Yeli Ama Moves In

From Sampa, I call Stephen and wait at the taxi stand. Some of the taxi drivers offered me shade under their big umbrella. A man dressed in black traditional cloth, for a funeral, chats with me. He has a dignified air. He is a sign language teacher, and says he will come to visit me in Kabile. I am wary of all men here. The taxi driver teases me with marriage proposals and I tell him anxiously, “I am here to work. That is all,” and the dignified man repeats it. “She is here to work.” He tells me his name is Anthony, and I tell him that is my brother’s name at home.

“Then you are my sister.” he says, but every friendly conversation is tinged with the anxiety of being misunderstood. It seems to be the dream of every Ghanaian to marry an American, even if they have wives already. It’s not a matter of romance; it’s a smart business deal. An American wife would naturally lead to opportunity…to America.

Matthew and Stephen eventually arrive in a huge beat-up flatbed Kia truck with mudflaps emblazoned with “Oh My God”, an expression of faith rather than surprise. It’s good to see familiar smiles as we lift my pack onto the truck. I crawl up into the cab of the Kia to sit between them, feeling awkward yet happy to see them; they already feel like familiar friends. We head out of Sampa and on the road to Kabile. When we pass women walking on the road, Matthew stops and they clamber up onto the bed of the truck. They remember my name and when they see me they call out “Yeli Ama!”

Everything at my house was is I left it, though now covered with a layer of red dust because I left some louvres open in the jalousie windows. Esther follows me into the room and sweeps, then brings in a bucket and rag and washes down everything. I realize that no one has been in the room during the weeks since my visit.

I wash down myself and begin unpacking. In the evening Stephen, Matthew, Joseph and Mary all came to sit with me on the porch. They’ve extended the roof of the house out over the porch for more shade during the day, a nice improvement that I didn’t request but heard Matthew suggest during my visit.

When I turn in, I tuck the edges of the mosquito net in tightly around the latex foam mattress of my bed, grateful for Harmattan, the cool dry season. Mosquitos probably aren’t going to be a problem during this time of year, but the mosquito net has become a sort of safety zone…free of spiders, of bats that might have gotten in, and it is already a symbol of the blessed privacy that comes with nighttime, when I can escape the exhaustion of language difficulties with a book and headlamp.

I am happy to be here, to finally be free of training where every minute of our day was out of our control. I like this space that will be my home for the next two years, though I am also filled with uncertainty and the dread that comes from not understanding much of what goes on around me. All PCVs have this kind of anxiety; we mostly seem to worry that we will do something unintentionally offensive.

It is very cool here in the mornings during Harmattan…cool by Ghanaian standards anyhow. There is even some light fog.

I’m eager to begin cooking for myself, weary of guessing at what my food is, the palm oil, the strangeness of it. But first I have to set up a kitchen. Market day is on Mondays in Sampa; all of the shops open, farmers bring produce, and vendors set up their goods in stalls that will be empty the other six days of the week. This Monday is “last market” — the last market before Christmas. Stephen tells me that parents will be shopping for gifts their children, usually a new set of clothes and a pair of shoes.

Stephen comes to get me and we walk to the taxi stand. It’s busy and cars are already waiting be piled with goods to sell. We get into the tro-tro and wait for it to fill. And fill it does, quickly. I try to count: 25 people and at least three roosters. Everyone is excited about last market, the upcoming holidays, and the white woman riding with them. The tro-tro moves onto the road and then hurtles towards Sampa on the dusty dirt road, dodging taxis, motorcycles, bicycles, pedestrians, animals. We barrel along, pressed together with the radio blasting Ghanaian Christmas music and excited chattering among passengers. I marvel at the contrast with what Americans would consider safe transportation. And feel utterly alive.

The market is noise and confusion. Stephen tries to help me find items on my list, but it seems we are wandering aimlessly. There is no such thing as price tag, of course, and I don’t know what a fair price is or if I’m expected to haggle. I have a limited move-in allowance from Peace Corps, I can’t subsidize it with my own money, and I’m frustrated that Stephen won’t tell me if a price is fair or not.

Finally it dawns on me that he doesn’t ever buy these things himself and honestly doesn’t know their cost.

Eventually I pick up some basics: a bucket, a basin for washing hands or dishes, a tea kettle, two sets of fork/spoon/knife, a hammer. I’m amused to pay 5 peswa (about two cents) each for two-foot pieces of the same baling twine we were always trying to find a recycling source for at the goat ranch.

We leave my packages with a woman from Kabile who is selling at the market, near the station, then dive back into the throng to shop some more. Stephen buys shoes for his children.

After a couple hours of this wandering, we meet Matthew. I need to get a propane stovetop and tank; I also need go to the bank to withdraw some more of my settling-in allowance and Matthew also has banking to do. So we go to the bank.

Bank lines are almost always long, but because of last market it’s astronomical. “Wonderful,” mutters Matthew as we push into the crowd, in what may be the first time I’ve heard a Ghanaian use sarcasm.

“I will go talk to the manager and see if he can take us faster.” Matthew tells me.

It’s becoming more obvious that Matthew, as manager of the cashew co-op, is skillful in all things related to commerce. He gets a manager who takes our withdrawal slips and my ID. We continue to wait in the line, which isn’t moving at all. A man comes in after us, looks around dolefully and mutters “Wonderful.” I laugh.

The cell network is down, so all activity has stopped. We wait. At some signal I don’t notice, Matthew tells me he wants to introduce me to the manager of the bank. We are shown behind the counter and I am introduced to a man in a neat suit. Then we go back out and wait, as more people tried to crowd into the packed bank.

The network comes back up. There is some arguing and shouting over places in the line. The first manager walks back to us and slips us our money. “Ok, let’s go,” says Matthew, and we leave. No one says anything to us, though I’m sure people notice and it is not comfortable. Preferential treatment is common, and though I am grateful to only spend forty minutes on a bank withdrawal, I’m uneasy.

Matthew takes me shopping, and now it seems more productive. He’s spent more time in cities and understands what I’m looking for. He tells me there’s a propane shortage, so there is no gas available, but he says he had an extra tank at the cashew plant that I can use and replace later. I get most of the the items on my list, and also food items.

It’s exhausting despite two breaks we take for lunch and cokes. We gather my purchases, getting help from children who carried parcels on their heads, and find a taxi for Kabile. The taxi eventually loads. There are eleven of us altogether in a Toyota Carina meant to seat five at most. It helps that five of these are children; one schoolgirl sits on my lap, three others squeezed in next to Stephen and I in the back, and two women with children on their laps sit in front with the taxi driver.

Back to Kabile we go. Full speed, of course.

The next morning, we prepare a trip back to Sampa to formally greet some local dignitaries. We’ll be assisted by the Honorable District Assemblyman from Kabile, who everyone just calls “Honorable”. Honorable is bathing when we arrive, so chairs are brought for us and we wait.

In most homes here, each room opens to the outside. Rooms are added on over time, until larger family houses become a compound of rooms facing a central courtyard. Daily activity: cooking, laundry, food preservation and eating all occur outside. Rooms are mostly for sleeping at night, or for storing things away from the dust.

Bathing areas are mud or cement block stalls set a few yards from the house, with hole for a drain at the bottom of the interior wall. Sometimes when we are walking around the village, people call out greetings while bathing, their heads visible over the top of the wall as they lather up. Kids just bathe outside, standing on the grass. More modern homes have a bathing area as part of the house, like my own, and like Honorable’s. He walks out of the bathing area, wearing a cloth wrapped around his waist and greets us warmly, then goes into his room to get dressed.

Honorable dresses quickly, then exits the room…pushing an extremely shiny motorcycle out with him.

Matthew and Honorable leave for Sampa on their motos, and Stephen and I go to a taxi that Matthew managed to track down. Taxis are hard to find if it isn’t a market day and it’s a hassle for them to arrange a taxi for me. Peace Corps forbids PCVs from riding motos ourselves, except in emergencies, because accidents are so common. I feel too large and awkward to ride one anyway, pressed up so intimately against Ghanaian men.

In Sampa we reconvene at the district assembly offices, and make visits there and the local police station. At each stop, Honorable has a small conversation at the door, then the four of us are ushered into an office, usually with a rush to make sure there is a chair for each person, and curious staff members crowding in around us if they’re not shooed away.

Each person we visits asks formally, “What is your mission?”, and then Honorable makes a small speech in Twi or Nafaara to introduce me. He also speaks in English, for my benefit, explaining how we know that it’s very important that everyone know I am in the area and why. With the District Assembly, he even says that he is asking permission for me to be there.

Each dignitary responds with, “Madam, you are most welcome!” and sometimes some questions about where I come from or what my background was or what I will be doing. There are rounds of handshaking. It astonishes me that all of us spend the entire morning doing this, all for my benefit. A stranger not formally introduced like this would be considered suspicious and rude.

Since Sampa is at the border between Ghana and Cote d’Ivoire, we must also meet with immigrations and customs officials. We walked a long dusty road to the border post. At these offices, the feeling is not so friendly. These are federal offices, where people are used to demonstrating their power; the guards and officials here all have a whiff of wealth and formality. Their faces do not break into the easy smiles of the Nafana. The District Commander for Immigration asks prying questions about my accommodations in Kabile, seeming to imply that they are not good enough, and says he will come to visit me later that day. Already I’m used to people saying they will visit me, so I don’t expect him to actually show up.

Before we leave the border post, we visit a duty-free store. It’s sells almost all liquor and cigarettes. We buy Don Simon fruit juice, usually 4 cedi in Sampa but only 2.50 here.

The store people ask if they may take my photo. Stephen explains that they want to make it look like I’m buying something. They bring several bottles of wine and liquor and put on the counter, then gave me a shockingly big stack of I think are 1000 cedi notes. Stephen later explains that they were actually West African CFA’s. I’m photographed handing bills to the clerk, then photographed receiving change. I have no idea what they’re going to use the photos for, and imagine these photos showing up later in some context where I’ll have to explain why I’m cheerfully buying all this booze.

We walk the long road back to Sampa for a few more meetings; I’m introduced to the staff at the radio station and they take careful notes for a later news item. After some stops at the post office and some stores, we go back to Kabile. I am continually exhausted by the heat, even though it is the cool season, and by the social interactions. I make lunch and am looking forward to a nap when I heard a truck engine…an unfamiliar sound in our neighborhood.

It’s the immigration officer, with several lackeys. He really is showing up, and today.

They stop at Joseph’s house first, and ask about me. As the truck full of border patrol staff lurches over the remaining 20 yards to my house, I am grateful to see Joseph hurry to get Stephen.

The District Commander sits on my porch and is superficially pleasant, but wants to see my passport and has one of his minions copy down information about it. He asks more prying questions, in tones as if he is a gracious host. “But how do you manage with food here?” and “It must be very difficult,” as if the people of Kabile aren’t taking good care of me.

He makes a grand show of lecturing the women officers with him to consider what I’m doing, the “sacrifice” I am making to “help people.” I can’t tell if his aim is to flatter me or to lecture them, or if perhaps he is probing to find if I have ulterior motives in being here.

He says he’ll come back to check on me. But I hope he doesn’t.