostal charismatic church called the Jesus Generation Sancutuary Church in Accra, and my experiences there were... loooong. The Sunday service runs from 8 am to 1 pm. All you fellow English majors out there, you did indeed do the math correctly. Yeah, that's five hours. Luckily for me, we showed up an hour late and left an hour early, so I was only there for a brief total of three hours.
Most of the service was in Twi, and even the scriptural readings were in Twi translation. However, every phrase ended with a Praise the Lord? Literally every two seconds I was guarenteed at least that much English. But what I did pick out was something about marriage and the dangers of modernity and women's rights and the devil as an evil deceiver. Somehow I'm sure all those topics were related. Kojo later told me that a portion of the message was about making up with your parents if you have any disputes with them, and that it was too bad that part was in Twi. Yeah, I guess God didn't care about me enough to zap a translation of that in English on the wall or something. Oh well.
Before I got there, I was expecting a congregation of maybe 50 members. Turns out the place was packed with at least 350 people. I spoke with one of the pastors afterwards who told me that they church is one of Accra's biggest, with three services each week and a total of 1,000 members. There are also branches in other cities in Ghana, and even a sister church in Poland. Or was it Holland?
I thought the service would be a lot more charismatic than it was. Everything was really tame and Western. Sort of like a New Hope, based in Honolulu, for those of you who know the church. There were even ushers in the aisle and greeters at the door. Different gospel choir groups sang and each group had elaborate costumes for each performance. However, the talent level was... not so high. Or maybe the sound system equipment just sucked horribly. The singers were very, um, enthusiastic, though. I'll have to admit that at least.
There were two collections. One at the beginning of the service and one toward the end. Rather than passing a basket through the pews, however, everyone marches up in rows to the front and deposits their cedis. Talk about pressure! Every single person got up and went to the front, but I noticed that most of the people didn't actually drop anything into the collection basket. They make fists and walk up and pretend to put something in. But nevertheless, I'm sure the church manages to make enough anyway, judging from the several Mercedes-Benz parked in the VIP stalls just outside the main doors.
The service facilities were anything but ritzy, though. Everything took place in a makeshift warehouse. The services are divided into different groups, one for little kids, one for youths under the age of 17, and finally the adult service. Overall, I'm glad I went. But I don't think I would do it again if I had the choice, unless I somehow acquire the desire to halt time completely. It was the longest Sunday of my life.
Check out some church photos and other random shots here.
Most of the service was in Twi, and even the scriptural readings were in Twi translation. However, every phrase ended with a Praise the Lord? Literally every two seconds I was guarenteed at least that much English. But what I did pick out was something about marriage and the dangers of modernity and women's rights and the devil as an evil deceiver. Somehow I'm sure all those topics were related. Kojo later told me that a portion of the message was about making up with your parents if you have any disputes with them, and that it was too bad that part was in Twi. Yeah, I guess God didn't care about me enough to zap a translation of that in English on the wall or something. Oh well.
Before I got there, I was expecting a congregation of maybe 50 members. Turns out the place was packed with at least 350 people. I spoke with one of the pastors afterwards who told me that they church is one of Accra's biggest, with three services each week and a total of 1,000 members. There are also branches in other cities in Ghana, and even a sister church in Poland. Or was it Holland?
I thought the service would be a lot more charismatic than it was. Everything was really tame and Western. Sort of like a New Hope, based in Honolulu, for those of you who know the church. There were even ushers in the aisle and greeters at the door. Different gospel choir groups sang and each group had elaborate costumes for each performance. However, the talent level was... not so high. Or maybe the sound system equipment just sucked horribly. The singers were very, um, enthusiastic, though. I'll have to admit that at least.
There were two collections. One at the beginning of the service and one toward the end. Rather than passing a basket through the pews, however, everyone marches up in rows to the front and deposits their cedis. Talk about pressure! Every single person got up and went to the front, but I noticed that most of the people didn't actually drop anything into the collection basket. They make fists and walk up and pretend to put something in. But nevertheless, I'm sure the church manages to make enough anyway, judging from the several Mercedes-Benz parked in the VIP stalls just outside the main doors.
The service facilities were anything but ritzy, though. Everything took place in a makeshift warehouse. The services are divided into different groups, one for little kids, one for youths under the age of 17, and finally the adult service. Overall, I'm glad I went. But I don't think I would do it again if I had the choice, unless I somehow acquire the desire to halt time completely. It was the longest Sunday of my life.
Check out some church photos and other random shots here.
Thursday, August 9, 2007
Accra: the final days
Since I've returned from Togo, I've done nothing really worthy of a blog entry. I did go gay clubbing alone for the third time, which didn't actually lead to any clubbing. I did, however, hit the jackpot this time and I was able to hook up with a bunch of interesting gay guys and ended up hanging out with them the next day. I only wish I had met them earlier because I don't have time to actually go clubbing this weekend.
Although I haven't done anything specific, I've definitely been learning volumes about myself these past few days. The first five weeks of this trip I spent exploring the world around me, researching and reporting Ghana. The last week, I've been looking inward, reading myself. I will sorely miss this place when I leave, and the people I've met. Strangely, Ghana has been more of a home to me during the six weeks I've been here than Hawaii and Chicago have been during the past two decades of my life. I really can't grasp the forever quality about my leaving, because what's the probability of me ever returning to this beautiful country?
This week I've gone to the National Museum in Adabraka and went back to the cultural center today. Meh. Touristy. I think I would have liked those kinds of outings earlier in my stay, but after doing the things I've done those popular obruni destinations just feel so dry and unreal.
Well, I don't have much to say that's blog-worthy, although I do have a LOT to ramble on about if your're either Jennifer or Rhemashel's journal. I just wanted to let you know that I'm still alive, although I might drop dead any second now from poisoning or whatnot. I woke up today with a huge cyst-like pus blob over my eyebrow piercing and I don't have the resources to clean and lance it. Oh well. I actually get really worried when I think about it, but as Eriiiico said awhile back, This is Africa. Germs won't be there if you believe hard enough.
This Saturday I'm going to spend my last day in Ghana at an annual Ga festival called Homowo. I have no idea what it's for, but it involves sprinkling this thing called kpeplele. I don't know what kpeplele is, I had a hard enough time getting the spelling of it. But I'll find out this weekend, and I'll blog on it when I arrive in NYC.
Ciao for now and wish my eyebrow lots of luck.
Although I haven't done anything specific, I've definitely been learning volumes about myself these past few days. The first five weeks of this trip I spent exploring the world around me, researching and reporting Ghana. The last week, I've been looking inward, reading myself. I will sorely miss this place when I leave, and the people I've met. Strangely, Ghana has been more of a home to me during the six weeks I've been here than Hawaii and Chicago have been during the past two decades of my life. I really can't grasp the forever quality about my leaving, because what's the probability of me ever returning to this beautiful country?
This week I've gone to the National Museum in Adabraka and went back to the cultural center today. Meh. Touristy. I think I would have liked those kinds of outings earlier in my stay, but after doing the things I've done those popular obruni destinations just feel so dry and unreal.
Well, I don't have much to say that's blog-worthy, although I do have a LOT to ramble on about if your're either Jennifer or Rhemashel's journal. I just wanted to let you know that I'm still alive, although I might drop dead any second now from poisoning or whatnot. I woke up today with a huge cyst-like pus blob over my eyebrow piercing and I don't have the resources to clean and lance it. Oh well. I actually get really worried when I think about it, but as Eriiiico said awhile back, This is Africa. Germs won't be there if you believe hard enough.
This Saturday I'm going to spend my last day in Ghana at an annual Ga festival called Homowo. I have no idea what it's for, but it involves sprinkling this thing called kpeplele. I don't know what kpeplele is, I had a hard enough time getting the spelling of it. But I'll find out this weekend, and I'll blog on it when I arrive in NYC.
Ciao for now and wish my eyebrow lots of luck.
Sunday, August 5, 2007
Lomé, Togo
Check out my photos from Lomé here. And photos of the fetish market here.
Hi. I'm back from Togo earlier than I expected. Rollo, Sarah C, and Sarah L decided to head north to Burkina Faso the day after we arrived so I came back to Accra. Although I only spent a little over 24 hours in Lomé, my stay in Togo was INTENSE.
The bus ride to Lomé from Accra was three hours long, and crossing the border was fairly easy. No bribery, no interrogation, just a visa processing fee of 30 Ghana cedis (like $US 35). Stepping across the border is like entering into an entirely different universe. It's hard to pinpoint the exact characteristics that make Togo so different from Ghana, but upon first arriving in Lomé the differences are immediately apparent. Lomé is rougher, dirtier than Ghana. In Accra, I feel safer than I do in Chicago's South Side. But in Lomé, I walked around like how I do in Chicago, expecting to get robbed or shot any second.
Perhaps the motorbikes contribute to Togo's crazy, dangerous-like aura, and there are very few taxis around Lomé. People either drive their own motorbikes -- called motos by the Togolese -- or pay someone with a bike to take them to their destination. Riding on the back of a moto is the coolest thing on the planet, and probably one of my favorite things about Togo. I sort of wish we had them in Accra, because riding a moto is significantly cheaper than taking a cab.
The roads are mostly paved in Lomé, unlike those in Accra, so riding motos makes more sense in Togo than it would in Ghana. In general, Lomé's roadways and the layout of the city are really well put together relative to what I've seen in Accra. Togolese architecture is very colonial French, and there were quite a few spiffy-looking buildings and skyscrapers, like nothing in Accra. Even Osu, Accra's most touristy and expensive district, is pretty haphazardly laid out with a jumbo of random office spaces and store fronts compared to Lomé's center city.
Day 1 in Lomé.
The first afternoon, we ran into a Togolese dude named Nass who took us to dinner at an outdoor streetside eatery. The Ghanaians call these food establishments chop bars, and you can get really cheap traditional meals for under a dollar. We drank Togolese beer and had rice with a tomato sauce. After wandering around the city a little, Nass took us to a bar tucked away in a hidden side street. Turns out, the place was a hub for prostitutes, and we all had a chance to dance with a few of the hookers.
"Do you looooooove me," Justinia asked me, rubbing my waist.
"Uhhhhh what? Yes, I do love you," I replied.
"But do you like me."
"I do like you."
I also danced with a group of boys who looked somewhere between nine and twelve. They were the best dance partners I had during my whole stay in West Africa so far.
The dancing was abruptly interrupted, however, when a group of teenagers ran through the alley, closely followed by three Togolese police officers thrashing their whips to part the crowd. The Togolese people didn't mind for more than thirty seconds and quickly resumed their dancing, and several explained that those kinds of incidents happen all the time because the Togolese police were so corrupt and underpaid.
The dancing continued, and there were no mroe interruptions save for the occassional moto that passed through that side street.
Crazy hos and dancing children and police raids and Togolese gin shots... That random alley was seriously amazing.
After that we went home and watched crazy French movies on the hotel TV set. It was only 10:30 pm, but we were beat.
Day 2 in Lomé.
During the morning of our second day in Lomé, Rollo, Nass, and I went to the Grand Marché, Lomé's central market. It wasn't really anything remarkable either in terms of the layout or the products that were being sold. Nothing really authentic or Togolese, only a bunch of fake Louis Vuitton and Prada and stuff like that. Another difference between Togo and Ghana: in Togo, the vendors don't run up to you and rub their wares in your face. The whole market experience was much calmer, and I'm not sure whether that has to do with Togo's longer history of contact with Westerners or whether Togo just doesn't have set methods for dealing with tourists simly because there are so few of them.
On our way to the Grand Marché, we got involved in an incident with the police. Rollo snapped a photo of a building, which turned out to be some kind of government facility. The soldier on duty started raving in French and refused to explain anything in English. We knew he was upset about the photo, but we didn't know what to do about it after the fact. A whole bunch of civilians standing around subsequently got involved in the shouting match en francais, and claimed to be cops. Sure. They all just wanted to milk the situation and get some CFAs (the Togolese currency, pronounced see-fuhs) out of it. Creepily, one of the plain clothes "cops" followed us for at least a mile after we finally got away from that site. He eventually went away, though. It's weird how all those bystanders made the situation worse for us. In Ghana, every passerby would have attempted to defend the unsuspecting obruni (yovo in Togo's Ewe dialect), but the Togolese are so different.
In the afternoon, we met up with the Sarahs at the Marché de Feticheurs, Lomé's notorious voodoo fetish market. Basically the weirdest, creepiest, most illegal thing I've ever seen. The place consisted of tables with rows and rows of assorted animal skulls, some even with the screaming faces of the animal still in tact. Monkey heads, crocodile heads, horse heads, dog heads, hyena heads, leopard heads, horse tails, dried bats and dried chamelions, and bird parts of all sorts. There was even a whole elephant foot used to cure elephantitus. The people running the fetish market are originally from Benin, a West African country situated on Togo's right border (Togo is immediately right of Ghana). Benin, as our guide explained, has the largest voodoo following in all of Africa.
The tour ended with a phoney voodoo ceremony. The guide introduced us to the son of some bogus chief, who took us into a back room and did some chants and explained the six fetishes to us: the traveler's fetish AKA the telephone fetish (because you whisper into the $24 piece of wood and tell it to keep you safe before embarking on your travels...), the fetish of good memory which consisted of an ebony seed, the love festish aka the tell-me-yes fetish, the grigri charm which wards off bad spirits, the family fetish, and the home fetish. There was also a twig called kpedo that was supposed to be the voodoo equivalent of Viagra.
At the end of the ceremony, the guide told us that all of the fetishes were for sale. Rollo asked about the price, but we were told that they do not sell anything. Only the cowries will tell. Bull. Shit. I didn't buy anything, and they insisted that I would have bad luck because of it. And maybe they were right, because right after I refused to buy their trinkets for exorbitant prices, the roll of toilet paper I always carry with me in West Africa somehow got out of my bag and completely unrolled itself and I had to go around the market gathering it back up. Hmmmmm... maybe voodoo isn't so much bullshit after all.
That evening, Rollo and the Sarahs took a bus up to Burkina Faso. I didn't have enough money so I decided to go back to Accra. Crossing the border wasn't a hassle at all, but the ride back from Lome to Accra was exhausting. It took me 7 hours to get back into the city, and every twenty minutes we had to stop for either a police or customs check point. Literally, there were about 20 or so stops during the entire trip. I'm not sure whether it was like that because it was after dark when I traveling back, or whether it's just a lot harder going from Togo into Ghana than it is vice versa.
Overall, I'm really glad I went to Togo, even if it was only for a day. But I'm glad to be back in Accra.
Hi. I'm back from Togo earlier than I expected. Rollo, Sarah C, and Sarah L decided to head north to Burkina Faso the day after we arrived so I came back to Accra. Although I only spent a little over 24 hours in Lomé, my stay in Togo was INTENSE.
The bus ride to Lomé from Accra was three hours long, and crossing the border was fairly easy. No bribery, no interrogation, just a visa processing fee of 30 Ghana cedis (like $US 35). Stepping across the border is like entering into an entirely different universe. It's hard to pinpoint the exact characteristics that make Togo so different from Ghana, but upon first arriving in Lomé the differences are immediately apparent. Lomé is rougher, dirtier than Ghana. In Accra, I feel safer than I do in Chicago's South Side. But in Lomé, I walked around like how I do in Chicago, expecting to get robbed or shot any second.
Perhaps the motorbikes contribute to Togo's crazy, dangerous-like aura, and there are very few taxis around Lomé. People either drive their own motorbikes -- called motos by the Togolese -- or pay someone with a bike to take them to their destination. Riding on the back of a moto is the coolest thing on the planet, and probably one of my favorite things about Togo. I sort of wish we had them in Accra, because riding a moto is significantly cheaper than taking a cab.
The roads are mostly paved in Lomé, unlike those in Accra, so riding motos makes more sense in Togo than it would in Ghana. In general, Lomé's roadways and the layout of the city are really well put together relative to what I've seen in Accra. Togolese architecture is very colonial French, and there were quite a few spiffy-looking buildings and skyscrapers, like nothing in Accra. Even Osu, Accra's most touristy and expensive district, is pretty haphazardly laid out with a jumbo of random office spaces and store fronts compared to Lomé's center city.
Day 1 in Lomé.
The first afternoon, we ran into a Togolese dude named Nass who took us to dinner at an outdoor streetside eatery. The Ghanaians call these food establishments chop bars, and you can get really cheap traditional meals for under a dollar. We drank Togolese beer and had rice with a tomato sauce. After wandering around the city a little, Nass took us to a bar tucked away in a hidden side street. Turns out, the place was a hub for prostitutes, and we all had a chance to dance with a few of the hookers.
"Do you looooooove me," Justinia asked me, rubbing my waist.
"Uhhhhh what? Yes, I do love you," I replied.
"But do you like me."
"I do like you."
I also danced with a group of boys who looked somewhere between nine and twelve. They were the best dance partners I had during my whole stay in West Africa so far.
The dancing was abruptly interrupted, however, when a group of teenagers ran through the alley, closely followed by three Togolese police officers thrashing their whips to part the crowd. The Togolese people didn't mind for more than thirty seconds and quickly resumed their dancing, and several explained that those kinds of incidents happen all the time because the Togolese police were so corrupt and underpaid.
The dancing continued, and there were no mroe interruptions save for the occassional moto that passed through that side street.
Crazy hos and dancing children and police raids and Togolese gin shots... That random alley was seriously amazing.
After that we went home and watched crazy French movies on the hotel TV set. It was only 10:30 pm, but we were beat.
Day 2 in Lomé.
During the morning of our second day in Lomé, Rollo, Nass, and I went to the Grand Marché, Lomé's central market. It wasn't really anything remarkable either in terms of the layout or the products that were being sold. Nothing really authentic or Togolese, only a bunch of fake Louis Vuitton and Prada and stuff like that. Another difference between Togo and Ghana: in Togo, the vendors don't run up to you and rub their wares in your face. The whole market experience was much calmer, and I'm not sure whether that has to do with Togo's longer history of contact with Westerners or whether Togo just doesn't have set methods for dealing with tourists simly because there are so few of them.
On our way to the Grand Marché, we got involved in an incident with the police. Rollo snapped a photo of a building, which turned out to be some kind of government facility. The soldier on duty started raving in French and refused to explain anything in English. We knew he was upset about the photo, but we didn't know what to do about it after the fact. A whole bunch of civilians standing around subsequently got involved in the shouting match en francais, and claimed to be cops. Sure. They all just wanted to milk the situation and get some CFAs (the Togolese currency, pronounced see-fuhs) out of it. Creepily, one of the plain clothes "cops" followed us for at least a mile after we finally got away from that site. He eventually went away, though. It's weird how all those bystanders made the situation worse for us. In Ghana, every passerby would have attempted to defend the unsuspecting obruni (yovo in Togo's Ewe dialect), but the Togolese are so different.
In the afternoon, we met up with the Sarahs at the Marché de Feticheurs, Lomé's notorious voodoo fetish market. Basically the weirdest, creepiest, most illegal thing I've ever seen. The place consisted of tables with rows and rows of assorted animal skulls, some even with the screaming faces of the animal still in tact. Monkey heads, crocodile heads, horse heads, dog heads, hyena heads, leopard heads, horse tails, dried bats and dried chamelions, and bird parts of all sorts. There was even a whole elephant foot used to cure elephantitus. The people running the fetish market are originally from Benin, a West African country situated on Togo's right border (Togo is immediately right of Ghana). Benin, as our guide explained, has the largest voodoo following in all of Africa.
The tour ended with a phoney voodoo ceremony. The guide introduced us to the son of some bogus chief, who took us into a back room and did some chants and explained the six fetishes to us: the traveler's fetish AKA the telephone fetish (because you whisper into the $24 piece of wood and tell it to keep you safe before embarking on your travels...), the fetish of good memory which consisted of an ebony seed, the love festish aka the tell-me-yes fetish, the grigri charm which wards off bad spirits, the family fetish, and the home fetish. There was also a twig called kpedo that was supposed to be the voodoo equivalent of Viagra.
At the end of the ceremony, the guide told us that all of the fetishes were for sale. Rollo asked about the price, but we were told that they do not sell anything. Only the cowries will tell. Bull. Shit. I didn't buy anything, and they insisted that I would have bad luck because of it. And maybe they were right, because right after I refused to buy their trinkets for exorbitant prices, the roll of toilet paper I always carry with me in West Africa somehow got out of my bag and completely unrolled itself and I had to go around the market gathering it back up. Hmmmmm... maybe voodoo isn't so much bullshit after all.
That evening, Rollo and the Sarahs took a bus up to Burkina Faso. I didn't have enough money so I decided to go back to Accra. Crossing the border wasn't a hassle at all, but the ride back from Lome to Accra was exhausting. It took me 7 hours to get back into the city, and every twenty minutes we had to stop for either a police or customs check point. Literally, there were about 20 or so stops during the entire trip. I'm not sure whether it was like that because it was after dark when I traveling back, or whether it's just a lot harder going from Togo into Ghana than it is vice versa.
Overall, I'm really glad I went to Togo, even if it was only for a day. But I'm glad to be back in Accra.
Wednesday, August 1, 2007
roadtrip to Togo
The NYU journalism program officially ended this past Sunday, but I've been sneaking back in the dorms for the occasional hot shower and the wireless internet access. Today I had my last run around Osu/Labone for who knows how many days, showered, and ate a salad. Yeah, I'm spoiled, but I figured I'd pamper myself a little before I head to Ghana's eastern border tomorrow with several people from the journalism program who decided to stay longer. We're planning on crossing the border and heading into Lomé, Togo's capital city with a population of roughly 700,000. For comparison, the population of Accra is just short of two million. I know practically nothing about Togo, but I'll blog more about it if stumble across a wireless access point within the next few days. We plan to get there via tro tro, about a three hour trip from Accra, and deal with the visa paperwork and bribery once we get to the border.
We left the NYU dorms Monday evening, and headed over to the Rising Phoenix at Akuma Village, a crazy and wonderful beachfront hotel owned by a rastafarian named Papa Jah. Located along the coast of James Town, overlooking the rocky cliffs and ocean, the place is great for meeting backpackers, and we've run into Colombians, Parisians, Canadians, and Dutch travelers during the two days we've been there. The view is fabulous in the evenings, and early in the morning the coast is dotted with traditional fishing vessels, slivers of brown and gray suspended between those panes of blue sea and blue sky.
I'm probably going to go back to Papa Jah's place after I get back from Togo, although the lack of running water and electricity is sort of a bummer. Plus it's expensive, for me. $15 a day, and I'm poor as hell. The place is like a rasta community, and everyone there wears dreadlocks and and invites us to join them on their ganga-induced meditation trips. The Rising Phoenix is also right next door to the cultural center, which I've been to once before during the first week of my stay in Ghana, but I was so tired and disoriented I didn't really pay attention to the art and the shops. I plan to go back again sometime, though, to buy Trinity a better hat because the old one is just a cheap boring imported one.
Last night I went down the street from the Rising Phoenix to the Osekan Resort, a restaurant overlooking the ocean. I've been there once before, and I think it's one of my favorite places here in Accra. The menu is pretty limited for vegetarians, but totally authentic and traditional. I went out for dinner with a Ghanaian friend and I even got to help fan the talapia we ordered while it was on the grill. I opted for the bankum, a traditional paste made from maize, usually eaten with soups or sauces. The accompanying tomato-pepper sauce was HOT. It was like a salsa, and the woman prepared it right before us using a motar and pestle. Dad would have gobbled it up! Once again, no untensils, so we used our fingers.
I feel as if I haven't done anything since I last posted except worry about what I'll be doing within the next few days and fret about whether I should go to traveling around Ghana or stay in Accra. I guesss I still haven't decided fully yet. Stay tuned.
We left the NYU dorms Monday evening, and headed over to the Rising Phoenix at Akuma Village, a crazy and wonderful beachfront hotel owned by a rastafarian named Papa Jah. Located along the coast of James Town, overlooking the rocky cliffs and ocean, the place is great for meeting backpackers, and we've run into Colombians, Parisians, Canadians, and Dutch travelers during the two days we've been there. The view is fabulous in the evenings, and early in the morning the coast is dotted with traditional fishing vessels, slivers of brown and gray suspended between those panes of blue sea and blue sky.
I'm probably going to go back to Papa Jah's place after I get back from Togo, although the lack of running water and electricity is sort of a bummer. Plus it's expensive, for me. $15 a day, and I'm poor as hell. The place is like a rasta community, and everyone there wears dreadlocks and and invites us to join them on their ganga-induced meditation trips. The Rising Phoenix is also right next door to the cultural center, which I've been to once before during the first week of my stay in Ghana, but I was so tired and disoriented I didn't really pay attention to the art and the shops. I plan to go back again sometime, though, to buy Trinity a better hat because the old one is just a cheap boring imported one.
Last night I went down the street from the Rising Phoenix to the Osekan Resort, a restaurant overlooking the ocean. I've been there once before, and I think it's one of my favorite places here in Accra. The menu is pretty limited for vegetarians, but totally authentic and traditional. I went out for dinner with a Ghanaian friend and I even got to help fan the talapia we ordered while it was on the grill. I opted for the bankum, a traditional paste made from maize, usually eaten with soups or sauces. The accompanying tomato-pepper sauce was HOT. It was like a salsa, and the woman prepared it right before us using a motar and pestle. Dad would have gobbled it up! Once again, no untensils, so we used our fingers.
I feel as if I haven't done anything since I last posted except worry about what I'll be doing within the next few days and fret about whether I should go to traveling around Ghana or stay in Accra. I guesss I still haven't decided fully yet. Stay tuned.
Sunday, July 29, 2007
Ghanaian Muslim wedding after party
[Once again, photo link at the end of the entry, if you're lazy.]
Well, it seems as if these Ghanaian celebrations -- and the invitations to them for this obruni -- just don't ever end. The evening after I attended the funeral drumming celebration, I was invited back to Latebiokorshie for part two of the drumming rites. There would be dancing, drumming, and singing once again, and this time a collections basket would also be passed around the village to raise funds for the funeral expenses. In Ghana, funerals are elaborate affairs and whole villages are invited. Many families go bankrupt in the process of buying the coffin, food, and attire. There was a pretty interesting piece written on Ghanaian funerals in a March edition of the Economist this year. Check it out here for more info.
As it turned out, the drumming got postponed because the state shut the power off in Latebiokorshie that evening. Everything was pitch black, and I made plans to return the following evening for the ceremony.
The trip to Latebiokorshie, a bourough on the western most edge of Accra, takes anywhere from 40 minutes to 2 hours from where I am staying in Labone, a pretty affluent district in the city right next to Osu. A round trip via taxi costs ten cedis, a little more than ten US dollars -- way more than this poor journalism student can afford. So on Saturday, I decided to make the first leg of my trip to Latebiokorshie using a tro-tro, the independently owned buses that are everyhere here in Accra. Everyone crams into those rickety vans, which often have the randomest slogans pastered across the doors and windows. Jesus Power. Fear God. Shut Up. Etc. A driver operates the tro-tro, of course, and a tro-tro mate tags along, someone who opens the door and yells out the destination at every stop. There's also a separate person who goes around collecting the fare.
We were told at the beginning of the trip never to get on a tro-tro. Ever. And tro-tro rides at night? A sure fire recipe for death, the orientation leaders told us. But I got on one anyway, at night, and guess what? Nothing happened. I'm still alive.
And the whole thing cost me the equivalent of 15 cents.
I took a taxi the rest of the way to Latebiokorshie, and when I arrived, I learned that there was also a wedding party happening the same time the funeral rites were being held. I ended up ditching the funeral drumming party to go to the wedding instead.
There was only a slight problem. I was wearing jeans and sneakers, and the dress code was strictly white. I was able to borrow Gladys' traditional two-piece outfit however, which happened to be exactly my size, although maybe a bit too long for me and I didn't own enough boob to quite fill it out. She also had shoes in my size too. Decked out in the stiff, lacy white thing, trying to balance myself on these super high platform shoes -- well, the whole affair was vaguely reminiscent of my Punahou high school grauation, when we were forced to wear white marshmallow dresses and shoes that ought to have surgeon's general warnings printed on their soles. Seriously. I'm not particularly good at this whole dress thing.
But I managed, and when I got to the party, which was outdoors, near the neighborhood gym, everyone was milling around drinking and laughing and talking. The Ghanaian men were friendly, and offered me sips from their drinks. I've had my share of Star beer here in Ghana, and I've developed something of a fondness for it. But this root wine was something else entirely. It tasted like rubbing alcohol mixed with toothpaste and menthol. Needless to say, I remained sober that night.
The wedding was Muslim, and the groom even converted from Christianity and changed his name to a traditional Muslim name in order to be accepted by his Muslim wife. That's pretty hardcore, but I guess if a woman did it, no one would even give that kind of dedication a second thought. There were a lot of guests dressed in traditional Islamic garb, sort of like a loose fitting tunic worn over loose slacks. Really descriptive, huh? The music, however, was hardly traditional. Shakira and Akon and other artists I don't even know the names of filled the whole street.
I mingled and chatted and danced for a bit with the men. The women, for the most part, gave me the cold shoulder, which has pretty much been my overall experience with Ghanaian women during my time here. Either they weren't drunk enough, or I wasn't.
For the first part of the evening, the bride and groom were nowhere to be seen. Then they showed up in a red car, and a bunch of horn players ran up to the vehicle and started blaring into long, black instruments. The newlyweds, along with the best man and the bride's maid, sat at their own special table arrayed with a variety of bottled drinks. I should have asked about the meaning of that.
For some reason, I was really tired that evening and I felt really uncomfortable in that dress and bored and sober too. Unlike the fineral I went to last Thursday, where I felt totally welcomed and accepted, this evening I was acutely aware that I was out of place. I don't know, maybe people don't have time to act all jealous and bitchy in the face of death, but it seems like weddings are just storehouses of girly bitch politics. That is, if I know anything from those glimpses I got of Sex in the City reruns we watched in the Talbot house lounge last year.
But the dancing continued, and the drinks made their rounds, and a bunch of people made some speeches and announcements.
Then the bride and groom stood up and some people showered cedi bills on them. Kojo told me that the practice is really popular in Nigeria, and that it's often performed here in Ghana too.
More dancing. And then the food came. But this time is was well after midnight. It's weird how long the ceremony went on before the food was served. It just seems like in general, that's how food works here in Ghana. Eating out at restaurants often requires a three or four hour commitment, because that's how long it takes to prepare the food. The whole concept of scheduling seems practically non-exitant here, and understandably, we Americans go crazy because of all those cancelled appointments and three-hour dinner delays and waiting around for God knows what. But in a strange way, not having to catagorize life into one-hour time slots is liberating too, and I feel people here are more in touch with themselves and each other because the culture allows them to simply be.
I bypassed the meat, but opted for the rice-based dishes and the bankum, a paste made from maize that is eaten with sauce or stew. In Ghana, no one uses forks or utensils. People eat with their right hands (the left is considered unclean) and there are often bowls of water with soap at tables for washing up before and after meals. I picked up a spoon at the buffet line, but eventually tossed it at the prompting of Eric (ERIIIIICOOOO, as he calls himself) who told me that this is Africa, where nothing bad will happen and germs won't kill you if only you believe hard enough.
During the course of the meal, about five different strangers ran their fingers through my food and dropped food bits from their hands and their mouths onto my plate. Then people started eating off my plate. They also complained because I wasn't eating the bankum with anything, and I eventually agreed to dip a little of it into the meat/fish sauce meant to go with it. Needless to say, toward the end of the night, I got pretty bad indigestion. Perhaps it was psychologically induced, though, but nothing some Tums couldn't remedy.
After the food and subsequent indigestion, I fell asleep for a little bit. But before I did, I noticed several of the women walking around with tear-streaked faces. For the most part, the women at the party kept a low profile, not talking much, and dancing only a little. Definitely not sauntering around with near-empty whisky bottles, like their husbands and boyfriends. So when I noticed that most of the women were crying amid all the dancing and drunken revelry, it occured to me that there was a whole other universe unfolding that evening, but one that I wasn't welcomed to witness. Even as a woman, and perhaps especially because I was a woman, an obruni woman. I wondered what was going on in the minds and hearts of the bride and her friends, but there weren't any women I could ask.
The actual marriage ceremony took place earlier that day, but it was a women-only affair, which is how it's done in traditional Muslim ceremonies I was told. I wonder what it was like that morning, but none of the men I spoke with were there to experience it.
As usual, there are accompanying photos posted on facebook here. Check them out.
This will be my last blog post for who knows how long. I get kicked out of the NYU dorm complex today, and will be staying at this beach front motel Todd found for $15 a day. Running water? Check. Electricity? Most times, check. But wireless internet access? Hell no. So I'll be writing on Word documents and posting the entries online when/if I get a chance.
I have a couple more interviews lined up for next week in Accra, and after those are over, I will most likely be traveling east to the Volta region with some people in my group. We'll be talking a boat up the Volta river and maybe visiting Tamale before heading to Mole National Park. Some people in my party want to go all the way up to the northern border to visit a witches internment camp (if we can find it, since no one knows where it is or whether it even exists in reality) and maybe cross over into Burkina Faso. I doubt I'll be going up all the way with them, and plan to come back to Accra to do more exploring. It's amazing how much there is here in the city that didn't make it into the last edition of the Bradt travel guide.
Well, it seems as if these Ghanaian celebrations -- and the invitations to them for this obruni -- just don't ever end. The evening after I attended the funeral drumming celebration, I was invited back to Latebiokorshie for part two of the drumming rites. There would be dancing, drumming, and singing once again, and this time a collections basket would also be passed around the village to raise funds for the funeral expenses. In Ghana, funerals are elaborate affairs and whole villages are invited. Many families go bankrupt in the process of buying the coffin, food, and attire. There was a pretty interesting piece written on Ghanaian funerals in a March edition of the Economist this year. Check it out here for more info.
As it turned out, the drumming got postponed because the state shut the power off in Latebiokorshie that evening. Everything was pitch black, and I made plans to return the following evening for the ceremony.
The trip to Latebiokorshie, a bourough on the western most edge of Accra, takes anywhere from 40 minutes to 2 hours from where I am staying in Labone, a pretty affluent district in the city right next to Osu. A round trip via taxi costs ten cedis, a little more than ten US dollars -- way more than this poor journalism student can afford. So on Saturday, I decided to make the first leg of my trip to Latebiokorshie using a tro-tro, the independently owned buses that are everyhere here in Accra. Everyone crams into those rickety vans, which often have the randomest slogans pastered across the doors and windows. Jesus Power. Fear God. Shut Up. Etc. A driver operates the tro-tro, of course, and a tro-tro mate tags along, someone who opens the door and yells out the destination at every stop. There's also a separate person who goes around collecting the fare.
We were told at the beginning of the trip never to get on a tro-tro. Ever. And tro-tro rides at night? A sure fire recipe for death, the orientation leaders told us. But I got on one anyway, at night, and guess what? Nothing happened. I'm still alive.
And the whole thing cost me the equivalent of 15 cents.
I took a taxi the rest of the way to Latebiokorshie, and when I arrived, I learned that there was also a wedding party happening the same time the funeral rites were being held. I ended up ditching the funeral drumming party to go to the wedding instead.
There was only a slight problem. I was wearing jeans and sneakers, and the dress code was strictly white. I was able to borrow Gladys' traditional two-piece outfit however, which happened to be exactly my size, although maybe a bit too long for me and I didn't own enough boob to quite fill it out. She also had shoes in my size too. Decked out in the stiff, lacy white thing, trying to balance myself on these super high platform shoes -- well, the whole affair was vaguely reminiscent of my Punahou high school grauation, when we were forced to wear white marshmallow dresses and shoes that ought to have surgeon's general warnings printed on their soles. Seriously. I'm not particularly good at this whole dress thing.
But I managed, and when I got to the party, which was outdoors, near the neighborhood gym, everyone was milling around drinking and laughing and talking. The Ghanaian men were friendly, and offered me sips from their drinks. I've had my share of Star beer here in Ghana, and I've developed something of a fondness for it. But this root wine was something else entirely. It tasted like rubbing alcohol mixed with toothpaste and menthol. Needless to say, I remained sober that night.
The wedding was Muslim, and the groom even converted from Christianity and changed his name to a traditional Muslim name in order to be accepted by his Muslim wife. That's pretty hardcore, but I guess if a woman did it, no one would even give that kind of dedication a second thought. There were a lot of guests dressed in traditional Islamic garb, sort of like a loose fitting tunic worn over loose slacks. Really descriptive, huh? The music, however, was hardly traditional. Shakira and Akon and other artists I don't even know the names of filled the whole street.
I mingled and chatted and danced for a bit with the men. The women, for the most part, gave me the cold shoulder, which has pretty much been my overall experience with Ghanaian women during my time here. Either they weren't drunk enough, or I wasn't.
For the first part of the evening, the bride and groom were nowhere to be seen. Then they showed up in a red car, and a bunch of horn players ran up to the vehicle and started blaring into long, black instruments. The newlyweds, along with the best man and the bride's maid, sat at their own special table arrayed with a variety of bottled drinks. I should have asked about the meaning of that.
For some reason, I was really tired that evening and I felt really uncomfortable in that dress and bored and sober too. Unlike the fineral I went to last Thursday, where I felt totally welcomed and accepted, this evening I was acutely aware that I was out of place. I don't know, maybe people don't have time to act all jealous and bitchy in the face of death, but it seems like weddings are just storehouses of girly bitch politics. That is, if I know anything from those glimpses I got of Sex in the City reruns we watched in the Talbot house lounge last year.
But the dancing continued, and the drinks made their rounds, and a bunch of people made some speeches and announcements.
Then the bride and groom stood up and some people showered cedi bills on them. Kojo told me that the practice is really popular in Nigeria, and that it's often performed here in Ghana too.
More dancing. And then the food came. But this time is was well after midnight. It's weird how long the ceremony went on before the food was served. It just seems like in general, that's how food works here in Ghana. Eating out at restaurants often requires a three or four hour commitment, because that's how long it takes to prepare the food. The whole concept of scheduling seems practically non-exitant here, and understandably, we Americans go crazy because of all those cancelled appointments and three-hour dinner delays and waiting around for God knows what. But in a strange way, not having to catagorize life into one-hour time slots is liberating too, and I feel people here are more in touch with themselves and each other because the culture allows them to simply be.
I bypassed the meat, but opted for the rice-based dishes and the bankum, a paste made from maize that is eaten with sauce or stew. In Ghana, no one uses forks or utensils. People eat with their right hands (the left is considered unclean) and there are often bowls of water with soap at tables for washing up before and after meals. I picked up a spoon at the buffet line, but eventually tossed it at the prompting of Eric (ERIIIIICOOOO, as he calls himself) who told me that this is Africa, where nothing bad will happen and germs won't kill you if only you believe hard enough.
During the course of the meal, about five different strangers ran their fingers through my food and dropped food bits from their hands and their mouths onto my plate. Then people started eating off my plate. They also complained because I wasn't eating the bankum with anything, and I eventually agreed to dip a little of it into the meat/fish sauce meant to go with it. Needless to say, toward the end of the night, I got pretty bad indigestion. Perhaps it was psychologically induced, though, but nothing some Tums couldn't remedy.
After the food and subsequent indigestion, I fell asleep for a little bit. But before I did, I noticed several of the women walking around with tear-streaked faces. For the most part, the women at the party kept a low profile, not talking much, and dancing only a little. Definitely not sauntering around with near-empty whisky bottles, like their husbands and boyfriends. So when I noticed that most of the women were crying amid all the dancing and drunken revelry, it occured to me that there was a whole other universe unfolding that evening, but one that I wasn't welcomed to witness. Even as a woman, and perhaps especially because I was a woman, an obruni woman. I wondered what was going on in the minds and hearts of the bride and her friends, but there weren't any women I could ask.
The actual marriage ceremony took place earlier that day, but it was a women-only affair, which is how it's done in traditional Muslim ceremonies I was told. I wonder what it was like that morning, but none of the men I spoke with were there to experience it.
As usual, there are accompanying photos posted on facebook here. Check them out.
This will be my last blog post for who knows how long. I get kicked out of the NYU dorm complex today, and will be staying at this beach front motel Todd found for $15 a day. Running water? Check. Electricity? Most times, check. But wireless internet access? Hell no. So I'll be writing on Word documents and posting the entries online when/if I get a chance.
I have a couple more interviews lined up for next week in Accra, and after those are over, I will most likely be traveling east to the Volta region with some people in my group. We'll be talking a boat up the Volta river and maybe visiting Tamale before heading to Mole National Park. Some people in my party want to go all the way up to the northern border to visit a witches internment camp (if we can find it, since no one knows where it is or whether it even exists in reality) and maybe cross over into Burkina Faso. I doubt I'll be going up all the way with them, and plan to come back to Accra to do more exploring. It's amazing how much there is here in the city that didn't make it into the last edition of the Bradt travel guide.
Friday, July 27, 2007
Ghanaian pre-funeral drumming rites
Note: photo link at the end of this entry, for you illiterate types who want to skim...
I was invited last night to attend the first part of a funeral, or rather the wild drumming and dancing party that precedes the actual funeral itself. I don't know what the Twi word for the ceremony is, hence the mouthful of a title I have for this entry.
I agreed to go having no idea what to expect. Visions of me drinking coconut milk through a straw, sitting in plastic lawn chairs and watching performers in traditional garb dance and chant to drumming music flickered through my head for two seconds, but mostly I didn't think much about it ahead of time. I sort of thought it would be a show, like going to the Polynesian Cultural Center, as a comparison for those of you who've been to Hawaii.
Um, no. I should have known that in Ghana, they don't do the whole bystander thing.
I arrived via taxi in Latebiokorshie, a borough in western Accra, where the ceremony-party-celebration was being held. Through the window of my cab, I saw a group of 20 or so men, little boys around 5 or 6 years of age and younger and middle-aged men singing and chanting, beating drums and other tympannic instruments, blowing whistles, and shooting off firecrakers from long rusted metal cylinder cannons. They danced around and around in a tight circle, right there in the middle of the street, stopping traffic coming from both sides, and the the blaring of car horns melded into the music and voices, completely filling the night. All around, leaning on street posts and peering out of shops and houses, neighbors stood and looked on, chatting over Guinnness and Star beers, their laughter and shouting interspersed between more solemn conversation.
The deceased, I learned later, was a 22-year old man from the neighborhood who was killed in an automible accident last Wednesday. A few color ink-jet fliers were passed among the crowd, the colors blended and splotchy from the rain.
"WHAT A SHOCK," the headline on the poster read. And beneath those words was a picture of the young man, dressed in a Western suit and tie, staring unsmilingly and seriously out the right margin of the poster. Beneath the photo was printed his full name, although the Ghanaian sounds have slipped my mind now.
The ceremony had been going on since seven, and I arrived a little after eight. A little after I got there, the group of people started moving up and down the streets and roads of Latebiokorshie, pounding on drums and shooting off firecrackers in every section of the neighborhood. Seriously, no wonder everyone is fit and muscuular here. It was seriously like a neighborhood-wide aerobics class out in the dark and the rain. Everyone in America would have passed out by now, and not from the beer I mean.
A makeshift marching band joined the group, huge white Western drums we played in high school and two trumpets too. I thought of Jen when I saw the trumpets. The little children and men pulled, up and down the streets, dancing and singing to traditional songs. I danced in my lame Americanish way, but I didn't know the words and the languages so I couldn't sing.
We passed through each part of the neighborhood, officially announcing the death to everyone, although I'm sure everyone knew already. More halted traffic, more blaring of horns, but the drivers didn't seemed startled or shocked, or even amused. Just mildly impatient, but not really. They understood. So it goes: life, death, and life again.
Some of the younger boys danced wildly in the middle of the streets, inches in front of the oncoming traffic, performing acrobatic stunts and blocking off the taxis and tro tros. I was almost expecting an older Ghanaian woman to break apart from the crowd, and come rushing out to chastise these wayward kids, who were about to kill themselves exactly the way the young man died but last week, exactly the way I almost died a year ago. Ironic, I thought, and I didn't really know how to feel. The events of last year came back to me again, and I thought about what would have happened if I had gotten killed by that car in Hyde Park. Not a single car in Chicago would have stopped for me, no one would have danced in the streets. The whole event would have been a most somber and depressing affair.
Yet, I don't think one should be tempted into believing that Ghanaians are somehow less able to feel grief and pain, that they live inherently happier and more carefree existences than we do. Desensitized? There was just another funeral last week, I was told. The 20-something year old woman died of a stomach ailment. And already another funeral so soon. So maybe it's desensitization, but mostly I think that the bottles of beer that were freely passed around and the singing and dancing and the Christian lyrics that were belted out in Twi and Ga -- well, wasn't all this just another way human beings cope with the mind-blowing and incredible losses that happen over and over again, the pain that just doesn't stop as long as human beings are alive on this earth, as long as we remain human enough to think and feel? Is it possible, though, that those of us that live in the West, despite our cognitive behavoral therapy and Prozac and rehab resort facilities, really have not found the secret panacea to human desperation and sorrow? Maybe we don't have all the answers in the end, and that it is us that needs to be pacified and taught. Strange to contemplate, and wholly wonderful too.
As we went up to doors and shop fronts, more neighbors joined the group, and even a bunch of women eventually came out to join us. I don't think I've seen so many women in one place before in public during my stay in Ghana, dancing and singing freely, laughing and shouting just like the men. It made me feel incredibly shy to be around them, because I didn't know what they would think of this lone obruni lady, and in the past I've been glared at and given the silent treatment by Ghanaian women, presumably for stealing their men. But it wasn't like that at all here. A girl my age, or maybe a bit younger, started shouting and screaming and ran up to me and grabbeed my waist and we danced crazily together a couple of times that night.
A middle-aged woman who introduced herself as Peace, grabbed my hand and danced with me at the head of the pack for most of the second half of the evening. I welcomed her company, as she kept off the flocks of young men who wouldn't stop pressing themselves against me, and also quelled the swarms of school children that wanted to walk next to me. She was a large women, dressed all in bright red clothes, and she wore a matching head scarf too. She told me to stop dancing so hard, that I would tire myself out, but mostly I think she needed to talk a walking break.
It occured to me how crazy I must have looked, the only "white" person within miles of this place, dancing wildly with all these Ghanaians with their drums and whistles and firecrakers and homemade posters of the man who had died. It just did not make sense to me at all, and my laughter at myself and the whole situation dispersed into the noises of the night. Nonesense, all if it, when I tried to think about it and justify it and fit my experiences into some sort of coherent and larger theory. But when I relinquished that need to process and analyze, and simply let myself be, everything fit into place, and this piece of life suspended in time suddenly made a whole lot of sense to me.
The cars kept coming, and the dancing still happened, and somewhere out in this world another person was getting hit by a car, maybe in Accra or Chicago or Honolulu. But still everyone here was singing and dancing, and I was dancing too, and I think that night I allowed myself to let go just a little bit more. That night of dancing out in the rain and mud did for me what I look for in endless sessions of psychotherapy and hours and musing and writing and soul-searching. I came to accept myself a little but more that evening, and realized maybe somewhat more what it is to be human -- vulnerable in both body and mind, but with amazing capacilities and capacities too. And all of these strange contradictions and ironies and incongruencies, I let them all simply be so that I could simply be too.
It was a really good night full of authenticity.
"I like these people," Kojo told me after it was all over. "Everyone here is really real."
So as it turns out, nothing I experienced last night was remotely like the Polynesian Cultural Center at all.
Check out the accompanying photos here. Compliments to Kojo for taking them.
I was invited last night to attend the first part of a funeral, or rather the wild drumming and dancing party that precedes the actual funeral itself. I don't know what the Twi word for the ceremony is, hence the mouthful of a title I have for this entry.
I agreed to go having no idea what to expect. Visions of me drinking coconut milk through a straw, sitting in plastic lawn chairs and watching performers in traditional garb dance and chant to drumming music flickered through my head for two seconds, but mostly I didn't think much about it ahead of time. I sort of thought it would be a show, like going to the Polynesian Cultural Center, as a comparison for those of you who've been to Hawaii.
Um, no. I should have known that in Ghana, they don't do the whole bystander thing.
I arrived via taxi in Latebiokorshie, a borough in western Accra, where the ceremony-party-celebration was being held. Through the window of my cab, I saw a group of 20 or so men, little boys around 5 or 6 years of age and younger and middle-aged men singing and chanting, beating drums and other tympannic instruments, blowing whistles, and shooting off firecrakers from long rusted metal cylinder cannons. They danced around and around in a tight circle, right there in the middle of the street, stopping traffic coming from both sides, and the the blaring of car horns melded into the music and voices, completely filling the night. All around, leaning on street posts and peering out of shops and houses, neighbors stood and looked on, chatting over Guinnness and Star beers, their laughter and shouting interspersed between more solemn conversation.
The deceased, I learned later, was a 22-year old man from the neighborhood who was killed in an automible accident last Wednesday. A few color ink-jet fliers were passed among the crowd, the colors blended and splotchy from the rain.
"WHAT A SHOCK," the headline on the poster read. And beneath those words was a picture of the young man, dressed in a Western suit and tie, staring unsmilingly and seriously out the right margin of the poster. Beneath the photo was printed his full name, although the Ghanaian sounds have slipped my mind now.
The ceremony had been going on since seven, and I arrived a little after eight. A little after I got there, the group of people started moving up and down the streets and roads of Latebiokorshie, pounding on drums and shooting off firecrackers in every section of the neighborhood. Seriously, no wonder everyone is fit and muscuular here. It was seriously like a neighborhood-wide aerobics class out in the dark and the rain. Everyone in America would have passed out by now, and not from the beer I mean.
A makeshift marching band joined the group, huge white Western drums we played in high school and two trumpets too. I thought of Jen when I saw the trumpets. The little children and men pulled, up and down the streets, dancing and singing to traditional songs. I danced in my lame Americanish way, but I didn't know the words and the languages so I couldn't sing.
We passed through each part of the neighborhood, officially announcing the death to everyone, although I'm sure everyone knew already. More halted traffic, more blaring of horns, but the drivers didn't seemed startled or shocked, or even amused. Just mildly impatient, but not really. They understood. So it goes: life, death, and life again.
Some of the younger boys danced wildly in the middle of the streets, inches in front of the oncoming traffic, performing acrobatic stunts and blocking off the taxis and tro tros. I was almost expecting an older Ghanaian woman to break apart from the crowd, and come rushing out to chastise these wayward kids, who were about to kill themselves exactly the way the young man died but last week, exactly the way I almost died a year ago. Ironic, I thought, and I didn't really know how to feel. The events of last year came back to me again, and I thought about what would have happened if I had gotten killed by that car in Hyde Park. Not a single car in Chicago would have stopped for me, no one would have danced in the streets. The whole event would have been a most somber and depressing affair.
Yet, I don't think one should be tempted into believing that Ghanaians are somehow less able to feel grief and pain, that they live inherently happier and more carefree existences than we do. Desensitized? There was just another funeral last week, I was told. The 20-something year old woman died of a stomach ailment. And already another funeral so soon. So maybe it's desensitization, but mostly I think that the bottles of beer that were freely passed around and the singing and dancing and the Christian lyrics that were belted out in Twi and Ga -- well, wasn't all this just another way human beings cope with the mind-blowing and incredible losses that happen over and over again, the pain that just doesn't stop as long as human beings are alive on this earth, as long as we remain human enough to think and feel? Is it possible, though, that those of us that live in the West, despite our cognitive behavoral therapy and Prozac and rehab resort facilities, really have not found the secret panacea to human desperation and sorrow? Maybe we don't have all the answers in the end, and that it is us that needs to be pacified and taught. Strange to contemplate, and wholly wonderful too.
As we went up to doors and shop fronts, more neighbors joined the group, and even a bunch of women eventually came out to join us. I don't think I've seen so many women in one place before in public during my stay in Ghana, dancing and singing freely, laughing and shouting just like the men. It made me feel incredibly shy to be around them, because I didn't know what they would think of this lone obruni lady, and in the past I've been glared at and given the silent treatment by Ghanaian women, presumably for stealing their men. But it wasn't like that at all here. A girl my age, or maybe a bit younger, started shouting and screaming and ran up to me and grabbeed my waist and we danced crazily together a couple of times that night.
A middle-aged woman who introduced herself as Peace, grabbed my hand and danced with me at the head of the pack for most of the second half of the evening. I welcomed her company, as she kept off the flocks of young men who wouldn't stop pressing themselves against me, and also quelled the swarms of school children that wanted to walk next to me. She was a large women, dressed all in bright red clothes, and she wore a matching head scarf too. She told me to stop dancing so hard, that I would tire myself out, but mostly I think she needed to talk a walking break.
It occured to me how crazy I must have looked, the only "white" person within miles of this place, dancing wildly with all these Ghanaians with their drums and whistles and firecrakers and homemade posters of the man who had died. It just did not make sense to me at all, and my laughter at myself and the whole situation dispersed into the noises of the night. Nonesense, all if it, when I tried to think about it and justify it and fit my experiences into some sort of coherent and larger theory. But when I relinquished that need to process and analyze, and simply let myself be, everything fit into place, and this piece of life suspended in time suddenly made a whole lot of sense to me.
The cars kept coming, and the dancing still happened, and somewhere out in this world another person was getting hit by a car, maybe in Accra or Chicago or Honolulu. But still everyone here was singing and dancing, and I was dancing too, and I think that night I allowed myself to let go just a little bit more. That night of dancing out in the rain and mud did for me what I look for in endless sessions of psychotherapy and hours and musing and writing and soul-searching. I came to accept myself a little but more that evening, and realized maybe somewhat more what it is to be human -- vulnerable in both body and mind, but with amazing capacilities and capacities too. And all of these strange contradictions and ironies and incongruencies, I let them all simply be so that I could simply be too.
It was a really good night full of authenticity.
"I like these people," Kojo told me after it was all over. "Everyone here is really real."
So as it turns out, nothing I experienced last night was remotely like the Polynesian Cultural Center at all.
Check out the accompanying photos here. Compliments to Kojo for taking them.
Tuesday, July 24, 2007
Is this Africa?
I was musing on that catchy three-letter acronym the other day. TIA, as it goes. This Is Africa, from the movie Blood Diamond which I finally saw a few days ago. TIA. Kind of cool, pretty original, sort of like a secret code word for people in the know. TIA. It's rather convenient too. TIA is the new grand theory of everything here in this strange and gaping continent.
"What the hell. Did the power just go out?"
"Yeah. You know, TIA."
...
"I had the craziest taxi driver today. He drove backward, in the opposite direction, on a highway. Then we drove into a gutter and got stuck there for like half a minute."
"Oh my god, horrible. TIA."
...
"I'm going to miss the people here when I go back to New York. Everyone here is so friendly, and they come up to you and want to hear about your life. Back home, there are people everywhere and yet of the millions of people on the streets and the subways, not a single one gives me eye contact."
"But for now, TIA. I'll miss it too."
...
This is Africa? And I suppose it is, in a literal sense. But is it really? Sometimes I think it's such a lazy thing to say, haphazardly tossed about when the parched and barren surface of this great continent seems impenetrable and wholly incomprehensible. This is Africa. But we knew that already. TIA doesn't tell us anything we did not know before.
During my first two weeks here in Ghana, our group had back to back group activities, field trips, and lectures. But starting last week, the scheduled group activities dwindled, and I found myself with more time to get out and explore the city on my own.
I've had some lovely and terrible experiences, and in the process I've met some memoriable people. And the more I converse and the more I meander around without any game plan or schedule or definitive agenda, the more vivid and diversified this vast continent becomes for me. Is it possible to capture the whole of Africa, or even all of Ghana or Accra in three letters? With each passing day here, I'm convinced this kind of simplification is impossible.
I'll admit it. When I first arrived here, what first met my eye was a sea of dark faces, all the same and tired and sad, a particular one prominent now, and now imperceptable, now blending into the larger nebulous whole of this continent. Yes, I was touched. Yes, I was awed and inspired and moved, but in the way the photo spreads in National Geographic and TIME magazine awe and inspire and move. Information to be processed, filed, and retreived one day for two-minute conversations over dinner and booze.
Maybe it's still this way for me some days, when thirteen-year old taxi drivers go nuts and can't read maps and spend 90 minutes weaving around the same streets in Adabraka at night, back and forth back and forth and no one goes anywhere. Then I'm just convinced this really is Africa, where everyone's just crazy and "borderline mentally retarded" (that was not an original quote, by the way) and no one understands anything of how the world should be.
Yes, in truth, I still have those days. Yesterday, for one.
But it's getting to be less and less this way for me, and it's about time too. As I get to know this place, it's not so much that the whole expanse of the Dark Continent clarifies and brightens. It's rather that pockets of the nebula suddenly jump out to me, and make themselves known in ways I had never expected. And juxtaposed against this burst of unexpected clarity, the adjacent regions of cloudiness become even more perplexing, and so this city and its people seem at once more comprehensible and more complicated than they were to me before.
A side note: compared to the other bloggers in our NYU group, my ramblings are incredibly and disappointingly vague. Is that because this is a publicly viewed thing? Or is that because my thinking just generally needs some fine tuning? Perhaps I'm not cut out to be a journalist and I should go back to my ivory tower.
There wasn't a point to this entry. But that's all for now.
"What the hell. Did the power just go out?"
"Yeah. You know, TIA."
...
"I had the craziest taxi driver today. He drove backward, in the opposite direction, on a highway. Then we drove into a gutter and got stuck there for like half a minute."
"Oh my god, horrible. TIA."
...
"I'm going to miss the people here when I go back to New York. Everyone here is so friendly, and they come up to you and want to hear about your life. Back home, there are people everywhere and yet of the millions of people on the streets and the subways, not a single one gives me eye contact."
"But for now, TIA. I'll miss it too."
...
This is Africa? And I suppose it is, in a literal sense. But is it really? Sometimes I think it's such a lazy thing to say, haphazardly tossed about when the parched and barren surface of this great continent seems impenetrable and wholly incomprehensible. This is Africa. But we knew that already. TIA doesn't tell us anything we did not know before.
During my first two weeks here in Ghana, our group had back to back group activities, field trips, and lectures. But starting last week, the scheduled group activities dwindled, and I found myself with more time to get out and explore the city on my own.
I've had some lovely and terrible experiences, and in the process I've met some memoriable people. And the more I converse and the more I meander around without any game plan or schedule or definitive agenda, the more vivid and diversified this vast continent becomes for me. Is it possible to capture the whole of Africa, or even all of Ghana or Accra in three letters? With each passing day here, I'm convinced this kind of simplification is impossible.
I'll admit it. When I first arrived here, what first met my eye was a sea of dark faces, all the same and tired and sad, a particular one prominent now, and now imperceptable, now blending into the larger nebulous whole of this continent. Yes, I was touched. Yes, I was awed and inspired and moved, but in the way the photo spreads in National Geographic and TIME magazine awe and inspire and move. Information to be processed, filed, and retreived one day for two-minute conversations over dinner and booze.
Maybe it's still this way for me some days, when thirteen-year old taxi drivers go nuts and can't read maps and spend 90 minutes weaving around the same streets in Adabraka at night, back and forth back and forth and no one goes anywhere. Then I'm just convinced this really is Africa, where everyone's just crazy and "borderline mentally retarded" (that was not an original quote, by the way) and no one understands anything of how the world should be.
Yes, in truth, I still have those days. Yesterday, for one.
But it's getting to be less and less this way for me, and it's about time too. As I get to know this place, it's not so much that the whole expanse of the Dark Continent clarifies and brightens. It's rather that pockets of the nebula suddenly jump out to me, and make themselves known in ways I had never expected. And juxtaposed against this burst of unexpected clarity, the adjacent regions of cloudiness become even more perplexing, and so this city and its people seem at once more comprehensible and more complicated than they were to me before.
A side note: compared to the other bloggers in our NYU group, my ramblings are incredibly and disappointingly vague. Is that because this is a publicly viewed thing? Or is that because my thinking just generally needs some fine tuning? Perhaps I'm not cut out to be a journalist and I should go back to my ivory tower.
There wasn't a point to this entry. But that's all for now.
Sunday, July 22, 2007
the challenges of internet communication in Africa
Here's an interesting NYTimes article that I thought was pretty timely, considering the frustrations we've all been experiencing with unreliable and slow internet access here in Ghana.
Check it out here.
Slow internet is, I think, number two on the list of things I will never get used to about Ghana. I think number one is the lack of Starbucks and having to drink instant NesCafe. Ew.
Edit: and another article here detailing an interesting intersection between NYC and West Africa.
Check it out here.
Slow internet is, I think, number two on the list of things I will never get used to about Ghana. I think number one is the lack of Starbucks and having to drink instant NesCafe. Ew.
Edit: and another article here detailing an interesting intersection between NYC and West Africa.
Saturday, July 21, 2007
photo update from Elmina and Cape Coast
We spent last weekend in the twin cities of Elmina and Cape Coast, about three hours west of Accra by bus. Check out some of my photos.
See the Elmina photos.
See the Cape Coast photos.
See the Elmina photos.
See the Cape Coast photos.
Friday, July 20, 2007
one hell of a crazy week...
Well, a bunch of crazy things happened this week, one after another, all of which is too mental-breakdown-inducing for my public readership (read: parents). However, I did get a pretty good follow up interview with an activist, and I felt that the talk we had really allowed me to understand the challenges that weren't apparent to me during my first two weeks here.
Today I went to the West Africa AIDS Foundation (WAAF), an NGO that freely provides counseling and services for sex workers and MSM living with HIV/AIDS. I spoke to the director, Eddie Donton, who is such a dedicated and intelligent person. He knew everyone by name at the organization, and all of his staff members and interns were open-minded and thoughtful people. They have students and professionals from abroad who intern for several months at a time, and if I ever come back to Ghana, I would love to help them out and work with them more.
Outside the WAAF office is a small, one room store called The Almond Tree, which sells clothes, handbags, and jewelry made by people living with HIV/AIDS. According to Esther, who co-owns the store with Rebecca, The Almond Tree opened in December of last year and everything they sell is produced through a loan program that allows people living with HIV/AIDS to jump start their lives and re-integrate themselves back into society.
The Almond Tree is open on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays, and Esther said that she takes three tro tros to get to the shop on those mornings. On Tuesdays and Thursdays, she goes to the market to buy batik fabrics, tie dyes her own prints, and then sews dresses and hand bags. She told me also that business isn't so great, and that it's always a concern that she won't have enough money at the end of the month to support herself.
Rebecca didn't speak much English, or maybe she was shy, but I learned from Esther that she came to The Almond Tree after her husband died and she needed to make a living for herself. She now uses her sewing skills to support herself. Both Esther and Rebecca took a break from their old fashioned sewing machines, beautiful ancient things that don't use foot pedals but instead have a wheel that you manually wind, and put down their multi-colored cloths to speak with me.
I asked whether they knew each other before opening The Almond Tree.
"No, we did not know each other before," Esther replied. "But we are like sisters now."
Before I left, Esther gave me a beaded anklet. I offered to pay for it, but she told me no.
"I am giving it to you because I like you so much."
I had to tell Esther and Rebecca, though, that I was leaving Accra in a week, and that most likely I wouldn't be back in Ghana for years. Maybe forever. Come to think of it, the whole thought of leaving this wonderful country and never seeing its people and its beauty ever again makes me feel so incredibly sad. I've been here almost a month, which does seems like a long time, but I feel as if I know next to nothing about this place. I'll sorely miss it when I leave in three weeks.
Yes, in spite of the craziness, I'll still miss everything. Even the craziness itself.
Next Wednesday I'm going back to the WAAF to talk to George, who does outreach work with MSM in the community. I'm looking forward to it.
P. S. Thanks to all the anonymous readers and people I don't know in real life who comment on my posts. I appreciate all your thoughts and encouragement!
Today I went to the West Africa AIDS Foundation (WAAF), an NGO that freely provides counseling and services for sex workers and MSM living with HIV/AIDS. I spoke to the director, Eddie Donton, who is such a dedicated and intelligent person. He knew everyone by name at the organization, and all of his staff members and interns were open-minded and thoughtful people. They have students and professionals from abroad who intern for several months at a time, and if I ever come back to Ghana, I would love to help them out and work with them more.
Outside the WAAF office is a small, one room store called The Almond Tree, which sells clothes, handbags, and jewelry made by people living with HIV/AIDS. According to Esther, who co-owns the store with Rebecca, The Almond Tree opened in December of last year and everything they sell is produced through a loan program that allows people living with HIV/AIDS to jump start their lives and re-integrate themselves back into society.
The Almond Tree is open on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays, and Esther said that she takes three tro tros to get to the shop on those mornings. On Tuesdays and Thursdays, she goes to the market to buy batik fabrics, tie dyes her own prints, and then sews dresses and hand bags. She told me also that business isn't so great, and that it's always a concern that she won't have enough money at the end of the month to support herself.
Rebecca didn't speak much English, or maybe she was shy, but I learned from Esther that she came to The Almond Tree after her husband died and she needed to make a living for herself. She now uses her sewing skills to support herself. Both Esther and Rebecca took a break from their old fashioned sewing machines, beautiful ancient things that don't use foot pedals but instead have a wheel that you manually wind, and put down their multi-colored cloths to speak with me.
I asked whether they knew each other before opening The Almond Tree.
"No, we did not know each other before," Esther replied. "But we are like sisters now."
Before I left, Esther gave me a beaded anklet. I offered to pay for it, but she told me no.
"I am giving it to you because I like you so much."
I had to tell Esther and Rebecca, though, that I was leaving Accra in a week, and that most likely I wouldn't be back in Ghana for years. Maybe forever. Come to think of it, the whole thought of leaving this wonderful country and never seeing its people and its beauty ever again makes me feel so incredibly sad. I've been here almost a month, which does seems like a long time, but I feel as if I know next to nothing about this place. I'll sorely miss it when I leave in three weeks.
Yes, in spite of the craziness, I'll still miss everything. Even the craziness itself.
Next Wednesday I'm going back to the WAAF to talk to George, who does outreach work with MSM in the community. I'm looking forward to it.
P. S. Thanks to all the anonymous readers and people I don't know in real life who comment on my posts. I appreciate all your thoughts and encouragement!
Wednesday, July 18, 2007
Elmina, Cape Coast, and more
I haven't been blogging lately because the internet connection is so unreliable, but also because I feel that these posts are just watered down versions of entries I would have written more honestly if I were sure no one would read them except me. I'm not so good at this whole blogging stuff, I suppose.
These past two days I've been feeling extremely frustrated with reporting. A big part of my frustration is rooted in the whole taboo nature of gay issues in Ghana. Trawling through the national archives, talking to people on the street, I'm always astophished at the rampant homophobia everywhere, but during these times I'm not bothered so much. When I'm out in the day with my reporter's mindset, all these news pieces and every day conversations are interesting to me and I get genuinely excited to hear what Ghanaians have to say about gay and lesbian rights. Yet, at the end of the day, after my reporting is momentarily suspended and I let myself unwind, I muse on everything that had happened that day and I finally let myself feel these experiences. I brush aside the analyzing and the probing and the inquiring I do as a journalist, and simply let myself feel the reality of Ghana's homophobia as a human being. Evenings are so overwhelming for me, and sometimes I seems more than bearable. Last night I wasn't able to do anything, and after prepping my interviews for the next day, I just sat on the sofa in our dorm complex and stared into space. How is it possible to feel so overwhelmed and exasperated and have nothing really accomplished so far?
Another interview fell through today. The phone lines are down across the city and won't be back up until Monday. I've been here two and a half weeks and I have nothing substantial to show for all the hours I put into everything. I can't confirm many of the incriminating statements I've gotten from sources, and I won't be able to publish them unless I find a way to substantiate them. Not like I'll be able to since no one archives any of these things and the government won't give me access to their files, obviously.
I've spent all day calling people to no avail. I have no interviews set up despite the hours of calling I've done. None.
I need to leave now for a follow up interview. I'm just hoping that this one works out and I can get the information I need. You know, I wonder why I'm in this country when no one wants me here, no one wants my help or input. It seems as if neither the local media, the government, or even the gay rights organizations here and internationally want me here. I'm just a crazy "white" foreigner intruding, pompous and deluded, thinking I can do something positive for a country I'll never be able to call home, for a people who I cannot understand and who will never understand me.
Enough self pitying. I am very late.
Elmina/Cape Coast pictures to come!
These past two days I've been feeling extremely frustrated with reporting. A big part of my frustration is rooted in the whole taboo nature of gay issues in Ghana. Trawling through the national archives, talking to people on the street, I'm always astophished at the rampant homophobia everywhere, but during these times I'm not bothered so much. When I'm out in the day with my reporter's mindset, all these news pieces and every day conversations are interesting to me and I get genuinely excited to hear what Ghanaians have to say about gay and lesbian rights. Yet, at the end of the day, after my reporting is momentarily suspended and I let myself unwind, I muse on everything that had happened that day and I finally let myself feel these experiences. I brush aside the analyzing and the probing and the inquiring I do as a journalist, and simply let myself feel the reality of Ghana's homophobia as a human being. Evenings are so overwhelming for me, and sometimes I seems more than bearable. Last night I wasn't able to do anything, and after prepping my interviews for the next day, I just sat on the sofa in our dorm complex and stared into space. How is it possible to feel so overwhelmed and exasperated and have nothing really accomplished so far?
Another interview fell through today. The phone lines are down across the city and won't be back up until Monday. I've been here two and a half weeks and I have nothing substantial to show for all the hours I put into everything. I can't confirm many of the incriminating statements I've gotten from sources, and I won't be able to publish them unless I find a way to substantiate them. Not like I'll be able to since no one archives any of these things and the government won't give me access to their files, obviously.
I've spent all day calling people to no avail. I have no interviews set up despite the hours of calling I've done. None.
I need to leave now for a follow up interview. I'm just hoping that this one works out and I can get the information I need. You know, I wonder why I'm in this country when no one wants me here, no one wants my help or input. It seems as if neither the local media, the government, or even the gay rights organizations here and internationally want me here. I'm just a crazy "white" foreigner intruding, pompous and deluded, thinking I can do something positive for a country I'll never be able to call home, for a people who I cannot understand and who will never understand me.
Enough self pitying. I am very late.
Elmina/Cape Coast pictures to come!
Wednesday, July 11, 2007
shop names
I've been collecting entertaining names of shops and businesses from around the Accra and Kumasi areas. More than half of Ghana's population identifies as Christian, and the ubiquitous references to the scripture reflect the nation's unique variety of Christianity. (Not your typical WASPy version at all. Think crazy dancing and getting slain in the spirit and pot.) There are however a couple non-religious names I recorded.
Only Jesus Can Judge Internet Cafe
In God I Trust Barber and Communication Centre
Marose Beauty Salon
Jesus Power (from Rollo's tie)
If God Say Yes Snack Shop
Don't Mind Your Wife Maggi Chicken
God's Time is Best
Jesus Cares Snack Spot
Gift of God Business and Communication Centre
His Grace Coca-Cola
Baccus Wine
Apollo Theatre
Exaulted and Purified Enterprise
Holy Trinity Fast Food
Zion Art Design
Education is the Key to Success! Blows your pain away...
Just Here Eating Place
Jerusalem Press General Printing
Justice Hotel
Heightened Seed Christian Fellowship (ummm...)
Kick Super Store
Be Fine Water Services
By His Grace Fashion Center
Rhema Hotel
Latex Foam: Your Partner for Life (??)
Star Beer
Star Oil
Star Art Works
Scaffolds for Rent
Vibration Spot (It was actually a greenhouse/plant nursery...)
Pink Panther Hotel (we stayed here in Kumasi)
Blessings Barbering Salon
Heavy Bite Fast Food
No Weapon Fast Food
Trinity Divine Light Church
Peculiar Child Academy
Your Blood Circulator Massager Machine is Here
Only Jesus Can Judge Internet Cafe
In God I Trust Barber and Communication Centre
Marose Beauty Salon
Jesus Power (from Rollo's tie)
If God Say Yes Snack Shop
Don't Mind Your Wife Maggi Chicken
God's Time is Best
Jesus Cares Snack Spot
Gift of God Business and Communication Centre
His Grace Coca-Cola
Baccus Wine
Apollo Theatre
Exaulted and Purified Enterprise
Holy Trinity Fast Food
Zion Art Design
Education is the Key to Success! Blows your pain away...
Just Here Eating Place
Jerusalem Press General Printing
Justice Hotel
Heightened Seed Christian Fellowship (ummm...)
Kick Super Store
Be Fine Water Services
By His Grace Fashion Center
Rhema Hotel
Latex Foam: Your Partner for Life (??)
Star Beer
Star Oil
Star Art Works
Scaffolds for Rent
Vibration Spot (It was actually a greenhouse/plant nursery...)
Pink Panther Hotel (we stayed here in Kumasi)
Blessings Barbering Salon
Heavy Bite Fast Food
No Weapon Fast Food
Trinity Divine Light Church
Peculiar Child Academy
Your Blood Circulator Massager Machine is Here
Tuesday, July 10, 2007
more on Kumasi
In about half about half an hour I'll be heading out to a Liberian refugee camp about 2 hours from Accra. I'm not sure how to spell it, but it's pronounced Budaborum. A few people in our group are doing some reporting/broadcasting on the camp, and I'm tagging along just to check things out.
I guess I should also say something small about Kumasi, because I know I'll totally forget to write about it/get lazy later. The main attraction in Kumasi is it's central market. According to Kenneth, one of the Ghanaian guides hired by NYU, the Kumasi market is the second largest in Africa, dwarfed only by a certain Nigerian market (I don't know the name). Indeed, the market in Kumasi was HUGE. Our tour bus got stuck in the city's notorious traffic on our way to our hotel, and I felt as if we were being engulfed by a sea of people. Everywhere there is shouting and honking and all of the buyers and sellers blend into this large vague whole while somehow remaining distinct too. Kind of like Michigan Avenue on Friday evenings, but totally different also. It's strange how it is possible to detect moments of familiarity amid surroundings that are decidedly alien and new.
I didn't actually get to look around the market during a regular day. We didn't have time Saturday so we went on Sunday. Kenneth explained that most vendors shut down their stalls on Sunday to go to church. Nevertheless, despite the reeduced capacity, things were still pretty busy. I bought Trinity a cool hat like she wanted, but I tried it on later and it might be kind of tight. Oh well. There were bread vendors selling fresh sweet loaves of white bread, young girls and women walking around with screen-lined boxes filled with the creamy loaves on their heads. I hadn't had dinner the night before, so I was starving. I bought one and ate it and it was great, but like fifteen minutes after I finshed it I felt so nauseated and wanted to throw up. Later I saw some stalls where several women were bagging loaves of bread. The unwrapped bread was sitting in mounds on the table... covered in flies! Oh great. So I guess I pulled an Uncle Froggy, right Dad? Well hopefully my immune system is working right these days.
We turned into a side alley in the marketplace and I spotted these weird ass hand painted signs depicting all kinds of bizarre lower body ailments. On one sign was printed "gonnorhea" and showed a picture of a guy with his jeans unzipped, reaching into his pants. Allison thought he was masterbating, but I think he was just scratching his painful lesions. Another board depicted a picture of "toilet bleeding," basically someone's rear end squatting down with a stream of blood flowing out onto a bloody pool on the floor. Constipation anyone? There were other signs advertising infertility cures and whatnot.
As we were perusing the odd sights, a random guy popped out of nowhere and introduced himself to me as a doctor. I asked if he did traditional or Western medicine, and he said that he did everything. I asked if I could take a photo of his signs (you have to always ask in Ghana, where Islamic influence is still felt amid the predominantly Christian population) but he started running up the street to get his medicines for me. Oh crap, I though. Now I have to buy something.
He came back shortly and I managed to explain that I didn't want any medecines, only a few snapshots of the signs. However, the medicine man proceeded to roll up his pants and change into his traditional medicine man outfit. He then threw off his Nikes and someone handed him his medicine man hat, and he sat down all serious and somber like crossed legged, after speading out an old blue tarp and unloading the contents of his medicine bag. There were wilted plans and old twigs, plastic bottles filled with muddy, oily liquids that he was was for syphillus/gonnorhea. There was also a goat horn, or some kind of animal horn that was dirty and molded over. So all this he spread out on the mat. Then he said he was ready for some photos, so I took a few.
I offered to buy the goat horn after it was over, in compensation for his time. He wanted 100,000 cedis, the equivalent of $10, but I got it down to $5. However, after I bought it he demanded yet more money for the photos. I offered to give him a dollar, and he got pissy. So I threatened to give back the goat horn and he got all worried and accepted the dollar. Meanwhile, during the whole encounter, a crowd of Ghanaian vendors had gathered around the medicine man's stall. We left amid a chorus of definite Goodbyes. Someone even called out, "You are mean," as we left. I suppose six dollars wasn't enough for the entertainment we were supposed to have derived from this scam. Oh well. I have some decent pictures to show for it, and I rotting horn which is currently in the back of my closet.
On the way back from Kumasi, we made stops at two different Ashanti villages. There are various ethnic groups in Ghana, each with its own language. The Ashanti comprise over half of Ghana's population, and Twi is the most widely spoken language here after English. The first village we stopped at specialized in wood carving. Even before we got off the tour bus, about a million vendors pressed themselves against the vehicle waving their wares and shouting "I like your style! I like your style! Come look at my stall! Come buy!" Not at ALL the widely circulated idea of poor isolated villagers sitting passively by as malaria and AIDS and other horrible maladies consume their body and soul. Nope. These people were fricking crazy. So I got pulled into various stalls, and I ended up spending around $30 on some really gorgeous and beautiful stuff. They make everything there themselves too. No sweatshops. I only felt bad that I didn't pay more, but I seriously didn't have more money to give. I bought a traditional mask, and when I attempted to find out what it was used for, they guy selling it said "All occassions." I think he was just more interested in getting my money into his hands. I bought a traditional female fertility doll, a necklack, and something for Chara also that we can all use.
The second Ashanti village we went to specialized in kente cloth weaving. We also got swamped with vendors at this village, but not so much. Like I said on facebook, there are three different kinds of kente cloths, single, double, and triple (I forgot the Twi names). I learned this from one of the villagers who shouted Konichiwa as he came up to me, and asked me if I was his American wife. Suddenly everyone around me got excited and started asking me if I was his American wife in between random Konichiwas. So I decided to play along, and everyone got so excited out of their minds when I shouted Konichiwa back. Oh, let them think I'm Japanese... I mean, all my life I referred to them using the vagueish nebulous "African." What the hell is African? So I suppose, in the end, we're even.
The guy that came up to me, or one of them, wanted to give me a tour of his village. He kept mentioning the village priest, how he wanted to take me there, so I started milling up the street with him, when it dawned on me. No, I did NOT want to go to the village priest with him. Turns out he had crazy ideas about marrying me on the spot and even calling up my mother on the phone. In Ghana, I think it's typically the mothers that arrange the marriages and do the final acceptance. So I told him that my mother would absolutely say no and probably kill him too. He was very sad, but oh well.
Before I left he wanted my email address. So I wrote it down for him, and once again that uncanny feeling decended upon me. Here I was in the heart of Ghana, in this "African" village, writing my email address down for this Ashanti man. How odd is that? That story would never appear in National Geographic or the Times, with their sad stories of death and dolor and decay. That's Africa back home for us, but we don't know anything, it seems.
Oh god I'm so late ok bye.
I guess I should also say something small about Kumasi, because I know I'll totally forget to write about it/get lazy later. The main attraction in Kumasi is it's central market. According to Kenneth, one of the Ghanaian guides hired by NYU, the Kumasi market is the second largest in Africa, dwarfed only by a certain Nigerian market (I don't know the name). Indeed, the market in Kumasi was HUGE. Our tour bus got stuck in the city's notorious traffic on our way to our hotel, and I felt as if we were being engulfed by a sea of people. Everywhere there is shouting and honking and all of the buyers and sellers blend into this large vague whole while somehow remaining distinct too. Kind of like Michigan Avenue on Friday evenings, but totally different also. It's strange how it is possible to detect moments of familiarity amid surroundings that are decidedly alien and new.
I didn't actually get to look around the market during a regular day. We didn't have time Saturday so we went on Sunday. Kenneth explained that most vendors shut down their stalls on Sunday to go to church. Nevertheless, despite the reeduced capacity, things were still pretty busy. I bought Trinity a cool hat like she wanted, but I tried it on later and it might be kind of tight. Oh well. There were bread vendors selling fresh sweet loaves of white bread, young girls and women walking around with screen-lined boxes filled with the creamy loaves on their heads. I hadn't had dinner the night before, so I was starving. I bought one and ate it and it was great, but like fifteen minutes after I finshed it I felt so nauseated and wanted to throw up. Later I saw some stalls where several women were bagging loaves of bread. The unwrapped bread was sitting in mounds on the table... covered in flies! Oh great. So I guess I pulled an Uncle Froggy, right Dad? Well hopefully my immune system is working right these days.
We turned into a side alley in the marketplace and I spotted these weird ass hand painted signs depicting all kinds of bizarre lower body ailments. On one sign was printed "gonnorhea" and showed a picture of a guy with his jeans unzipped, reaching into his pants. Allison thought he was masterbating, but I think he was just scratching his painful lesions. Another board depicted a picture of "toilet bleeding," basically someone's rear end squatting down with a stream of blood flowing out onto a bloody pool on the floor. Constipation anyone? There were other signs advertising infertility cures and whatnot.
As we were perusing the odd sights, a random guy popped out of nowhere and introduced himself to me as a doctor. I asked if he did traditional or Western medicine, and he said that he did everything. I asked if I could take a photo of his signs (you have to always ask in Ghana, where Islamic influence is still felt amid the predominantly Christian population) but he started running up the street to get his medicines for me. Oh crap, I though. Now I have to buy something.
He came back shortly and I managed to explain that I didn't want any medecines, only a few snapshots of the signs. However, the medicine man proceeded to roll up his pants and change into his traditional medicine man outfit. He then threw off his Nikes and someone handed him his medicine man hat, and he sat down all serious and somber like crossed legged, after speading out an old blue tarp and unloading the contents of his medicine bag. There were wilted plans and old twigs, plastic bottles filled with muddy, oily liquids that he was was for syphillus/gonnorhea. There was also a goat horn, or some kind of animal horn that was dirty and molded over. So all this he spread out on the mat. Then he said he was ready for some photos, so I took a few.
I offered to buy the goat horn after it was over, in compensation for his time. He wanted 100,000 cedis, the equivalent of $10, but I got it down to $5. However, after I bought it he demanded yet more money for the photos. I offered to give him a dollar, and he got pissy. So I threatened to give back the goat horn and he got all worried and accepted the dollar. Meanwhile, during the whole encounter, a crowd of Ghanaian vendors had gathered around the medicine man's stall. We left amid a chorus of definite Goodbyes. Someone even called out, "You are mean," as we left. I suppose six dollars wasn't enough for the entertainment we were supposed to have derived from this scam. Oh well. I have some decent pictures to show for it, and I rotting horn which is currently in the back of my closet.
On the way back from Kumasi, we made stops at two different Ashanti villages. There are various ethnic groups in Ghana, each with its own language. The Ashanti comprise over half of Ghana's population, and Twi is the most widely spoken language here after English. The first village we stopped at specialized in wood carving. Even before we got off the tour bus, about a million vendors pressed themselves against the vehicle waving their wares and shouting "I like your style! I like your style! Come look at my stall! Come buy!" Not at ALL the widely circulated idea of poor isolated villagers sitting passively by as malaria and AIDS and other horrible maladies consume their body and soul. Nope. These people were fricking crazy. So I got pulled into various stalls, and I ended up spending around $30 on some really gorgeous and beautiful stuff. They make everything there themselves too. No sweatshops. I only felt bad that I didn't pay more, but I seriously didn't have more money to give. I bought a traditional mask, and when I attempted to find out what it was used for, they guy selling it said "All occassions." I think he was just more interested in getting my money into his hands. I bought a traditional female fertility doll, a necklack, and something for Chara also that we can all use.
The second Ashanti village we went to specialized in kente cloth weaving. We also got swamped with vendors at this village, but not so much. Like I said on facebook, there are three different kinds of kente cloths, single, double, and triple (I forgot the Twi names). I learned this from one of the villagers who shouted Konichiwa as he came up to me, and asked me if I was his American wife. Suddenly everyone around me got excited and started asking me if I was his American wife in between random Konichiwas. So I decided to play along, and everyone got so excited out of their minds when I shouted Konichiwa back. Oh, let them think I'm Japanese... I mean, all my life I referred to them using the vagueish nebulous "African." What the hell is African? So I suppose, in the end, we're even.
The guy that came up to me, or one of them, wanted to give me a tour of his village. He kept mentioning the village priest, how he wanted to take me there, so I started milling up the street with him, when it dawned on me. No, I did NOT want to go to the village priest with him. Turns out he had crazy ideas about marrying me on the spot and even calling up my mother on the phone. In Ghana, I think it's typically the mothers that arrange the marriages and do the final acceptance. So I told him that my mother would absolutely say no and probably kill him too. He was very sad, but oh well.
Before I left he wanted my email address. So I wrote it down for him, and once again that uncanny feeling decended upon me. Here I was in the heart of Ghana, in this "African" village, writing my email address down for this Ashanti man. How odd is that? That story would never appear in National Geographic or the Times, with their sad stories of death and dolor and decay. That's Africa back home for us, but we don't know anything, it seems.
Oh god I'm so late ok bye.
Sunday, July 8, 2007
Kumasi, briefly
I just got back from our group's weekend trip to Kumasi, Ghana's second largest city about 5 hours by bus north of Accra. There's so much to say about the trip, but I'll have to blog more on it later because I'm tired and I have some interviews tomorrow that I should prep for.
I'm just posting to let everyone know that I have new facebook albums up.
Check out my Kumasi photos here.
I also added a new album of photos I took of some school children near the Kaneshi market in Accra. See it here.
The Accra II album is updated also. I added some photos I took last week during my second visit to the Kaneshi market.
Finally, I enabled commenting for everyone. I forgot to do that earlier, but now readers who don't have a blogspot account can still leave messages.
I'm just posting to let everyone know that I have new facebook albums up.
Check out my Kumasi photos here.
I also added a new album of photos I took of some school children near the Kaneshi market in Accra. See it here.
The Accra II album is updated also. I added some photos I took last week during my second visit to the Kaneshi market.
Finally, I enabled commenting for everyone. I forgot to do that earlier, but now readers who don't have a blogspot account can still leave messages.
Wednesday, July 4, 2007
Oxford Street, Accra
Today I wandered around the central district in Accra for a little over an hour alone, with the equivalent of 20 US cents on me. I was starving but I couldn't buy anything to eat with so few cedis, so I went into an old bookstore to escape the heat and the persistance of the vendors.
The bookstore, right across Frankie's Hotel (an overpriced restaurant), was called The Bookshelf.net. Its selection wasn't anything impressive--mostly outdated textbooks, yellowing and dog-earred paperback romance novels, quarterly publications, and never-heard-of titles from the 80s and 90s. I weaved in and out of the bookcases, feeling rather disoriented and alone and bored with the titles available, my fingertips dusty and grimy from running them along the rows and stacks of uninspiring works. However, there was a single shelf titled "classics," and of the two hundred or so books in that section (most of them decidedly not classics at all, nor anything remotely literary in nature), I found two slim paperback volumes of Thornton Wilder's plays. Here was my favorite American playwright/novelist, in this dusty unnoticed corner of this small West African capital. Heartened and feeling less alone, I started looking around the bookstore for some Shakespeare.
It seems that everyone here raves about Kwame Nkrumah, the first president of Ghana. Any reference to him makes me squirm with embarassment because for the first couple of days I couldn't even say the dude's name, nor did I have the slightest clue who he was. Yet all the Ghanaians spoke of him as if the world knew of this Kwame Nkrumah just as they did. So then I got to thinking, well, maybe our Shakespeare is like this hero Nkrumah. Perhaps the Bard isn't so universal as I'd like to believe he is. So I decided that I'd put Shakespeare's reknown to the test right here in this dusty corner of a bookstore. If I found at least one of his works, I would give myself the right to continue holding fast to my belief in the universality and genius of the Bard. So I began my search, but nothing came up; Shakespeare was nowhere to be found. Embarassed in front of myself for my own egocentrism, I was about to give up my hunt when I spotted two of Shakespeare's histories in spotted, stained paperback: Richard II and Henry IV, Part I.
They're those wonderful lines spoken by the poet-king Richard in Act III, upon learning of Bolingbroke's return to England:
The bookstore, right across Frankie's Hotel (an overpriced restaurant), was called The Bookshelf.net. Its selection wasn't anything impressive--mostly outdated textbooks, yellowing and dog-earred paperback romance novels, quarterly publications, and never-heard-of titles from the 80s and 90s. I weaved in and out of the bookcases, feeling rather disoriented and alone and bored with the titles available, my fingertips dusty and grimy from running them along the rows and stacks of uninspiring works. However, there was a single shelf titled "classics," and of the two hundred or so books in that section (most of them decidedly not classics at all, nor anything remotely literary in nature), I found two slim paperback volumes of Thornton Wilder's plays. Here was my favorite American playwright/novelist, in this dusty unnoticed corner of this small West African capital. Heartened and feeling less alone, I started looking around the bookstore for some Shakespeare.
It seems that everyone here raves about Kwame Nkrumah, the first president of Ghana. Any reference to him makes me squirm with embarassment because for the first couple of days I couldn't even say the dude's name, nor did I have the slightest clue who he was. Yet all the Ghanaians spoke of him as if the world knew of this Kwame Nkrumah just as they did. So then I got to thinking, well, maybe our Shakespeare is like this hero Nkrumah. Perhaps the Bard isn't so universal as I'd like to believe he is. So I decided that I'd put Shakespeare's reknown to the test right here in this dusty corner of a bookstore. If I found at least one of his works, I would give myself the right to continue holding fast to my belief in the universality and genius of the Bard. So I began my search, but nothing came up; Shakespeare was nowhere to be found. Embarassed in front of myself for my own egocentrism, I was about to give up my hunt when I spotted two of Shakespeare's histories in spotted, stained paperback: Richard II and Henry IV, Part I.
They're those wonderful lines spoken by the poet-king Richard in Act III, upon learning of Bolingbroke's return to England:
Of comfort no man speak:I would say in general what Richard says is true, but after today, I still think that the Bard himself remains the exception to the rest of humanity's common fate. Five hundred years after he lived and died, Shakespeare is still thriving in this dusty Accra bookshop.
Let's talk of graves, of worms, and epitaphs;
Make dust our paper, and with rainy eyes
Write sorrow on the bosom of the earth;
Let's choose executors and talk of wills:
And yet not so — for what can we bequeath
Save our deposed bodies to the ground?
Our lands, our lives, and all are Bolingbroke's,
And nothing can we call our own but death,
And that small model of the barren earth
Which serves as paste and cover to our bones.
Tuesday, July 3, 2007
selected snapshots of life in Accra
First Weekend in Accra
Hello from Ghana! Right now I'm sitting in my dorm room at the New York University center here in Accra, Ghana's capital. I'll be in Ghana for six week doing some reporting, and for the most part I'll be based in Accra writing on the city's underground gay rights movement. Homosexuality is illegal in Ghana, and "unnatural carnal knowledge" is a criminal offense according to the country's criminal code of 1960, which hasn't been much updated since the time of British colonialism. Hopefully I'll be able to delve deeper into this issue, despite the fact that it's shrouded in secrecy (not to mention that my principle source fled the country a few months back because of all the death threats he was receiving...). Wish me luck!
I arrived in Ghana from Honolulu via San Fran and New York, and after 27 hours of flight time (thanks to weather delays at JFK) I made it to Accra in one piece. Although I've only been here less than five days, I feel as if I've been here forever. Yet in some ways, I'm pretty sure certain things about life in Ghana will never quite feel like home for me. One thing for sure, I'll never get used to this internet situation. Access in even the most developed parts of the country is only occasional at best, and pretty unreliable. I also miss not being able to use my cell phone to constantly text message everyone everywhere at every moment of the day. Bathrooms with toilets, toilet paper, and running water? Nope. We're lucky here at NYU's dorm to have these "necessities," but I was surprised to find that even some of the top restaurants here in the city lack what I take for granted back home.
Although it's imaginable that I might eventually get used to the lack of toilet paper, drinkable tap water, etc, I know I could never live like a Ghanaian or be fully accepted as one by the people here. Hey ladies back home, looking for a husband? Well, let me suggest you book yourself a plane ticket to sub-Saharan Africa ASAP. It's literally impossible to walk five feet in the busier parts of town without some Ghanaian man coming up and asking for my contact number, complimenting me on some part of my body, confessing he loves me, or offering his hand in marriage. It's all very entertaining, but exasperating at times, and lately I find myself wishing that I had invisible powers.
Some interesting pick up lines for everyone's edification and entertainment:
"Hello. You are beautiful. I want to take you to Aphrodisiac tonight and you can shake your boobboob for me."
"Excuse me, lady, but this gentleman here *points to his friend* claims he loves you."
"CONTACT NUMBER! CONTACT NUMBER! PLEASE! CONTACT NUMBER!"
"I want to make you my wife. Oh, here is my sister. Then you can be sisters." *woman sitting next to him glares at me and does NOT smile back*
Ad infinitum. But that was an aside.
The word for foreigner or white here is "obruni," which is loosely applied by the locals to anyone who isn't Ghanaian. That means even African Americans and Asian Americans like me fit the obruni description. I was actually hoping that I could go in cognito because I didn't look typically "American," but no such luck. I think being an ethnic minority actually attracts more attention in some ways, and I've had people ask me whether I am Japanese, Chinese, or Filipino. One man even expressed surprise that I spoke English.
I've been trying to keep up with my running, but so far my training isn't going so well. I usually try to maintain a mileage of around 50 in Chicago, but all the timezone changes, the busy schedule, the heat, and the lack of safe running trails all makes running difficult. When I'm outside, every taxi driver honks and tries to pick me up, nearly running me over in the process! In Ghana, you don't flag down taxis; they come to you, honking and waving and stopping but two feet away from you. The other thing that makes running difficult are the potholes and roadside gutters. People in Hawaii need to stop complaining about potholes. Seriously, walking along main highways is like hiking on trails here.
There were several places we've been so far that have really made me happy. We've been to so many and they all sort of blend together after awhile, but two that stand out at the moment are the Kaneshi market and La Pleasure beach, both in Accra (not too sure about the exact location of each, as I'm still rather disoriented).
The market is housed in a two (three?) storey building, very dilapidated but definitely a structure with lots of character. The stalls completely fill the ground floor and spill out onto the surrounding streets. Everywhere people press themselves and their merchandise into you, calling out to you.
"Come, come, not buy, just look, come come. And maybe if you like, then I get lucky today."
The first floor of the market is filled with various food items. Don't think McDonald's and Starbucks, please. Maybe I'm simply naive, having nothing to gauge my experience at the market, but everything about the Kaneshi market seemed refreshingly real. This is not Accra's version of Waikiki at all, nor is it the counterpart to Michigan Avenue in downtown Chicago. There were animal body parts for sell, and it seemed qutie possible to find every single appendage or organ imaginable amid the sea if stalls and tables. The meat filled the place with the smell of blood and flesh, putrid and earthy and strangely alive. It seems that goat meat is pretty popular in Ghana. I have yet to see cows here, but there are packs of goats roaming everywhere. I don't think the Ghanaians are big on dairy either, as everyone here drinks soy milk. Apple flavored, mango flavored, pineapple flavored, you name it. I have yet to try anything but the plain version so far...
Sandwiched in between the meat vendors were tables displaying gorgeous fruits and produce. Pyramids of tomatoes, apples, bananas, and mounds of dried spices and chiles brightened the dimly lit ground floor. There were several items that looked somewhat familiar (white pineapples?) but for other items, I simply found that I had no means of processing the things before me.
Upstairs the vendors sold beads, jewelry, and fabrics. Not to mention sanitary napkins. Actually the upstairs level kind of bored me, because most of the goods looked imported, but all the girls in my group suddenly went crazy and started buying everything. Snore...
I didn't have much time too look around the marketplace on my own, but I hope to go back by myself and take more time to check out the produce and goods and talk to the vendors.
A couple of days ago we also visited La Pleasure beach. Not all all like Hawaii's beaches, or like Chicago's view of the lake front. I couldn't locate a single trash can the entire three hours I was there, and consequently, the sand and shoreline was completely speckled with litter. But I hardly noticed the dirt and the grime because everywhere there were people, people, people, bodies filling the narrow spaces between the large multi-colored beach umbrellas, vending goods, wrestling, sharing beers, dancing, and singing. The only people lounging on beach towels were the tourists. It seemed that all the Ghanaians were busy doing something active. The country also celebrated a national holiday this past weekend, and so Monday wasn't a working day. Maybe the beach isn't usually as lively and crowded, and this weekend was the exception. They had a stage set up and performers danced some traditional dances but I also heard that really popular Black Eyed Peas song from two years ago (whatever the name is, the one that goes on about all that junk in your trunk). It's amazing how amid such a different universe there sometimes erupt such familiar pieces of home, bits of my world that somehow assume an uncanny twist in this country so far from everything I know.
I loved that beach. I definitely want to go back. Best part had to be the beer, which I bought for an equivalent of 90 US cents.
Speaking of beer, the nightlife here is amazing too. No cover charges, no IDs required, beers go for US $1, and the men are fabulous dancers! Everyone sings along to the music, and there are times when everyone is jumping up and down and screaming in words I can't define but somehow instrinsically understand. If you want to know more, email me directly.
Checking out for now. Congrats if you made it this far. I'll try to write more consistently so I don't have to spew out a load of stuff all at once. Love from Accra!
I arrived in Ghana from Honolulu via San Fran and New York, and after 27 hours of flight time (thanks to weather delays at JFK) I made it to Accra in one piece. Although I've only been here less than five days, I feel as if I've been here forever. Yet in some ways, I'm pretty sure certain things about life in Ghana will never quite feel like home for me. One thing for sure, I'll never get used to this internet situation. Access in even the most developed parts of the country is only occasional at best, and pretty unreliable. I also miss not being able to use my cell phone to constantly text message everyone everywhere at every moment of the day. Bathrooms with toilets, toilet paper, and running water? Nope. We're lucky here at NYU's dorm to have these "necessities," but I was surprised to find that even some of the top restaurants here in the city lack what I take for granted back home.
Although it's imaginable that I might eventually get used to the lack of toilet paper, drinkable tap water, etc, I know I could never live like a Ghanaian or be fully accepted as one by the people here. Hey ladies back home, looking for a husband? Well, let me suggest you book yourself a plane ticket to sub-Saharan Africa ASAP. It's literally impossible to walk five feet in the busier parts of town without some Ghanaian man coming up and asking for my contact number, complimenting me on some part of my body, confessing he loves me, or offering his hand in marriage. It's all very entertaining, but exasperating at times, and lately I find myself wishing that I had invisible powers.
Some interesting pick up lines for everyone's edification and entertainment:
"Hello. You are beautiful. I want to take you to Aphrodisiac tonight and you can shake your boobboob for me."
"Excuse me, lady, but this gentleman here *points to his friend* claims he loves you."
"CONTACT NUMBER! CONTACT NUMBER! PLEASE! CONTACT NUMBER!"
"I want to make you my wife. Oh, here is my sister. Then you can be sisters." *woman sitting next to him glares at me and does NOT smile back*
Ad infinitum. But that was an aside.
The word for foreigner or white here is "obruni," which is loosely applied by the locals to anyone who isn't Ghanaian. That means even African Americans and Asian Americans like me fit the obruni description. I was actually hoping that I could go in cognito because I didn't look typically "American," but no such luck. I think being an ethnic minority actually attracts more attention in some ways, and I've had people ask me whether I am Japanese, Chinese, or Filipino. One man even expressed surprise that I spoke English.
I've been trying to keep up with my running, but so far my training isn't going so well. I usually try to maintain a mileage of around 50 in Chicago, but all the timezone changes, the busy schedule, the heat, and the lack of safe running trails all makes running difficult. When I'm outside, every taxi driver honks and tries to pick me up, nearly running me over in the process! In Ghana, you don't flag down taxis; they come to you, honking and waving and stopping but two feet away from you. The other thing that makes running difficult are the potholes and roadside gutters. People in Hawaii need to stop complaining about potholes. Seriously, walking along main highways is like hiking on trails here.
There were several places we've been so far that have really made me happy. We've been to so many and they all sort of blend together after awhile, but two that stand out at the moment are the Kaneshi market and La Pleasure beach, both in Accra (not too sure about the exact location of each, as I'm still rather disoriented).
The market is housed in a two (three?) storey building, very dilapidated but definitely a structure with lots of character. The stalls completely fill the ground floor and spill out onto the surrounding streets. Everywhere people press themselves and their merchandise into you, calling out to you.
"Come, come, not buy, just look, come come. And maybe if you like, then I get lucky today."
The first floor of the market is filled with various food items. Don't think McDonald's and Starbucks, please. Maybe I'm simply naive, having nothing to gauge my experience at the market, but everything about the Kaneshi market seemed refreshingly real. This is not Accra's version of Waikiki at all, nor is it the counterpart to Michigan Avenue in downtown Chicago. There were animal body parts for sell, and it seemed qutie possible to find every single appendage or organ imaginable amid the sea if stalls and tables. The meat filled the place with the smell of blood and flesh, putrid and earthy and strangely alive. It seems that goat meat is pretty popular in Ghana. I have yet to see cows here, but there are packs of goats roaming everywhere. I don't think the Ghanaians are big on dairy either, as everyone here drinks soy milk. Apple flavored, mango flavored, pineapple flavored, you name it. I have yet to try anything but the plain version so far...
Sandwiched in between the meat vendors were tables displaying gorgeous fruits and produce. Pyramids of tomatoes, apples, bananas, and mounds of dried spices and chiles brightened the dimly lit ground floor. There were several items that looked somewhat familiar (white pineapples?) but for other items, I simply found that I had no means of processing the things before me.
Upstairs the vendors sold beads, jewelry, and fabrics. Not to mention sanitary napkins. Actually the upstairs level kind of bored me, because most of the goods looked imported, but all the girls in my group suddenly went crazy and started buying everything. Snore...
I didn't have much time too look around the marketplace on my own, but I hope to go back by myself and take more time to check out the produce and goods and talk to the vendors.
A couple of days ago we also visited La Pleasure beach. Not all all like Hawaii's beaches, or like Chicago's view of the lake front. I couldn't locate a single trash can the entire three hours I was there, and consequently, the sand and shoreline was completely speckled with litter. But I hardly noticed the dirt and the grime because everywhere there were people, people, people, bodies filling the narrow spaces between the large multi-colored beach umbrellas, vending goods, wrestling, sharing beers, dancing, and singing. The only people lounging on beach towels were the tourists. It seemed that all the Ghanaians were busy doing something active. The country also celebrated a national holiday this past weekend, and so Monday wasn't a working day. Maybe the beach isn't usually as lively and crowded, and this weekend was the exception. They had a stage set up and performers danced some traditional dances but I also heard that really popular Black Eyed Peas song from two years ago (whatever the name is, the one that goes on about all that junk in your trunk). It's amazing how amid such a different universe there sometimes erupt such familiar pieces of home, bits of my world that somehow assume an uncanny twist in this country so far from everything I know.
I loved that beach. I definitely want to go back. Best part had to be the beer, which I bought for an equivalent of 90 US cents.
Speaking of beer, the nightlife here is amazing too. No cover charges, no IDs required, beers go for US $1, and the men are fabulous dancers! Everyone sings along to the music, and there are times when everyone is jumping up and down and screaming in words I can't define but somehow instrinsically understand. If you want to know more, email me directly.
Checking out for now. Congrats if you made it this far. I'll try to write more consistently so I don't have to spew out a load of stuff all at once. Love from Accra!
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