Obruni in Ghana

Maybe you’ve noticed I changed the name of my blog. The moon and the star are still in Ghana (apparently having a tattoo here is something that is quite shocking for some people ) but they’re being called “obruni” many times a day. Obruni literally means “white man” (if I’m right) but Ghanaians call obruni every foreigner, no matter what the color of the skin. Thus, African-Americans are called obruni, too (I’m not sure, however, if it is so also for Africans from other countries). It might sound a little racist but they don’t call you obruni to offend you. Most of the time, they just want to say hi, ask how you’re doing or welcome you in Africa. Sometimes, they want to sell you something (obruni = opportunity to charge more than usual ). And kids just want your attention, because some of them have never seen an obruni before. So I took it as a challenge and my mission here to be an “ambassador” for all the obrunis coming to Ghana. When someone calls me obruni, I smile, say hi, ask how they’re doing. I try not to get upset that some people see me as a walking wallet (and no, I don’t feel guilty, I work here for free…). I try to create a good reputation for all future obrunis coming to Accra.

People in Ghana are very religious. You see evidence of this everywhere. Most stores have names mentioning God, Jesus, or quoting the Bible. Thus you can see “Jesus is great fashion”, “God never fails beauty saloon”, or my personal favorite “You shall not want repairs and sharpening”. And these are just three out of many.
Every meeting (at least where I work, but I’ve been to a meeting of the Ghana AIDS Commission, too, so I guess it’s pretty much everywhere) begins and ends with a prayer. People thank God for everything. And honestly, I find Ghanaian people extremely nice and helpful. Is that related to religion? I don’t know. Maybe. But maybe it’s just because they’re peaceful people in general. The truth is that there are things that are rather ironic, given how much people believe in God. I was told (by Ghanaians) that people here don’t tend to help each other if it could mean that the person receiving help could get (thanks to the help) further than the one who is helping. For example, if you’re really smart but can’t afford to go to school, there’s a chance that your richer relatives wouldn’t help you out because you have the potential to get further than them. I find this extremely ironic. It’s not only somewhat against the Bible, but it doesn’t agree with the fact that people here are generally very nice, polite and helpful.
However, what probably is related to the niceness of local people, is that they don’t judge when it comes to religion. They ask you if you go to church and if you say no, there’s no negative reaction (unlike in some parts of Southern Africa where people are also very religious). There, nevertheless, some issues related to religion and something that Westerners (but definitely not all of them) would call basic human rights. I’ll get to this later, when I tell you about my first two weeks of my internship.

Once upon a time… I bought glasses that I really liked and have had them ever since, that is for about 5 years now. Somehow, on one of the planes, I managed to lose one of the little rubber things that make your glasses fit on your nose. I noticed that only when I got to my new home and when I realized why it is that my glasses don’t really fit, I thought – well, that will be easy to get it fixed… Right, it would be, if I were back home.
First – looking for an optician’s was a challenge. I was asking people on the street and nobody knew. Then I decided to ask people on the street who wear glasses, but there aren’t really that many of them. Then I mentioned it at work… And the girl who comes to clean the office offered to go with me to get them fixed. Great, I thought! Well, not really… So we walked to a market place and before I knew it, this random guy repairing watches on the street was holding my glasses in his oil-covered hands trying to, well, fix them…? Ok, so he “fixed” them by putting their the part I needed from glasses someone probably lost on the street. My attempts to explain that they need to be the same and – please, please, can you stop using force to “fix” my glasses – were useless. I walked back to the office with my glasses as dirty as never before and not fitting my nose.
A couple of days later, I discovered an Eye Clinique close to my work place. Yay, I thought. Well, don’t praise the day before the evening, as we say. Pretty much the same thing happened, but this time, this guy had clean hands (which didn’t really leave my glasses clean, but at least not so dirty). How come it is so difficult to explain to supposed professionals (opticians) what needs to be done? I basically gave up… but then on Saturday we were in a mall with another optician’s, so I just walked in, to ask and see. Yea, right – no, they couldn’t fix it, too difficult. And it turns out that all they do is selling glasses, they can’t fix anything. Awesome. So two more months with my glasses not fitting my nose! But I came to peace with that, it doesn’t annoy me that much anymore, I just take them off as much as I can.

I think I haven’t watched so much TV in the last year as in the last few days since I got here. African TV is interesting (and I say African because it’s not just Ghanaian, but also Nigerian, and they’re showing African movies from the whole continent). Well, the first movie I got to see was called something like Family Disgrace and I thought – wow, that’s awful! People sleeping with other people, mostly men forcing women to have sex with them, and that’s pretty much all there was. They didn’t really show anything, but it was pretty clear what was going on. Just wow. Like really?

But then, to be fair, it got better. The quality is pretty much the same as everywhere and often the content is very global – Oprah, Friends and all such things. It’s kind of funny – I, living without a TV for so long, come to Africa and watches so much TV in just 3 days. It almost feels like coming to South Africa and having my own bathroom for the first (and so far only) time in my life. Africa never ceases to surprise me. J

And when talking about TV, I cannot forget the event of the biggest - THE WORLD CUP! I’m so happy to be in Africa for the African World Cup. We watched the concert, we watched the opening ceremony, we watched some of the games. And we’re going to watch the Black Stars (hopefully) winning, too! Let’s go, Ghana Black Stars! J

I haven’t done much. Just eating good food, playing with the little boy (He’s 6 years old so we get along really well. Also – it turns out that my ability to make paper boats impresses men of all ages and makes it easy with the young ones to make friends), trying not to move too much because it’s soooo hot and humid here (seriously, I wasn’t made for this weather J), and well, that’s it.

I don’t have internet access at home, but I love my new home and my new family. They’re all great and I’m really happy to be here with them. We went swimming today with my new sister Harriet which was great – being in water for 2 hours, I even was cold for a little bit! But the trip there also made me realize how difficult transportation in Accra is. How am I going to be able to get to work by all the crazy buses? Harriet suggested that we could move together to an apartment in Osu from where it would be much easier to get to work. So we’ll see.

But being on the buses made me realize how all parts of development are so closely connected. If there was a better working public transport system, it would be much easier for people to get to work (and other places) on time and have more time for other activities (like kids doing homework etc.). And that is also related to the state of roads – they’re bad and that makes getting to places even more difficult. Now you can think it’s me coming from Europe and pointing out things that Europeans are so used to and they cost money… and maybe you think these things don’t matter. Well, I think they do and I think people here think so, too. They told me themselves they don’t know why the government stopped caring about the roads. So no, it’s not just me who thinks that. And being able to places is very important for so many other things related to development – health care (getting to hospitals), education (getting to school), businesses…

So these are my first few days here – the things I see around that make me think. If you have any comments, feel free!

The journey was long. Getting to Accra from my home town took me about 25 hours. It all went pretty well, despite a delay on the way from Brno to Prague and then from Prague to London (they claim getting from Terminal 5 to Terminal 3 at Heathrow takes 90 minutes, well, maybe it does when flights aren’t cancelled due to the British Airways strike, but it took me no more than 20).

Leaving from London was the first time I realized where I was going – Africa. There were not many people like me going to the unknown, most of the people were going home. It was scary and exciting at the same time. But Virgin Atlantic made it fun, too. J (I’ve never flown with them anywhere and I like this company!) I got to Lagos tired and nervous. After the immigration officer checked my passport and the paper I had to fill in, she asked for my address in Nigeria. Well – I did fill in that the reason for my coming to Nigeria was transit, so no, I didn’t have an address in Nigeria. So after pointing that out, I was told to get my luggage and come back. Which meant I left my passport there. After that, I was mainly nervous, and had no patience to appreciate how everybody is concerned if the white girl is gonna handle her luggage. Well, I did handle that. J

And I managed to get my passport back, too, after 2 hours of involuntary hanging out with the immigration officers because I wasn’t allowed to check in for my last flight by myself. They were very nice, though, and advised me to come back to Nigeria after I told them I’m not married. Welcome to Africa, I thought to myself. J

And then, against all the advice I got, I fell asleep at the airport. Out of all the airports I’ve been to, I fall asleep at the one in Lagos. I was trying not to but I was so tired that I didn’t even know what language I was speaking… And nothing happened, so it was all ok.

After too many security checks, I got on the last plane with Virgin Nigeria and they got me safely to Accra, Ghana. Finally. I picked up my luggage, changed some money, and tried to go outside where Harriet, my friend’s sister-in-law, was supposed to pick me up. Simple, eh? Yes, if I were in Prague, not in Accra. I wasn’t allowed to leave the airport until there’s really somebody waiting for me, for security reasons. So I waited until Harriet’s friend showed up.

I was happy to be finally in Ghana and meet my new family!