Abrunee Abrunee Abrunee

January 27

The heat has caused my feet to swell so much that they don’t exactly fit into my sandals anymore, but besides that minor inconvenience, life is dandy!

Orientation slowed a bit this week so we got to explore more.  Early in the week a group of 10 or so of us wandered to the art market that’s about 30 minutes from our dorm and there we got our bargain on.  It was nine white kids and one Nigerian, so I’m sure the bargains were actually huge rip-offs (Ghanaians and Nigerians have a bit of a rivalry, it seems), but I felt accomplished nonetheless.  There were 30 or so little booths full of wood carvings, paintings, bags, dresses, jewelry, and all sorts of other little trinkets and gifts you would probably describe as stereotypically African.  The shop owners were rather generous in that they all invited us to “come and look for free.”  Then they didn’t understand why we were still looking when we told them we were out of money. Hm.

Later that day when I was getting an egg sandwich for dinner (I think they’ll be a rather big staple of mine this semester… at least until I become more of a pro at banku and fufu) I met the most adorable little girl.  Her name is Agnes and when I came up to the stand she asked me my name and invited me to sit.  I sat while her mom made my eggs and she asked where I was from.  When I said the U.S., she asked if I was from Hollywood.  I had to disappoint her and tell her I lived on the opposite side of the country where the temperatures are in the negatives, but then she wondered if I lived near Jamaica.  I told her no, but she couldn’t grasp the cold I tried to explain.  She just told me she was cold in Ghana right now, where it’s 87.  She was working on her vocab homework so I asked about school and she told me she went to the one right across the street.  I told her I always see the kids walking there in the morning and she asked if I saw her and her friends, and then started telling me their names and a bit about them.  Precious.  We sat and chatted for 10 minutes or so after my sandwich was done just because she was the greatest little girl ever.

That night we decided to go to salsa night in the city.  Somehow I guess I’ve become a big dancer in my African ways.  Don’t really know how I’ve been convinced.  Despite my obvious lack of rhythm, it was actually really fun and I was pleasantly surprised that it was mostly Ghanaians and not all abrunees (pronunciation correction: ah-brew-knees) like I had expected.  I was clearly a rookie, but Leon the Ghanaian taught me, or tried to, anyway.

The most exciting part was probably the tro-tro ride there.  We thought we knew what we were doing but it turns out we had no idea.  Tro-tros are basically 12 or 15 passenger vans operated by two people: a driver, and an assistant who thrusts himself out the door while the car is moving and says “ACCRAACCRAACCRA!” or “CIRCLECIRCLECIRCLE!” and based on what he says, you know what direction they’re traveling.  About five passed us, none going the right way, until one stopped, backed up, and decided actually it was going where we wanted.  That’s the glory of the system: there’s actually no order, and it can change at any point.

We scoped it out, noticed there were two other women in the tro-tro, so we decided it was probably safe and we hopped on in.  I told him the stop and he said 70 pesewas ($.55ish), which seemed a bit steep, but we weren’t sure how far we were going so we paid compliantly.  Red flag.  Fifteen minutes later, when all of the original passengers had gotten out and been replaced by a new round, who had also cycled through, they asked where we were going.  We repeated again, this time spelling out the stop because I had clearly mispronounced it, and they laughed, then told us we were lost.  Oops.

We tried to communicate again where we were going, and ask what we had done wrong, but they didn’t understand our English, and we certainly didn’t understand their Twi. Somehow, after a personal nighttime tour of Accra, we ended up roughly near our destination.  I was the only one who vaguely recognized the area, so when he asked where to stop, we kind of had to guess.  So he dropped us and off we went!

Turns out in my head I was turned around 180 degrees. Not helpful.  We walked a while and didn’t come across anything, so we asked a woman who was walking with children (strategic here) and she led us back where we had come from, across the street and 10 minutes away to where we wanted to go.  Very kind!  Her daughter, Peace, also followed along, which was fun, because the kids always get giddy when they see us.  It was nice because she went totally out of her way just to help us even though she easily could have pointed us in the right direction and we could have helplessly scrambled some more.  Friendliness is Ghana’s claim to fame, and I guess this is why!