Two pictures

Coming to Ghana, I was confident that I was going to become an accomplished student of local culture. Of course, I was contractually obligated to make at least some efforts in that direction. Rotary’s purpose in sending Ambassadorial Scholars all over the world is to promote cultural exchange in the noble belief that building people-to-people connections is the key to lasting peace. But my goals as a Rotary Ambassadorial Scholar were far loftier than world peace. Stuffed somewhere between my boxers and tooth brush, I had packed an agenda for personal aggrandizement. I viewed myself as the savvy, thoughtful world traveler - the polar opposite of the stereotypical American tourist. Instead of doing drive-bys of the pre-packaged sites pointing, and taking pictures, and being loud, I would work myself into the corners of this place. I promised to “get out into the community,” search out the Real Ghana. I would settle for nothing short of cultural enlightenment.

Look closely enough at these two pictures and you can get a sense of where that misguided project has taken me. The first was taken in Madina market, a few minutes up the road from the university. Before I explain my grimace, a few general comments. Maybe you’ve never been to an open-air market like this. They’re not as common in the States. Such a dizzying mash of smells and noises and cash and people pump through the veins of this place so that sterile words like “economy” and “commerce” don’t come close to untying this knot of power, culture, struggle, work, life. Which makes the prospect of going back to Wal-Mart that much more depressing.
You might notice that aside from my big red self, everyone else in the place is a woman. The market is a woman’s space. Ghanaian women are legendary for their trading prowess, and “market queens” have amassed a great deal of wealth and influence for themselves. The liberalization of Ghana’s economy starting in the 1980s resulted in a contraction of formal sector employment (like factory jobs) so that more and more Ghanaians – men and women – earn their living in the “informal economy,” a phrase referring to untaxed and unregulated exchanges . (For trivia buffs, the term “informal economy” was coined by a guy doing research in Accra’s Nima market in the 60s and/or 70s.)

You might also notice what’s being sold. The green pods in the foreground are okro, a vegetable with a lot of seeds, which is why it’s used in some ceremonies to symbolize fertility. For practical purposes, it makes your soup slimy which can be a good thing, believe it or not. Behind the okro there’s what looks to be yellow tomatoes. They’re called garden eggs. I thought that they were, in fact, yellow tomatoes until a friend used them in a stew, and I found out that they’re actually stiff inside. I wish I could tell you more about how this produce got to market. I would frame it as part of a larger commentary on the political, technological, economic, and social constraints on small farmers throughout Ghana, but I have no idea where this food came from.

And I couldn’t have asked it properly even if the question had popped into my mind. Because I haven’t learned Twi. Now we can take a look at the people in the photo. You’ll notice that the woman selling okro looks a bit upset and me a bit pensive. I had asked a Ghanaian friend to take some photos of the Madina market because people don’t particularly enjoy being filmed by foreigners as if they were part of the scenery. He suggested a picture of me, which I rightly suspected wouldn’t end well. For me this is an image of frustration. She’s frustrated because the picture is coming without her permission. I’m frustrated that I haven’t become enough of an “insider” during my time here to make this situation anything but extremely uncomfortable.

Despite my best intentions, I haven’t learned the most common language. I have a pile of well-rehearsed and very reasonable excuses for this omission, but at the end of the day, I can’t expect to walk into Madina market deaf and dumb and not experience some cultural alienation. But that’s not right. I was supposed to be the good foreigner. More on this after we consider the second picture.

This is me pounding fufu (here, cassava and plantain, though it could include yam, pounded into dough and eaten with soup). I’ve included a picture of my friend pounding so you can get a clearer idea. Now I’m sure you’re struck by my focus, hand-speed, raw strength, etc. all on display here, but I ask you to look beyond those extremely striking features (you can return to admiring them in a moment) and take note of the surroundings. I’m in the kitchen of my friend’s sister, and I’m being assisted by another friend (the young woman at right). The young woman mostly obscured does domestic work. In the market, I was an intruder. Here, I am a guest.

My fufu was awesome, by the way, mostly because I did almost none of the work involved. I do believe, however, that the few strokes which I delivered were decisive in the preparation.

I’m offering these two photos for contrast because they depict the opposite of what I expected coming into this experience. 10 months ago I would’ve thought I’d have a picture of me skillfully negotiating the anonymous market space and being more uncomfortable trying to observe decorum as a guest in someone’s home. In other words, I thought I would be the half-Ghanaian dialoguing and debating in Twi as I mingled with the people in out-of-the-way places never frequented by the culturally uninitiated. And I didn’t really stop to think that I might make friends along the way. Actual people who have enriched my life not because they represent some abstract slice of Ghana, some moral I can condense and distill for this blog or footnote in a term paper, but because they offer companionship and ask only for as much in return. So yes, in the second photo, I’m doing something “Ghanaian,” but if you look closer you can see that I’m really just making lunch with some friends. I will leave here regretting that I don’t speak Twi (or Ga, Ewe, Fanti, Dagbani…), but I won’t have any regrets about the relationships that I take back with me.