The Walk of Lonliness

I’ve heard  staff before me say that Ghana is a lonely country. This is true to an extent. People here are not as friendly as I found them to be in Uganda or Kenya. I can see that a social support network would take longer to build up, something I’m acutely acutely aware of since I’ve got no host parents and my counterpart, Prince, lives in Ho and so has lots of friends who he’d rather be talking to.

I went for a walk on Sunday to see if I could encounter some of the local community myself. I'm surprised at how lonely it is here. I'm also surprised that I was ready to go out on a walk and befriend strangers...but there you go. It happened!

The first person who I met was called Winston. He leapt out of some bushes to say 'hello' and introduced himself. It soon became evident that he had smoked quite a lot of marijuana and was in a bit of an odd state. I wondered if, despite my lonely predicament, I might not do better to be a bit more picky about who I allowed to approach me. Still, it was nice to have a chat and then I was on my way.

I was walking up the next road feeling a bit more cheerful as I was enjoying the exercise, when I realised that a taxi was coming up behind me and appeared to be intent on running me over. Cars here swerve about on the roads to avoid the potholes, but this was different, it was quite a smooth dirt track and I had no doubt in my mind as to their malicious intent. If I’m honest, I can understand it. I do stand out a bit as a target being the only white person in the vicinity and I do represent approximately 300 years of oppression and, this being Ghana, also the slave trade. I eyed up the undergrowth and took a calculated leap into it just as the car came by. On reaching me it slowed and I could see (with my ankles in the shrubbery) that there was an amused driver and 2 ladies inside absolutely helpless with mirth. It had (apparently) been their intention from the outset to offer me a lift (which they proceeded to do) although on reflection I’m still surprised that there aren’t more Ghanaians around missing toes due to overzealous taxi drivers aiming to give potential passengers as short a journey to the car door as possible.

On my way back I met a man sat on a roof, he waved and said hello and asked if he could join me on the walk. I told him he’d be welcome to, and he seemed to be so surprised by my answer that he couldn’t comprehend it. Since he didn’t consider himself welcome to walk with me, he asked me for my number instead. If there’s one thing that’s always a bad idea in every country  of the world, including England, it’s giving strange men your number so I left him on the roof, waved, and walked away. 

Last of all I met a woman with 3 children, there’s nothing really to say about her, and she’s only notable because I liked her and since she invited me I’d like to go back to visit. I didn’t linger on my walk though as it was getting dark. Seeking out strangers in the daylight is one thing, but walking alone in the dark is quite another, and is much more dangerous here. Not even the local women walk about by themselves after dark here and so I’m sure it’s not a good idea for me to do so. Rather embarrassingly I can’t remember her name, but that doesn’t matter. In the daydream that I’ve already constructed, she knows someone with 2 spare rooms and will offer to be my new Ghanaian host mother. I might go back tomorrow morning instead of doing work related stuff. From past experience, the key to finding satisfaction and happiness when travelling has very probably got something to do with getting my fix of community integration, so with luck this’ll be the start of it.

Tonight I am the only one in the house. Everyone else is out at the football because Manchester United are playing Liverpool. As already noted, I just can't get excited about football - I've never been to Liverpool myself, so I cannot comprehend why so many Ghanaians are prepared to leave their homes to watch Liverpool kick a leather item around a field with 11 men who claim to represent the unified Manchester.
Unfortunately for me it seems that our resident cook is also out. I can’t go to get ingredients because a) there wouldn’t be anyone to lock the gate behind me b) it breaks every rule to wonder about alone after dark and c) because I don’t know where to go! I’m on the brink of improvising, a move that feels risky, since there are 3 food sources in the house: burnt beans stuck to the bottom of a pan in the kitchen, an unidentifiable thing in a pan in the fridge (which is troubling because without knowing what it’s meant to be, I can’t work out if it’s past it’s best) and some meat in a pan in the fridge (and again I can’t work out how old it is). None of these options seem like a very good idea! My host home here tend not to keep raw ingredients in stock, so making something from fresh isn’t an option either. Although I might send out an SOS to see if anyone can bring an egg to the house to facilitate an omelette. What a predicament!

I have a long way to go until I feel at home here.