Culture, Hospitality, and Imposition

In my father’s childhood, he says there was always an extra pair of feet under the dinner table. It was the depression, his mother couldn’t turn away a traveler down on his luck, and in a family of nearly 20, those extra feet and the mouths attached to them were hardly noticed. When few homes had telephones and the mail might take weeks to arrive, folks were accustomed to company just dropping by – and when you live in the country, work from dawn to dusk, have no television, and don’t see many people beyond your immediate family, company can be a welcome change.

Somewhere along the line, we became a society of carefully planned schedules and organized social engagements. We expect people, perhaps especially relatives, to call before they come over – or just wait for an invitation, depending on the relative. In fact, we can be downright put out if someone shows up unannounced just when we were planning to catch up on those recorded episodes of Lost or having a nap while the kids are at a birthday party.

I didn’t realize how deeply ingrained, in just a single generation, this change in attitude had become. My sense of imposition is extremely deeply seated. The idea of dropping in on someone creates the same feeling in me as if I were considering taking money from the offering plate or grabbing hold of an electric fence. Every fiber of my being screams, “No, you can’t do that!” And I had no idea this stricture was even there until I came to Ghana.

Ghana is much like the South Dakota of my dad’s childhood. Not everyone has a phone or can afford to make the call, the mail is unreliable, people find they have to travel suddenly and unexpectedly, often due to a funeral or other family crisis, and travel is unpredictable so there may or may not be a lot of extra time at one stop or another. Planning when you might visit someone is difficult – and knowing exactly when you might see a loved one again is unlikely. So, there is a strong culture of “welcome” in Ghana. The greeting “Akwaaba” not only translates as “You are welcome”, but really means it. I'm told the response translates as “I am one of you”, which just seems perfect to me.

Last time I was here, I went to Accra and spent one or two weekends with our partner, Tim, and his wife Shika, a wonderful couple with five kids. The first time I think was because I needed to do some shopping and didn’t want to drive in and back in the same day. I think the next time we went to see the James Bond movie. Without an excuse, I don’t know if I would ever have been their guest. It was all I could do to call and invite myself, even though they had made it clear on many occasions that I was welcome anytime. Isn’t that just what people say, like “Let’s do lunch”?

Not in Ghana. In fact, Shika told me one time that when someone is at the gate she always gets excited, just like she did as a child. It doesn’t matter who it is, the excitement response is just natural – learned, as much as my aversion to just showing up – but still completely ingrained and seemingly immutable.

On this trip, I have been here by myself almost the entire time. I was fortunate to have guests from Holland for a few days and a weekend, but other than that it’s been just me. So, early on, I called Tim, under the pretext of going to see Avatar at the Accra Mall. It wouldn’t have mattered, but they like movies, too, so he immediately invited me for the weekend and I had a comfortable excuse once more. When I was leaving on Sunday, he and Shika invited me to come the next weekend. My imposition alarm was like an air raid siren in my brain, but after several “Are you sure?” exchanges I finally agreed to come again, but like the first time, I didn’t go until Saturday morning and I returned on Sunday afternoon.

I’m not saying I’ve changed completely, but on this trip, I think I’ve had 10 weekends and I spent 4 of them in Tim and Shika’s guest room. They now call me Tim’s Scrabble wife (I think he’s ahead about 60/40) and last weekend I went down on Friday night and didn’t come home until Monday morning . What will Miss Manners say?
XO

Common Feelings

I spend a lot of time writing about things that surprise me or that I find interesting and different about life in Ghana, but there are things that are almost exactly the same. The feel and excitement and trepidation of the first day of school is one of them. The twins below us started nursery school this week. The family was in quite a buzz getting two 3-year olds ready to go at the same time. Their little uniforms had to be acquired and washed and pressed and they needed little shoes (some of you might recognize them!) and backpacks.

I love the look of dad walking them to school as the boys from the local junior secondary school finish their breakfast. M’atteh (Felicia) has her blue backpack and Atteh (Felix) his pink one. That is one refreshing difference here. Color is not fraught with gender insecurity here.
XO

Do you? Not until the families say it's OK!

My last full weekend in Ghana I spent in Accra with Tim and Shika. Shika had to go to a wedding on Saturday and asked me if I wanted to go. I hadn’t brought anything to wear that would be suitable for a wedding but I didn’t want to miss it, so Shika loaned me a dress. As usual, she told me it would start at 11:00, but we didn’t leave the house until about 10:30 and had to pick up her friend an hour away. We arrived shortly after 12:30 and the ceremony had just started.

Before I describe it I should probably explain about weddings – or at least my understanding. When we say “engaged” we mean the couple has agreed to marry. In Ghana, that step occurs prior to the engagement. The engagement in Ghana is actually the “traditional” wedding. One year later, they have the official wedding. I’m not sure of all the legalities, but I think the second wedding is not necessary, but is what they call the “white wedding” so I assume it is more a copy of the wedding ceremony introduced by the British. Just guessing.


So, this was a traditional wedding, which doesn’t really have any of the steps that I recognized as a wedding except for a lot of food and cake at the end. Instead, it’s like a big mock negotiation between the family of the bride and the family of the groom. First, the groom’s family brings what was probably once considered a dowry, but is not more like what I would think of as wedding gifts, including household items, clothes, food, and beverages. Then an auntie from the bride’s family and an auntie from the groom’s family get into an absolutely campy hammy mock argument about weather the gifts are sufficient for such a wonderful woman as the groom will be getting for a wife. They must plan their comments carefully, because there are many dramatic facial expressions, a lot of body language, and egging on from the respective families. The groom’s family takes a collection to sweeten the pot, and then begin demanding that the bride come out so they can see if she is all that her auntie has been bragging about.

Shika tells me that sometimes they bring out several women, pretending to be the bride – and the groom’s family rejects them all – before finally bringing out the real bride. But on this day it was just too hot and the aunties had enjoyed their acting way too much so people had already been sitting for a long time. In fact, it was so hot, I had to put my hair up!

Anyway, they brought out the bride, the families gave them advice and said prayers and sang some songs, and that was it. Then came the food, which was mostly too spicy for me, but was varied and plentiful.
XO

Taxi!

Our agents cover what U.S. business people call the “last mile”, meaning they get our product from the closest distribution point to their villages. Sometimes it’s a kilometer, sometimes several. We drive a route on the (mostly) paved roads and our agents meet us at the roadside. The roads from the paved road to the villages are typically dirt, called “dusty roads” in local terminology. Village residents have two choices when they need to go to market or travel to funerals or to visit family elsewhere in Ghana. They can walk to the main roadside, or they can take a taxi or Trotro.

Trotros generally only travel to and from villages on market days when there are enough people traveling to make it worth their trouble. On other days, taxis are the only option and they only go when they have a full load. A person can wait for minutes or hours for a taxi to be ready to go to or from a village. Well, what if, when there are finally enough people to go, there are actually one or two or three too many? How long until there are enough people for the next taxi?

Sometimes, it’s just too risky to find out. I do wonder what fare they charge for a ride on the hood or in the trunk?
XO

Weekend at Bernie's

Not long after I arrived this trip, the father of some of my kids died, apparently of heart failure. It was a sad day for the family and also for the neighborhood. Although the man had been in the hospital for about a week before he died, which sad to say almost certainly means death, in Ghana, he was not an old man and his youngest child, called Chief by everyone around here, is six.

As is often the case here, the funeral was not held for several weeks. This is often done to ensure various family members and friends have time to plan their schedules and travel to town for the funeral weekend. Funerals are almost always held over the weekend because they are not just a one hour event as is typically the case in the U.S. and perhaps other parts of the world. A traditional funeral is a three day event in Ghana.

On Friday, mourners dress in traditional black (and red, for family members) and go, along with the ambulance, to the mortuary to collect the body which has been in cold storage since death. Then a long procession that includes the ambulance with the body (not yet in a casket, but dressed for viewing), a hearse full of flowers, the vehicle carrying the casket, and all the mourners, often in busses, trotros, taxis, and private cars, passes through the deceased’s neighborhood.


All the mourners that did not join the procession come out of their houses, also fully dressed in funeral attire, to meet the procession, view the body through the windows of the ambulance and pay respects to the family. Then the body is taken and interred at the cemetery with all the mourners and family in attendance.

On Saturday, the funeral is held and lasts about 7 hours, from early morning until mid-afternoon, including eulogies, prayers, very loud music, food, gifts for the family of the deceased and often even professional wailers. There does seem to be a bit of “keeping up with the Joneses” as far as wailing is concerned. The amount of carrying on, entirely by women, at a funeral seems to be believed to show how much the deceased is loved and missed and no one wants to under-mourn in this regard. So, apparently, wailers can be hired for the funeral of the much-beloved dearly-departed.

On Sunday, there is often a funeral church service at the church of the deceased. In that case, I guess the Sunday church service becomes another funeral service but heavier on the singing, preaching, and praying.

I’m told the widow will wear black for a year and then they’ll have another big memorial on the one year anniversary of the death. At this point, I really have to say, with no disrespect, how relieved I am not to be Ghanaian. First, there are the power outages – with a body in storage at the mortuary. I just hope they have enough fuel for the generator. Then, wearing full black dress clothes three days in a a row (or for a year!) in this heat would be the end of me. I’m taking Oral Rehydration Salts about twice a week as it is. And, sitting in the heat in $2.00 plastic chairs for seven hours with man-height speakers blasting beyond their technical limits would put me over the edge. I’d keep the wailers, though. I’ve felt like wailing before and it would be nice if someone else were doing it louder, longer, and more dramatically. It would sort of open the door of acceptability for what I wanted to do anyway.
XO