Stuck in traffic

                One particularly ingenious – and sometimes annoying, and dangerous – form of commerce in Africa is the street merchant. This doesn’t mean what it might mean in the States, a few guys selling things on a sidewalk. No, this is literally the old-fashioned Five & Dime, setting up business on the fly right in the middle of busy, multi-lane roads.

Sometimes one person will have pillows and Super Glue for sale, or other odd combos.

                You might be waiting for a traffic signal, or simply stuck in one of the huge traffic jams that are so prevalent here. Suddenly, your vehicle is surrounded by specialized merchants, plying their wares with varying degrees of aggressiveness, squeezing in between tro-tros and cars, heavy trucks and buses, taxis and whatever else might be on the road. And the assortment is nothing short of mind-boggling. Sitting there waiting for the jam to clear, you can buy (and this is just scratching the surface):

                Sets of tools. Newspapers. Shoe polish. Airtime cards for your phone. Full-size covers to protect your parked car from the sun. Large wall maps of Africa, or Ghana. CDs and DVDs, including soft-porn titles that the young man may pitch slightly leeringly to “madam,” glancing at “papa” and saying “He will enjoy it…” One guy specializes in electrical plugs, another in belts. Need a new air freshener for your car, or bathroom? Wave to the guy three cars down. Are your children having trouble learning the parts of the human body? No problem: here’s a full-size poster with everything (well, nearly everything) labeled. One guy sells neckties, another, socks. Soccer shirts and knockoff athletic shoes. Wall clocks, and wristwatches. An item in a box labeled “Tummy Trimmer.” Sunglasses, and ordinary eyeglasses. Assortments of wall decorations with religious slogans. Comic books.

                And if you don’t watch out, the guy with the bucket and squeegee will be halfway done with washing your windshield, holding his hand out for a donation, before you have a chance to say you don’t need it.

                Of course there is lots of food, of the easily-consumable-in-the-car variety, usually sold by women. Little plastic bags of plaintain chips. The small “satchets” of chilled water that locals are adept at holding in one hand, piercing the corner with their teeth, then sucking the water out in one quick motion as they drive. Four apples, bagged and ready to go. Bananas. Grapes.

                One of the most amazing, purely from a “degree of difficulty” point of view, is the young women who balance large round metal trays on their heads, packed full with maybe six layers of peanuts in the shell, all laid out in concentric circles stacked on top of each other, their ends pointing outward. Order some peanuts (or G-nuts, as they’re called here – ground nuts), and she will reach her arm up over the top of the tray, carefully removing a handful and bagging them for you. We have never seen a spill.

                This goes on in Uganda, too, though the variety and volume seems more in Ghana – which may be why the government wants the practice to end. It does get a little exciting out there, when somebody is in the middle of buying something just as the traffic starts up, and the kid has to run alongside in his flip-flops, right in the middle of the lanes, holding out his hand to grab the payment out the car window. But they’re all pretty good at it, the drivers and the merchants alike, and it would make the jams that much more boring without all this street theater to enjoy. Besides, come to think of it, we needed a new broom – and there’s one, right over there!

Bath toy

The other day Bill woke up early and found our new bath toy waiting for us.  First thing he did was take a picture (always the journalist) and then came in to tell me not to freak out (DO I do that???), but there was a scorpion in the bath tub. At first I shivered, but then I got curious and wanted to see it, figuring it was a small thing and it would be good to know what they are like, since we've heard they are around. But no small thing! It was about 4 inches long and rather evil looking, twitching its venomous tail and scurrying around the tub, looking for a way out.

We have some Raid spray, something we would never use at home, though we weren't sure it would work on such a large, hard-shelled thing. But it did, and soon he was scoop-able. Into the toilet he went. Bill said maybe he would eat the frogs, but I doubt it works that way.

I guess they do occur here, but why us? And why so big? None of our neighbors have had them, including our friend Hannan who lived here for two years in the same compound. Well, we called the Most Important Person again, and he agreed it was probably coming up the pipes, probably from the big hole with the bare pipes sticking out in it. (Oh, that hole we pointed out a month ago???) He apologized and said they had just "forgotten." But this time, something happened. The hole is covered - with cement, not cardboard! And Bill, again my hero, has taped up the holes around the bathtub where there would usually be sealant. And, oddly enough, yesterday they delivered a bigger (used) refrigerator. We have no idea about why the fridge. It is probably the one thing we haven't complained about, but a bunch of guys brought it, also had no idea why, and here it is. We have taken to saying, "Every day is an adventure" and not asking questions like "why?"

I have been running writing workshops at a couple of libraries that are part of the Osu Children's Library Fund. I took a photo of the scorpion to the library and showed the kids. "Ewww," they said as they backed away. (They didn't quite respond like Sarah when I emailed her the photo -- "Holy Mother of scary!" -- but almost.) Then one girl asked, "Do you have only one?" Uh, do they come in clumps? Should I expect an entire family of these freaky things? I hope not!


Now we are wondering what will be next. A green mamba snake perhaps???

Hilltown of Aburi

“This could almost be an Italian hill town,” I gushed last weekend as we wandered the little town of Aburi.

“With some important differences,” Bill added, dashing my romantic take on Ghana.

Aburi street

He’s right, but the town seriously has a certain charm, and we don’t really want to be in Italy right now anyway (well, not all the time!). Aburi is about 45 minutes from Accra, and there is a botanical garden there. I must admit that we almost missed seeing the garden and the town – we really went to Aburi to escape our housing challenges and to stay at a nice hotel called Hillburi.

The Hillburi has A/C and – most exciting - HOT water in the shower! (I took 5 showers. Come on – it was the first hot shower in over a month!) And a nice infinity pool. Comfortable bed. View out over the entire city of Accra in one direction and the Volta hills in the other. Lots of bananas and other jungle-like vegetation, pretty yellow birds flitting around. While we were there, they were photographing a fashion spread for a Ghanaian magazine, so it was fun to watch the gorgeous models posing in various outfits – especially with complicated headpieces that they sometimes wear here.

We did eventually get to the garden, however, and hired a young horticulturist to show us around. One palm he showed us has so many uses, we can’t remember them all. The palm nuts are used for palm oil, then another nut is used for a white oil, then it is used for two kinds of palm wine –one non-alcoholic and one alcoholic – and the fronds are made into brooms. That’s one useful tree.

There is also a huge tree that was “strangled” by a fig. The host tree has now completely rotted, so the strangler fig has taken on the shape of the tree and is now its own tree with a hollow center.

The town is on a hillside, so it is kind of terraced, little huts and stands jumbled along tiny streets. Bill said, “That’s the picture I want,” of some cute little kids playing in the dirt with the view over the valley behind them. But, as I said earlier, people here do not necessarily want to be at the other end of a camera, so we didn’t take that particular picture. (One little boy who was walking through the garden, which attracts lots of tourists, put his hand over his face when he saw us. We can only imagine how he learned to do that around obrunis, and we felt bad about it – we’ll keep our camera tucked away.)

So it was a nice weekend that gave us the boost we needed.  More pix on Picasa.

Culture curiosity

Departing from the topics of frogs, lack of water, power outages ...

We are managing to notice and learn many things about the Ghanaian culture, things that sometimes make us aware of how small our Obruni (white) world is. For example, when we first arrived and started meeting people I was slightly aware that the locals seem to have been in bad accidents. They had a lot of scars, and I was constantly thinking this is a really accident-prone place. But then I saw two scars that made me think a little more (duh!). One belonged to a mechanic we hired to help us buy a car - he has a very prominent scar from his eye to the bottom of his chin, in a sickle shape. And the other was on my new Muslim friend, a young and very beautiful woman. She has three small lines like sun rays reaching out from either side of her mouth, just about an inch-and-a-half long each. And a couple of matching small ones on her cheeks.

Sooo, it belatedly occurred to me that these are in fact tribal markings, not scars at all. (In my own defense, we saw many scars from accidents on the Ugandans and usually they were happy to tell you all about when they got them!) I looked up tribal markings, and of course there are so many interesting things about them. My young friend apparently was born after a sister had died, that's what the three marks on the side of the mouth mean. Not sure about the other, it could be medical, or traditional family mark, or many other things. It is apparently illegal, but still prevails in the north, especially among Muslims.

Here I was cringing at the thought of those marks, shrinking away from them. Ditto the way the men pee just anywhere they want - the other morning I looked out our bedroom window and there was a guy peeing in the grass a few yards from me. I wanted to shout at him to stop, but I didn't. And our friends who have lived in Cambodia said men there keep their left pinkie very long to visibly pick their noses - that happens here too, as if they are mining for some nasal gold. And the way people here (and in Uganda) eat with their fingers, sauce dripping everywhere ...(Some people know that I don't like messy food - it's why tacos never appealed!) Also, I've always looked at the veils of the Muslim women as signs of oppression, but women we have met talk about it in very positive terms - it's just a part of their culture, even if we foreigners see it as much more political.

So I have been thinking about how we judge other cultures from our high-and-mighty perch. I'm working on getting off that perch, not romanticizing the other cultures, but not judging either.  

Oh, yes, to answer all the questions: We are frog-free for a week, knock on slightly damp, mouldering wood. And took a break at a hotel in the hills outside Accra this last weekend. Took 5 hot showers, the first hot ones in over a month! Pix to come.

Ah, yes, the frog(s) …

We have had a situation here, as they say, and thanks to Sarah’s insistence you now get the whole story. 

About a week ago, Bill got up during the night to go to the bathroom (hey, we are older than we used to be!), and when he lifted the toilet lid a fairly large frog (4-5 inches?) was looking up at him. “I don’t know who was more surprised, him or me!” Bill told me in the morning. The frog skedaddled back the way he had come, meaning down through the pipe or whatever they call it. Bill flushed a few times to help out. 

The next day, no frog. We laughed about it to one of the campus administrative assistants. But she took it very seriously. “If a frog can get in, so can other things,” she said reassuringly. She took action, calling the Most Important Person on Campus: the one in charge of water (which is another topic) and plumbing. 

That evening, there the frog was again. He’d dash back so fast we couldn’t possibly catch him, though Bill did try. He’d get back just far enough that we could see his little feet peeking out, and then – flush – he’d go away. But then, 15 minutes later, he was back. It was freaky, especially for the gender that sits to use the toilet! 

We named him Kermit and pleaded with him to go away for good. That (sleepless) night, I heard him swimming in the toilet. He was doing laps and backflips, I swear. His buddies were outside ribitting, and once I heard him croaking back, or maybe I imagined it. In the morning, hi Kermit. 

Facebook friends provided funny but not useful solutions. So, the Most Important Person came after a few more calls, and said he was so sorry about this. His solution was to dump chlorine down the toilet – even though I apparently looked sad at the idea that Kermit would die just so I could sit down. He promised to send "artisans" to look at the lines outside (where there is a giant hole with open pipes gushing into it – we can hear the sinks draining into the hole, but the toilet apparently, supposedly does not). 

Kermit was gone after the chlorine bomb. (He truly did croak this time!) So it became a story to tell.

Until a few nights ago. In the morning, Bill said, “I think I saw a frog in the toilet last night, but maybe I dreamed it.” No frog all day, and then in the evening, I picked up the lid and a smaller frog – not Kermit - zipped back down the drain. He was less noisy and persistent than Kermit, but still there – and now we were out of water. We have a big garbage can with water in it, and use that to flush the toilet when we run out, but it’s not easy.

The next morning, we called the MIP again. It was a holiday – someone (probably MIP) put cardboard over the grey water drain hole (huh?), and we waited. Last night, middle of the night, it was my turn. Up with the lid – the frog was laying all splayed out in the water. I didn’t really examine him before flushing, but I think he was one dead frog. (Please, no comments about the contents of our toilet being deadly.)

The Person came again today. He said he thought the frogs were coming in the front door (no), that they hatched in the toilet (probably not so), and that he would have the artisans come to bomb it again. And really and truly he would look at the pipes for holes, though they did before, honest! He said again how unhappy he was that this happened. 

 This post is getting long, I apologize. But one more thing. We have geckos and one day there was a little teeny one that was not healthy. He just kind of sat in the corner and occasionally moved his head. So I asked Bill, my hero, to use his little trick of putting a glass over the gecko and sliding a card under him, and then letting him go outside. Bill has used this on bees at home often. So he confidently headed in with the glass and card, and then I heard an “uh-oh” and ran in to see. He had accidentally cut off the tip of the tail of the baby gecko. We told ourselves it would grow back, but then we (Bill mainly, I couldn’t!) watched while the tip wiggled and wiggled for a long time on its own. 

In other words, our karmic debt is growing. 

Will we have more frogs? Will Important Person google it like I did (uncapped clean-out pipe, duh – is that broken cement square to the left a clean-out)? Will we have Something Else? Stay tuned.

Check out the web album

We added a link to our Picasa Web Album at the bottom of the column on the right.  You can see lots more about what we are doing there; sometimes we don't get around to updating the blog, but we do add photos!

Around campus

One of the things we wondered about when we were coming to Ghana was whether we wouldn’t feel too isolated living here on the campus. In Kampala, after all, we were anything BUT isolated, with steady streams of people in cars and on foot going past our apartment, and with the sounds of the metalworkers hammering away in the nearby market (not to mention the much more annoying sounds from the DJs in the local bar on Saturday nights).

And while we are a bit more detached from city life than we might like, we find it is growing on us. That’s partly because this really is an extremely peaceful and pretty place, an enormous expanse of trees and lawns and lovely university buildings, and partly because it is an amazingly vibrant campus, with all sorts of interesting stuff going on all the time. Such as: Early in our stay, we were walking along and heard the throb of African drums. Investigating, we found ourselves standing in an open doorway along with a few other onlookers, as a group of students practiced some sort of traditional dance, with their instructor at the center of a group of drummers pounding away.

Overall enrollment is around 30,000 students plus all the rest of us. That’s a big enough population to support its own variety of storefront groceries and goods markets, a mini-African “everything but the kitchen sink, and maybe that too” market, snack bars and hole-in-the wall restaurants scattered about, and so on. I walk by the athletic fields on my 20-minute walk to my office, and there’s always something going on there. One day I counted little groups in different areas playing basketball, volleyball, cricket, baseball (yes!), football (soccer), and some sort of game that seems to combine football and dodgeball. Another day, there was a small group of students gathered under some bleachers to protect themselves from the drizzle, singing away under the direction of a conductor.

Not far from our flat is another large sports field. One of the first nights we were here we were out walking and heard a sort of murmuring, chanting sound from across the way, and saw several large groups of people. That gathering is repeated frequently, and sometimes goes all night – someone told us it is "the worshipers," complete with speaking in tongues, and Christian songs.

We were stunned by how well the university is kept up. This is a tough climate, and a tough region, for that sort of thing, but they have done a terrific job at it. Friends we’ve met who were here 10 years ago say this is a pretty new development – and it’s a wonderful one. The whitewash on the buildings is fresh; the gardens are well tended. Many of the departments (alas, not mine!) are housed in lovely complexes with courtyards and gardens inside; yesterday Theresa went to meet somebody in one where she discovered people having steins of beer at lunchtime – we will have to check that out further!

There are always people walking to and from wherever, and the lawns are crisscrossed by dirt paths serving as the shortest distance between various points. (Theresa edit: Bill is too nice. They walk on the paths to avoid snakes and scorpions!) One of these paths passes about five feet from our bedroom window, so sometimes, we feel like someone is about to join us in bed at night.

We’ve done quite a bit of walking ourselves, of course, exploring all of this. On Sunday we strolled to the top of what is called Legon Hill, where the massively grand centerpiece of the campus -- called Commonwealth Hall - is set, with its gigantic gardened courtyards and its ornate Great Hall. One of the courtyards there is framed with busts of all the university’s past Vice Chancellors – the chief officer of the school. A man who was there when we showed up pointed this display out to us, showing us the point (1965) at which the vice-chancellors' faces turned from white to black, as they have remained ever since. (One of the earliest (white) ones was Conor Cruise O’Brien, an Irish writer, diplomat, journalist, and all-around gadfly, so it seems – a breed I don’t think really exists so much anymore.)

And all of this is just scratching the surface. Yes, we are isolated in one way. But we are discovering so much, right outside our door. -- Bill